Two days earlier several hundred people showed up at the Dearborn City Hall for a candlelight vigil. Sponsors of both the October 4 vigil and the October 6 march and rally included the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition (Al-Awda), the Arab Student Union at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, ACCESS, the Lebanese American Heritage Club, the Arab American Political Action Committee, and many others.
--ERICA BRANDT  
 
 
New York City
"We demand an end to the killing of Palestinians! We demand the United States stop sending weapons to Israel! We demand international protection for the Palestinian people and an end to Israeli occupation!" were the slogans of a demonstration of 3,000 at Times Square called by the Palestine Right to Return Coalition October 6.

Participants, from New York and New Jersey, were largely young workers and students. Bassam, Rimani, a youth from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, told of another demonstration in Brooklyn that day of more than 1,000 people.

Nacima Diglawi, a junior from North Bergen High School in New Jersey said that 25 youth from her high school came together to the protest. There were also five buses from Paterson, New Jersey.

Nadia Guessous, a first year graduate student at Columbia University, said she learned about the demonstration from Turath, a student organization at Columbia that has organized vigils every afternoon on the campus. Guessous came with 15 other students from her campus. Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition called the demonstration.
--JASON ALESSIO
 
 
Miami
Supporters of Palestinian rights protested in front of the Israeli Consulate here October 4, 6, and 7. Hundreds participated in one or more of the rallies, which were organized by the Islamic Centers of South Florida and local mosques. "This is the least we can do here, with our sisters and brothers fighting over there," said Nour Kablawi, a high school student in Miami and one of the many young Palestinian women demonstrating.

Some protesters formed a car caravan that drove up and down Biscayne Boulevard, in the center of Miami's downtown, waving Palestinian and Islamic flags and honking their horns for hours.
--CINDY JAQUITH  
 
 
Paris
More than 3,000 people protested the Israeli repression of Palestinian demonstrators here October 7, while thousands more took to the streets in Marseilles, Strasbourg, and other cities.

The action in Paris was called by a number of antiracist and political organizations, including the Green Party and the French Communist Party. Both are currently part of the coalition government. The CGT union confederation also participated.

The organizers of the demonstrations called for "peace, to stop the massacres, and for withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied Palestine." Some 2,000 immigrant youth came to the action from the working-class suburbs surrounding Paris. Supporters of the Association of Palestinians in France carried a banner calling for sanctions against Israel, for the right of Palestinian refugees to return home, for dismantling the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, and for "a sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital." They called on the French government and the European Union to "suspend their economic, scientific and military collaboration with Israel."
--NAT LONDON AND CLAUDE BLETON
 
 
Manchester, England
Some 1,000 supporters of the Palestinian struggle from Manchester, Birmingham, London, and surrounding towns held a protest here October 7. Speakers at the rallies before and after the march aimed their fire not only at the Israeli government for its brutality and denial of Palestinian self-determination, but also at British prime minister Anthony Blair for not condemning the Israeli government action and the U.S. government for supporting Israel.
--DEBBIE DELANGE  
 
 
Charlotte, North Carolina
In the shadows of this city's tallest building about 300 Palestinians and their supporters held a demonstration here October 6 sponsored by nine Arab-American organizations in the Charlotte region. Nearly 300 people rallied in the city center, covering the four corners of a major downtown intersection.

Dr. Hisham A Abdel-Aal, president of the Egyptian Society of Greater Charlotte, said, "They say we provoked this outrage. How do you provoke with stones? To have gunships, helicopters against children? The U.S. is always talking about human rights, what about five and a half million people who have been demanding human rights for 50 years?"
--DONALD HAMMOND
 
 
Related articles:
Palestinian deaths mount in Israeli crackdown
Washington, Tel Aviv vs. Palestinian struggle  
 
 
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