Discussion:

Occupied Youth in Palestine and Black America

WHAT:

The conversation will examine the impact of prolonged military occupation on Palestinian youth and draw connections between the struggles for human rights in the United States for communities of color. Palestinian civil society leaders will discuss how Israeli military law is used to legitimize control over an occupied Palestinian population, how Palestinian youth are targeted for arrest, and military violence against Palestinian youth. Speakers will draw connections to discrimination, police violence, surveillance, and systemic injustice for communities of color in the US. The panel will be followed by a reception and a light Palestinian lunch.

PARTICIPANTS:

Sahar Francis is a Palestinian lawyer and general director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Francis became director in 2005, and has been a human rights legal advocate since 1994. She specializes in issues of Palestinian political prisoners, including ill-treatment and torture, administrative detention, prison conditions, and prisoners’ rights. She has extensive experience litigating in the Israeli Supreme Court and Israeli military court system.

Khaled Quzmar is a Palestinian lawyer and general director of Defense for Children International – Palestine. Quzmar joined DCIP in 1995 as a lawyer representing Palestinian children in Israeli military courts. He specializes in issues of juvenile justice and grave violations against children during armed conflict, and earned an LL.M in International Human Rights Law from the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the National University of Ireland Galway.

Vince Warren is an American lawyer and executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York. He oversees CCR’s groundbreaking litigation and advocacy work, which includes using international and domestic law to hold corporations and government officials accountable for human rights abuses, and challenging racial and gender injustice. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change by combining cutting-edge litigation, advocacy and strategic communications in work on a broad range of civil and human rights issues.

Mohammad Rozzi is a Palestinian scholar from the Gaza Strip who is currently completing his PhD studies in Switzerland. He holds degrees in Childhood Studies and Occupational Therapy, and has worked with a number of organizations operating in the Gaza Strip, including Mercy Corps, Norwegian Refugee Council, Terre de Hommes Lausanne, UNICEF, and World Vision.

Thenjiwe McHarris is currently working with a team called Blackbird, which is focused on movement building in this current historical moment that centers anti-black racism, state violence and black resistance as part of the ongoing struggle to transform the country. She is also currently working with a number of social justice organizations and movements in the US and is helping to establish a collective for organizers engaged in movement building work around the world. Thenjiwe has spent her entire political and professional career challenging the injustices that imprison people and their communities in a life of poverty and/or one behind bars. She began her political career calling for an end to policies and practices that contributed to acts of torture committed by law enforcement. Most recently, Thenjiwe worked for the U.S. Human Rights Network where she helped coordinate efforts to hold the U.S.G accountable for it's human rights violations when the United State's was up for review by specific UN Mechanisms.

EVENT DETAILS: 

Open to the public. Hosted by Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the New School.

Sponsored by Defense for Children International - Palestine, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the No Way to Treat a Child campaign.