Students for a Democratic Society held its Hungry for Justice banquet with guest speaker Alison Weir to talk about Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to protest their incarceration without due process.
Guest speaker at the Hungry for Justice banquet was If Americans Knew Executive Director Allison Weir. | Dina Kesbeh/The Daily Cougar
Weir is the executive director of If Americans Knew, a nonprofit organization she founded following an independent investigation as a freelance journalist after the second Palestinian intifada — an Arabic term that means “shaking off” and symbolizes the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza — in 2001.
“I was so outraged at what I learned has been going on, not only the tragedy I saw there and the obligation I had to tell people what I saw, I just think that it’s a determination and that they won’t get away with it — that keeps me going,” Weir said.
Hunger strikes are commonly used as non-violent resistance in all parts of the world. Samer Issawi is a Palestinian on hunger strike for more than 200 days. He was among the prisoners who were initially released by Israeli authorities in an October 2011 prisoner swap.
He is hospitalized and refuses to break his fast until he is guaranteed release. Issawi has been held in administrative detention — when a person has not yet been formally charged with a crime — since July. He will continue his hunger strike until he is formally charged with a crime, given a fair trial or released.
“Being Palestinian and seeing what happens, I wish to just inform people of what’s going on. I want to tell everyone to really do more research about the conflict and read about the Nakba. Just Google Gaza, and see what you get. Truth is in the pictures that our media won’t share with us,” said nutrition senior Baraah Asaad.
Asaad was an attendee of the banquet and said he enjoyed meeting Weir.
“One of the things that sort of give me an advantage to not give up is that I didn’t know about it before. I sort of know that there are all these people out there like me that I could have reached 20 years ago if I knew that don’t know. If we could just get them in the room and just see the documentaries, photos, billboards and websites, then we could get the results we are looking for.”
Weir has spoken at many universities, lecture halls, churches, mosques and conventions and hopes to make her way to many other places to share the information and experience she had while visiting the West Bank and Gaza.
news@thedailycougar.com