Thousands joined ACRI on Friday in our first-ever Human Rights March in Tel Aviv. (Check out videos online). Ruth and Paul Kedar, the founders of the organization Yesh Din, and the late Nir Katz, who was murdered this summer in the attack on the Gay and Lesbian club Barnoar, were awarded ACRI’s Emil Grunzweig Human Rights Award for 2009.
More on the March:
Democracy, Human Rights, Us. NO WAY we’re giving them up.
Where: Tel Aviv, from Rabin Square to Tel Aviv Museum
When: Friday December 11, 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM
What: First of its kind Human Rights March in Israel
Hadag Nahash, Alma Zohar and Salam Abu Amana will perform.
To mark International Human Rights Day and to address the mounting threats on Israel’s core democratic values, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) is organizing what very well may become the largest Human Rights March to date in Israel. The March is already by far the most diverse of its kind, with some 100 Israeli organizations taking part, with many of them never having joined forces before: human rights groups, students, Arab rights advocates, social justice organizations, Gay and Lesbian activists, migrant workers, environmentalists, feminists. They are all coming together with thousands of Israelis to say NO WAY to the continued erosion of Israeli democracy and in support of the full realization of human rights for all in Israel and the Occupied Territories.
Based on ACRI’s State of Human Rights Report, its definitive annual survey of human rights published in advance of the March, the very foundations of Israel’s democracy are in danger: The realization of the entire spectrum of rights is now, more than ever, dependent on what we say or believe, what ethnic group we belong to, how much money we have, and more. We have the freedom to express ourselves and demonstrate – only if we don’t say anything displeasing; we have the right to equal treatment and opportunities – only if we are “loyal” to the State; we have the right to health care – only if we have enough money to afford treatments and medications; and we have the right to adequate housing – only if our ideologies and lifestyles are acceptable.
Hagai El-Ad, Director of ACRI: “Over the last year, we have been witness to two conflicting trends: on the one hand the dangerous deterioration to human rights being carried out by the government and its officials, and on the other the personal activism and voluntary civil organizing being carried out to protect the civil rights of us all. People are coming out to defend our democracy and human rights.”
