NATIONAL DAY OF ACTION IN SOLIDARITY WITH PALESTINIAN REFUGEES FACING DEPORTATION FROM CANADA

April 8th, 12 Noon. Citizenship & Immigration Canada, 300 West Georgia

A national day of action will bring the struggle of around 100 Palestinian refugees facing deportation from Canada to the streets of major Canadian cities. Several deportations of stateless Palestinian refugees are set to be executed in the coming days, and many more in the coming weeks. With your participation and collective support we can halt these deportations.

This day of action will also highlight the case of Khalil Ayoub, 67 Nabih Ayoub, 69 and Therese Boulos Haddad, 62, three Palestinian refugees from the refugee camp of Ein El-Helweh in Lebanon who have taken sanctuary in the Notre-Dame-de-Grace Church in Montreal since the 30th of January 2004, in order to escape deportation. We will unite in solidarity against the inhumane policy of deportation, which was clearly exposed in the case of Ahmed Abdel-Majeed, a Palestinian from Ein El Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon, who was one of the leading organizers of the Coalition Against the Deportation of Palestinian Refugees. In November 2003, after spending more than 3 years in Canada, Ahmed was forcibly detained and deported by Citizenship & Immigration Canada to a United States County Jail from which he was released under a $10,000 bond. In January 2004, he was deported back to the refugee camp of Ein El Helweh.

The Palestinian refugees are calling on you to join this action in solidarity with their struggle for justice and dignity.

We will be demanding from Citizenship & Immigration Canada:

1. To stop the deportations of the Palestinian refugees from Canada,

2. To regularize the status of the Palestinian refugees in Canada.