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THANDIE NEWTON - CELEBRITIES SPEAK OUT AGAINST GAZA WAR CRIMES
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Thandie Newton Gallery
CELEBRITIES SPEAK OUT AGAINST GAZA WAR CRIMES
A group of British celebrities has spoken out against the "conspiracy of silence" over the alleged war crimes still taking place in the Gaza Strip.
More than 1,300 Palestinians died during the 22-day Israeli military offensive in late December and January, but hundreds of thousands remain in desperate need of aid.
Today Amnesty International UK has launched a new video featuring celebrities such as actress Thandie Newton, comedian Terry Jones and musician Annie Lennox.
In it they speak out against the "collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population".
"Right now, this minute, innocent people like you and me, children like mine and yours, are victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza," Thandie Newton says in the video.
Annie Lennox says there is now a "window of opportunity" to reach 200,000 civilians "desperately, urgently in need" of humanitarian aid.
According to Amnesty International UK, there is significant evidence of war crimes committed by the Israeli defence forces and Palestinian groups during the conflict, including the use of human shields and banned white phosphorous shells.
Former Monty Python star Terry Jones said: "Likewise, the indiscriminate shelling of southern Israel [by Hamas] is equally unacceptable."
Film director Mike Figgis said the targeting of civilians was "for whatever reason, let's be clear about this, this is a war crime".
Terry Jones added: "Those within Hamas and the Israeli government must be held responsible, even if it means arresting senior people."
Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen explained that unless people continued to speak out against the alleged war crimes that took place the UK government would not feel compelled to follow suit.
"There's almost a conspiracy of silence over war crimes in Gaza that's totally unacceptable," Ms Allen said.
"Speaking out is one way of trying to stop this horrible cycle of violence beginning all over again."
To watch the video visit www.amnesty.org.uk/gazacrisis
13 February 2009 08:30:21
Tags: THANDIE NEWTON - ANNIE LENNOX - MIKE FIGGIS - MONTY PYTHON - TERRY JONES
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View all comments (2) - Comment on this story
screen name:
thank you 
( 1)
posted on 28/08/2009 15:50
Thanks for speaking out against the war on Gaza. I think it's great when
celebrities are courageous about taking a stand for occupied people anywhere.
The previous comments is sadly biased and I think unrepresentative of what the
majority of the world thinks. War and occupation and neo-colonialism is utterly
inappropriate. We need better media like Al Jazeera English to balance the
biased news we get on the Middle East. Thanks again to those who speak out
against war and injustice.
screen name:
lw ( 1)
posted on 13/02/2009 11:14
It's funny, I saw the headline and thought maybe these celebs were condemning
Hamas war crimes in Gaza.
But it seems that they don't care about Israeli victims of rocket attacks, nor
do they care about the Palestinians with terrorists and weapons hidden in their
homes, nor do they care about the Palestinian children forced to fight with
Hamas, or the women brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers, or the Fatah
members that are tortured and killed by Hamas, or Hamas stealing the Gazans aid
and then trying to sell it to them, or Hamas firing rockets from schools when
they're not brainwashing the children in them, or the fact that the media
misreported practically EVERYTHING about the conflict.
These celebrities are either completely and utterly stupid, they shouldn't
speak out about these things unless they actually know what's going on, or they
choose to ignore what's going on, everything Hamas does to Israelis and
Palestinians, just for the sake of Israel-bashing and some publicity.
