Government, meetings, media

This week I went to try to do some practical work for the upcoming Glastonbury Festival. On Monday morning I get a call however from BBC New Channel They want to know if I can get to a studio and arrange a car to pick me up from the festival site to go to Bristol. I get there in time to make some short comments about the fact that Israel have announced they are undertaking an investigation. Well good for them. This is no good for us or the international community and we will not cooperate with it.

I get back to site after getting some wellies and manage to do one hour of work. Also put up the large tent for use during the festival. I also hear from BBC Radio Wiltshire who want to hear my views on the investigation so I make these over the phone. BBC Five Live were going to speak to me as well my but they call back to say the football coverage has taken over....

On Tuesday I am lucky enough to get a lift to the station and onto a train back to London. Osama and I are going to Sheffield today for a meeting with Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign. We get there in a couple of hours and during the journey work on statements of the incident for legal purposes - recording carefully and chronologically what happened to us onboard and during out kidnap and detention by Israel. We arrive in good time to get to the meeting and before this Mushir our host takes us to BBC Radio Sheffield for a short interview with their drive time presenter.

The PSC meeting is well attended and we both give our accounts to the group. It is great to see Waqar from Viva Palestina Convoy 3 there - it is a surprise! His friend H also gives us a lift to the station as the last train we can get is at 9.15pm. When we get there the train supervisor tells us we have Chesterfield tickets not Doncaster ones so should not get this train. I listen to her which is wrong. Them we are stuck having missed the last London train. This is a nightmare as Osama has a flight in the morning. In desperation I work out if we can get a lift to Doncaster we could possibly catch the final train. I ring Waqar and he and H return to get us - but instead of taking us to Doncaster they insist on taking us to London! Wow. Amazing wonderful people. So by 1.30am they have returned us home. During the journey I type up Osama's statement and talk about the next convoys with Waqar and H.

Wednesday I need to get to a legal meeting in the afternoon, then meet Paveen and go to Lewisham for PSC branch. I am gutted to find out that Paveen has been a victim of hate crime in her area - a websote has been defaming her, published her address and her tyres were slashed. These are the sorts of people we are up against.

We make it to the meeting and its great to see fifty or so people turn out as well as Frank Barat from Russell Tribunal on Palestine. This is a tribunal originally established by Bertrand Russell to consider the conduct of America in Vietnam with the following justification:

"If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us"

The Russell Tribunal for Palestine was established in 2009.

Thursday

9.30 in the momrning morning a number of the UK volunteers meet up to attend an appointment with Alistair Burt the government's Middle East minister. I download the 15 minutes of footage from Iara Lee's Cultures of Resistance in the Snappy Snaps opposite the FCO to give to the minister.

We enter a large room in the building with a large long table and long windows. The atmosphere is grand and the air echoes slightly. There are a number of people with Alistair Burt, some from consular department, some from his office. The group ask me to go through the account of the attack. I have my notes of the timings and structure but I am not sure if I am able to get across the horror of the experience. After this we put our specific requests to him. We reject the Israeli-led enquiry - he states the government position is to accept it, we ask to see William Hague - he declines, we ask for clarity on what the government is doing about Gaza - he responds in a vague way 'everything that can be done is being done'.

It is a disappointing meeting - what is the point of hearing about our experience when the policy and decisions are already made and nothing specific is told to us about what the government is doing - oh apart from they do agree to publicly demand the missing passports back.

We come out and speak to the press and media about this afterwards.

I get a call from BBC Wiltshire - they would like my response on their Breakfast time show tomorrow morning.

Friday

Early call from BBC Wiltshire Radio - I state how disappointed we are with the government's response, how the blockade needs to be lifted not eased and how the investigation/ report into the incident will have no value.

I get up and see that Fatima Mohammadi has made a report - it is very good -see here.