For immediate release

Friday 16th October 2009

www.defendtherescuers.wordpress.com


Polish paramedic union passes historic motion against Israeli occupation



Last week, Poland’s biggest independent medical rescuers union – The
Nationwide Trade Union of Medical Rescue Employees (Krajowy Zwiazek
Zawodowy Pracownikow Ratownictwa Medycznego) KZZ PRM - passed a historic
motion of solidarity with Palestinian rescuers, and against Israeli
occupation.



The statement, agreed upon at the Union’s national conference on October
6th in Piotrkow Trybunalski, southern Poland, condemned the Israeli
occupation and its’ violation of international law and announced plans
to form twinning relationships with Palestinian ambulance stations in
Gaza and the West Bank.



The KZZ PRM’s statement said: ‘Nowhere else in the world is Occupation
and the contempt for international and humanitarian law more obvious and
clear, and nowhere has it lasted so long, than in the case of Occupied
Palestine.



‘This is why we are urging rescuers from the whole of Europe and the
whole world to support Palestinian emergency rescuers and why we treat
our declaration as a stand against the occupation.’



The declaration is the first of its kind to be passed by a trade union
in Poland. It marks the beginnings of a civil society current of active
opposition to Israeli occupation and apartheid inside a country known as
‘Israel’s Best Friend in Europe’.



The KZZ PRM has 3,000 members throughout Poland. Their struggles
internally are focused on resisting privatisation of the public rescue
and health services, gender equality and women’s rights in the paramedic
profession, as well as the retention of employee status.



Under the Polish government’s sweeping privatisation plan – which will
see the remaining 20% of the un-privatised public sector, including the
entire health sector, go under the hammer - Polish paramedics will be
reduced to self-employed subcontractors and stripped of their employment
rights.



General Secretary Robert Szulc has received death-threats linked to his
union activism in Piotrkow. Union Treasurer and Executive Committee
member Basia Jasinska, is taking her local council of Czestochowa to
court for sexual discrimination after being denied the right to work as
a paramedic because of her gender, in spite of her professional
qualification. The Union believes she is being targeted for her trade
union activism.



The privatisation plan will also mean that patients will have to pay for
non-essential call-outs – to be determined by paramedics - and that
rescuers will have to buy their own equipment. Already, under the plan,
150 drivers – out of 300 – face the sack in Katowice city, with the
remaining medics being forced to drive ambulances instead.



The KZZ PRM union also needs international solidarity to defend public
services, jobs, and women’s rights to work as paramedics.



Despite the radically different circumstances that Polish and
Palestinian medical rescuers work under, Polish medical rescuers have
pledged solidarity and practical support to their brothers and sisters
in Gaza and the West Bank.



The Polish trade unionists were moved in paricular by the urgency of the
situation in Gaza where 16 medical rescuers were killed in 22-days by
Israeli forces during Operation Cast Lead this January.



According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israel has killed 56
medical rescuers since the beginning of the second intifada (2000) – an
average of one every two months, and injured over 500 in the same
period.



Contacts



KZZ PRM site  http://kzzprm.pl/

The Defend the Rescuers Campaign website and the statement the KZZ PRM
endorsed is here:
 http://defendtherescuers.wordpress.com/solidarity-in-action/supporting-organisations/

For solidarity ideas and pledges for Polish medics
 ratownictwomedyczne01@wp.pl or in English  freelance@mailworks.org





Declaration by Polish medical rescuers in solidarity with Palestinian
rescuers and in defence of international law, and against Israeli
occupation and the siege of Palestinian territories



Occupied Palestine is the most dangerous place in the world to work as a
medical rescuer. Palestinian medics undergo extremely difficult
conditions, and face down the effects of an occupation and its violence
that have lasted for years, and risk their lives and health on a daily
basis.



In Palestine, those who save lives often lose their own due to the
Occupation. They are injured, killed, jailed and tortured. There is
evidence of Israeli occupation forces firing with premeditation and
directly at rescuers, ambulances and objects of the health services.



Workers and volunteers for the Palestinian Red Crescent, Civil Defence
and independent services need support and active solidarity from
emergency rescuers from all over the world.



Above all, they need safety and respect for their work and their lives,
which is guaranteed under international law.



It is our responsibility to support those saving lives. We have a duty
to break the silence in the face of massacre. Our duty is to practice
solidarity beyond borders.



We, Polish medical rescuers express our highest admiration and respect
for the courage, steadfastness and sacrifices of our friends in occupied
Palestine. We pay homage to the rescuers fallen in the course of
carrying out their duties.



We feel morally obliged to manifest our common sense of community with
Palestinian rescuers in the besieged Gaza Strip and in the occupied
territories of the West Bank. Our mission is the same but we realise it
under radically different conditions.



This is why we want to join together in solidarity with Palestinian
rescuers and why we support their positions expressed in the ‘Statement
of Solidarity’ at
 http://defendtherescuers.wordpress.com/solidarity-in-action/supporting-organisations/



We declare our desire to create twinning relationships between ambulance
stations in Poland and in the occupied Palestinian territories, in both
the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.



Through this we want to help break the isolation which the siege and
occupation have imposed upon Palestinian rescuers and medical services.
We hope to bring real support to the emergency organsiations in the West
Bank and Gaza. We also want to share our experiences and get to know the
experiences of our Palestinian friends.



Nowhere else is Occupation and the contempt for international and
humanitarian law more obvious and clear and nowhere has it lasted so
long than in the case of Occupied Palestine.



This is why we are urging rescuers from the whole of Europe and the
whole world to support Palestinian emergency rescuers and why we treat
our declaration as a stand against the occupation.



KZZ PRM

October 6th 2009

(Translation from the original Polish version)