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CKMS News -2024-07-26- From celebration to commemoration, KW’s Palestinian festival shifts focus to solidarity

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2024-07-26- From celebration to commemoration, KW’s Palestinian festival shifts focus to solidarity.

dan kellar
Kitchener, ON – Due to the “urgent” situation in Gaza, organizers of this year’s Palestine Festival in Kitchener have made the theme “Solidarity: the World Stands with Palestine”, shifting the focus from one of celebration to commemoration.  

CKMS News spoke with Suhaila Salah, a co-founder of Sporas Scattered, who along with the local chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement is organizing the 3rd annual Palestine festival with the name  Palestinian Solidarity Day.  While speaking about the shift in the festivals’ theme Salah explained, “It is not a day of mourning, it is a day to come together. We are going to commemorate.” she added,  “We still want to celebrate life”.

The Palestinian festival will take place on Sunday July 28th in the public square at Kitchener city hall from 1-9pm and features what organizers call a “packed schedule of entertainment, activities, education, and trivia games” with all donations going to support relief efforts in Gaza.

A statement CKMS News received from Global Affairs Canada about accountability for the violence Israel is inflicting in Palestine is also included in this piece.

CKMS Community News, Newsroom

CKMS News -2024-05-26- Support grows for “Gaza House” solidarity encampment at UWaterloo

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CKMSNews-2024-05-26-CKMS News -2024-05-26- Support grows for “Gaza House” solidarity encampment at UWaterloo

by: dan kellar

Waterloo – The Gaza House solidarity encampment at the University of Waterloo continues to gather support while negotiations with the school’s administration have stalled. 

First, a letter of support from faculty, staff, and librarians from UW and Wilfrid Laurier University. Secondly, a statement of solidarity from the chairman of PSAC 902 which represents graduate students and teaching assistants at WLU. Then on May 25th Gaza House hosted a rally which brought out over two hundred supporters.

This show features Sarah, a student member of the encampment’s negotiating team. Sarah has requested partial anonymity due to safety concerns. CKMS News also spoke with Law Professor Irina Ceric about students’ protest rights and reactions to encampments from administration at different universities. 

CKMS News requested comment from UW administration and was told no one was available but that they “will look to see what we can do later this week”. The University has not responded to further communication.

CKMS Community News, Newsroom

CKMS News -2024-05-14- Gaza solidarity encampment launched at the University of Waterloo

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CKMS News -2024-05-14- Gaza Solidarity Encampment Launched At the University of Waterloo

by: dan kellar

Waterloo – Dozens of people converged at the University of Waterloo’s main campus on Monday morning to launch a Gaza solidarity encampment. The group’s “OccupyUWaterloo” Instagram page calls the encampment “Gaza House”

The group says the university is complicit in the current siege on Palestinians by the Israeli military, which has resulted in over 35,000 people dead, tens of thousands more injured or missing, and the majority destruction of Gazan infrastructure, including all universities and hospitals. The group is calling for divestment from weapons manufacturers and institutions which support the occupation of Palestine, and “an end to UW’s financial and academic ties to the genocidal and apartheid state of Israel.”

These demands share similarities from the demands from encampments set up at over a dozen other universities in Canada.

This show features an interview with Gaza House encampment spokesperson Nick Joseph. Also included is the statement UW provided, and Waterloo mayor Dorothy McCabe reacting to the encampment.