Today 5th June 2003 The International Day Of Action For Justice In Palestine, Aberystwyth Peace Network and the newly formed Indod Balestiena/ISM Aberystwyth support group organised a demonstration in the centre of the town to highlight conditions in the West bank and Gaza Strip. This event drew lots of interest from the Welsh media and the public.

Last night we held a fund raising dinner at the Treehouse cafe that was attended by over 40 people who raised well over £600 for humanitarian relief from the poorest families in Gaza.

Also yesterday our press release for todays events drew lots of attention from Welsh radio, newspapers and TV.

We decided that rather than the usual vigil type event we would bring shock tactics into play to dramatise the plight of the Palestinian people under occupation by Israel.

We announced that Aberystwth would today be invaded and occupied by troops the English Defence Forces (EDF), who would impose full curfew, set up roadblocks and demand ID from all those in the street looking slightly Welsh.We ordered the welsh population of the town to stay in their homes unless they wanted to risk being killed.We warned all journalists that they would be killed too if they were causght taking pictures.

We also issued forms that would be needed to be completed by foriegners to tourists or possible peace activists asking to give us the right to kill them if we wanted to.

The announcement caused a media flurry and several stories in the papers. Nick Borne AM-Conservative leader of the Welsh assembly was moved on the floor of the assembly in Cardiff to make a statement declaring the protest 'anti-English'.He obviously has no sense of humour and as a Tory in Wales this surely must be an essential qualification for his job. Considering that many of the demonstrators were of English origin he obviously has no idea what he is talking about.

Today in Aberystwyth the humour and symbolised racism-mirroring the real racist treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories- was well understood by all local people who generally display a greater intelligence than the Tory politicians,this explains why they are never elected here. Many local people speak Welsh as a first language and they in particaular found it all very funny. Local news photographers and TV journalists from HTV Wales and S4C attended and there is likely to be positive coverage in tonights national Welsh news as well in other television productions to go out in the next few weeks.

Local radio coverage has also been very good-BBC Wales, Radio Ceredigion,and Welsh language channels all covered the event and broadcast live and recordered interviews from various Aberystwyth Peace Network (ISM-Aber) Spokespeople.

After the street demo that presented live dramatic reconstructions of people being harrased, beaten , detained , tortured, blindfolded and tied up, simply because of their cultural identity, there was a small Palestinian film and documentary afternoon in the Old College's Great hall-including Mohammad Bakri's moving film Jenin...Jenin as well as 'A State Of Denial'an interview with the revisionist Israeli historian Ilan Pappe.

APN & Indod Balesteina/ ISM Aberystwyth plans to build on the success of these events with similarly imaginative demonstrations in the near future, highlightly the blatant injustice of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories with TV friendly events that get the message out about what is happening in the occupied territories.

Only one pro-israeli demonstrator came to counter the event in the town centre and left very quickly when we tried to engage her in a rational debate rather than an abusive slanging match. 2 police arrived at the start, enjoyed the show, chatted about politics for a few minutes, and left shortly after realising they would not be facing the full scale invasion the papres had suggested.

The co-ordiantor of the event did receive a demand that the 'march' not take place, included with a death threat on the mobile phone line released to the press, and this came with a chilling computer generated voice. It sounded a bit like a dalek with a frog in its throat ending with the chilling line 'YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Another incident to add to the long tradition of Zionist terrorism.

Ceri
Aberystwyth Peace Network
Indod Balesteina-ISM Aberystwyth
 ism_aberystwyth@yahoo.com
 http://www.asaw.org.uk
www.palsolidarity.org