PPRC Friday Rally and March Joins With Local Muslim Organizations to Mark International Day of Quds (Jerusalem), Supports FTAA Protestors in Miami, FL.

Event: PPRC Friday Rally and March Marks International Day of Quds (Jerusalem), Supports FTAA Protestors in Miami.
Date: Friday, November 21st, 2003
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Place: Pioneer Courthouse Square

The Portland Peaceful Response Coalition 5:00 p.m. Friday rally and march for peace at Pioneer Courthouse Square turns the spotlight on solidarity with the Palestinian people and corporate globalization. "For the third year now, PPRC will be joining with local Muslim organizations to mark the International Day of Quds, to express our support for Palestinian freedom and human rights," said Will Seaman, a PPRC volunteer. "The US continues to support Israel�s brutal and criminal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, an occupation by racist settlers who routinely attack, harass, kill and injure Palestinians with impunity, and whose lives and luxury houses are financed by US taxpayers to the tune of billions of dollars each year." The Worldwide Day of Quds gathering will begin at 4:30 p.m. at Pioneer Courthouse Square, at the corner of S.W. Broadway and Yamhill. The PPRC rally and march will join with the Day of Quds gathering at 5:00 p.m..

In addition to the gathering in solidarity with Palestinian human rights, the PPRC Friday rally will turn to the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas) protests currently taking place in Miami, Florida. "If we�re to grapple with the underlying reasons for much of the violence in the world, we have to look to the suffering and deprivation caused by neo-liberal economic policies imposed by the US and Europe," said Mikel Clayhold, another PPRC volunteer. "Just as the people of the UK are rising up to protest Bush�s visit to London this week, thousands of global justice activists have converged on Miami to challenge the anti-democratic, unfair trade agreements being hammered out behind the closed doors of this FTAA meeting." Clayhold said that many local activists had made the journey to Florida to add their voices to the protests.

"One aspect of these trade agreements that is often missed is how they would force developing countries to hand over their airwaves to the same global corporate giants that have monopolized news in this country" explained Clayhold. "Democracy without the right to news sources that are accountable to the people, instead of to private corporations, is no democracy at all."

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