Here’s what we’ve seen this week:
Israeli parliamentarians celebrated as they passed a death-penalty law targeting Palestinians. They popped the champagne, and wore lapel pins shaped like a hangman’s noose.
Grassy Narrows Indigenous communities rallied against the poisoning of their people. The voice of Chrissy Isaacs – who suffers from mercury poisoning herself – travelled over the PA system and disrupted Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s nearby press conference. “I can outlast her”, he quipped.
US and Israeli bombs devastated Tehran, destroying schools and universities, hospitals and apartment blocks. Trump says he will send Iran and its people “back to the stone ages, where they belong.”
Those in power gloat openly at suffering and celebrate their force.
News of the death-penalty law hit our team in Palestine hard. “We are horrified and alarmed by this development,” they tell us. “It raises the question: what does justice actually mean? What about the human rights of those in custody? For many Palestinians, these prisoners are sons, daughters, fathers and friends. Their absence is felt deeply every day.”
Chris Hedges lays out our stark options. “We can obstruct or surrender. Those are the only choices left.”
In Philadelphia, CPT’s director Melissa Berkey-Gerard joined other faith leaders to block ICE agents. Members of the clergy staged a sit-in, blocking ICE vehicles from leaving a garage. Police manhandled and arrested them. “I am humbled to act in solidarity with families who are being separated by ICE,” says Melissa. “We got shoved around, but in the end, we went home to our families, unlike countless immigrants who are ripped away from their loved ones by ICE. May we continue to act for the collective liberation we long for.”
In Iraqi Kurdistan, we report on the continuing impact of Iranian backlash. The team has verified reports of hundreds of attacks, which target not only military and political sites, but residential neighborhoods and public spaces too. Fourteen people have been killed.
In the Aegean last weekend, the Greek Coast Guard found a drifting dinghy. It had been lost at sea for six days. Twenty-two people died on the way. Two young Sudanese men were arrested – the “smugglers”. CPT Aegean Migrant Solidarity has written a new report based on a year of monitoring “smuggling” trials. Convictions are secured without evidence. Legal defence is inadequate. Racism is on open display in the courtroom. The defendants are on trial for taking a bet on living. “We live in a society where migrant death has been normalised, even conceived as necessary”, the team warns. “But we won’t accept the normalisation of death, nor will we become silent witnesses to murder.“
When Canada’s Mark Carney derided the Grassy Narrows struggle, Chrissy Isaacs took it as a challenge. “When I first heard I actually felt disgusted,” she said. “At the same time, it made me wanna be louder.”
