Q&A with Huwaida Arraf

Tuesday 27 March 2018
6:30 pm 8:30 pm 18:30 20:30

Murdoch Lecture Theatre, The University of WA 35 Stirling Highway Nedlands, WA, 6009 Australia (map)

Google Calendar ICS

The struggle for Palestine:

Q & A with Huwaida Arraf (Perth)

Huwaida is a Palestinian-American woman and a veteran civil rights activist. She has been active on the ground in Palestine organising and participating in non-violent direct action, as well as leading legal activity to defend the legal rights of Palestinians and their advocates around the world. For a brief period in the 2011-2012 democratic uprisings she worked in Bahrain until being deported.

In 2001, Huwaida co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led non-violent resistance movement involved in activities like tearing down roadblocks and walls. Rachel Corrie was involved with the ISM, physically blocking an Israeli bulldozer, when she was killed in Gaza in 2003.

Huwaida chaired the Free Gaza Movement, and from August to December 2008, led 5 successful sea voyages to the Gaza Strip to confront and challenge Israel's illegal blockade on the 2 million Palestinians living there. She was traveling with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla when it was lethally attacked by Israeli forces on 31 May 2010.

In 2011, she was one of the six Palestinian Freedom Riders who, inspired by the U.S. Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides of the 1960s, attempted to ride segregated Israeli settler public transport. For this ‘crime’ they were harassed and violently arrested.

Huwaida has been invited to Australia to attend the annual Marxism Conference in Melbourne over the Easter weekend.