La Via Campesina: Palestinian Rights are Human Rights!
(Harare: May14, 2021) Once again, the world watches in dismay as Israeli forces act with violent impunity against thousands of Palestinians struggling to defend their rights to life, land and sovereignty. The struggle this time is centered in and around the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, where Israeli settlers backed by occupation forces are trying to evict Palestinian families from their homes. Peaceful protest and prayer have again been met with brute-force, leaving hundreds of Palestinians maimed and wounded. Dozens have been killed in Jerusalem and over a hundred precious lives have been lost in Gaza, many innocent children among them. The time has come to end Israel’s vicious attacks on Palestinian human rights!
La Via Campesina – the global peasant movement that helped achieve the UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) – stands firmly in solidarity with the people of Palestine. The families of Sheikh Jarrah, the children of Gaza and the protestors who defend them, just like the peasants, fisherfolk and farmworkers all across occupied Palestine, share the same fundamental human rights of all peoples!
La Via Campesina calls on the United Nations and all peace- and justice-loving people to denounce the Israeli occupation and demand an inmediate end to forced evictions, home demolitions and illegal settlements in occupied Palestine. Palestinian rights are human rights!
“Peasants and other people working in rural areas have the right to be protected against arbitrary and unlawful displacement from their land or place of habitual residence, or from other natural resources used in their activities and necessary for the enjoyment of adequate living conditions…” – Article 17.4 of the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas
Food Sovereignty for Palestine! No More War Crimes!
Photo: Mohammed Saber/EPA