Bradford Stop the Killing in Burma Demo in Photos

Tagged as: burma rohingya
Neighbourhoods: bradford burma

The protest in Centenary Square outside City Hall, Bradford on Monday 13th August 2012 against the Killing of Rohingya people in Burma attracted a large crowd of mostly young people from Bradford and its surrounding areas. This short notice demo with its large crowd is a testament to the way George Galloway reaches out to people. Credit also goes to the young people who worked behind the scene in organising and spreading the word on Twitter, Facebook, by text, e-mail and word of mouth. The big media outlets maybe silent but the voice of the ordinary people cannot be stopped.

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Click on a thumbnail for a slideshow view

The  Rohingya community in Bradford and elsewhere know we have not forgotten them.  It was heartening to see the Rohingyas who found sanctuary in Bradford and to hear their stories. The Rohingya girl who grew up in a camp in Bangladesh described the mistreatments, especially of women at the camp. How can anyone who has a mother, sister, wife or daughter ignore their plea?

As Salma Yaqoob said, use your mobile to tell people about the plight of the Rohingya people. This is just the beginning, the momentum is gathering, God willing, the world will know about Burma’s killing of Rohingyas. Aung San Suu Kyi will have to break her silence too.

Here is what you can do: Campaigns and News Reports: The speakers and the video of their speech is as as below:

Links:

Link_go Bradford Stop the Killing in Burma Demo in Photos & Videos

Link_go Leeds Palestine Blog

Additions

Burma Campaigning In Bradford

Great to see this report and pictures. Hopefully more people in Bradford and elsewhere will get involved in campaigning on this and other human rights issues.

Just to add, and give credit where it's due, there has been an ongoing campaign on this issue for a couple of years in Bradford. Great as it is that more people are now waking up to this issue we shouldn't imagine that it's been ignored until brought to our attention by our "leaders". See, for example, this article from November 2010 - http://bradforddistrictfaithsforum.org.uk/news/bradford-free-burma-campaign

Also, disappointing and unreliable as they are, the mainstream media do sometimes cover this story, if you can dig past the celebrity flannel and ooh-aah distraction issues of the day, see the jolly old Guardian earlier this month - http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/07/bangladesh-persecuted-burmese-tribe-muslim

(Obviously the mainstream media need to be treated with caution and we should be working on keeping our channels of communication in our own hands as much as possible, rather than at the direction on distant plutocrats...)

Finally, just to note, this article breaches multiple moderation guidelines by recommending solutions by way of heirarchical power structures and the personalities within them. We should know by now that we have to organise ourselves, forge links and build bridges horizontally across society rather than peering hopefully upwards at the temporary custodians of political power in the hope of a solution.

Say hello to the new boss, same as the old boss.