Saturday, January 17, 2009

First Gaza Refusenik imprisoned

Dear Supporters,
The first Gaza refusenik was sent to prison for a term of 14 days. Courage to refuse members are in contact with his family and are helping in any way we can. To date there are about ten refuseniks, but the IDF is making special efforts to silence this story and prevent it from reaching other soldiers. We assume this is the reason why most refuseniks have not yet been trialed (some are waiting for over a week now).

Our demonstration last Thursday went very well, hundreds showed up and protested against the war. A video of the demonstration can be viewed here (Hebrew, English subtitles) This, along with other efforts of the Israeli Peace Camp, contributed to the public discourse by introducing new voices- this time critical, about the war. We plan on continuing our demonstrations and plan to hold a public debate on the subject of refusal next Sunday.

I wish to thank all those of you who proposed to donate to Courage to Refuse. Your help is much needed. An online donation System is now in place, allowing donations via credit card. The donation is processed by The Refuser Solidarity Network, an American NGO that agreed to receive donations on our behalf.

To donate, please go to: this link and select Courage to Refuse Projects in the RSN project field (This detail is very important).
American citizens- your donation is IRS-recognized 501(c)3.

With some hope and a lot of hard work- the cease fire may not be that far. Thank you all for your support.
Arik Diamant
Courage to Refuse

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