‘Free, Free Palestine,’ says Crowd at Dearborn City Hall

posted on: Jul 31, 2014

Hundreds of Palestine supporters crowded the lawn in front of Dearborn City Hall in the afternoon July 26 for a demonstration in support of Gaza and against Israel’s military operation there in the last few weeks.

“Free, free Palestine,” they chanted.

Many in the crowd were fasting for one of the last days of the holy month of Ramadan and stood for hours with signs calling for human rights for all and the end to the killing of children and the Zionist occupation.

The rally, an “International Day of Al-Quds,” was organized by the Al-Quds Committee, a group formed to speak out against the human rights violations of Zionism, according to its website. Al-Quds is the Arabic name for the city of Jerusalem.

Imam Mohammad Mardini of the American Muslim Center, a Dearborn mosque, David Skrbina, a professor at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, and Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations were among the community leaders to speak.

The rally also included poetry, and speakers touched on topics like the significance of Israel and Palestine as sacred land, the need to address the crisis with elected officials and representatives and the divest movement that demands the boycott of companies profiting from the Israeli occupation.

A sign of the times at the demonstration was when protesters were all asked to take a photo of a Palestinian flag held up in the center of the throng and tweet out the image with the hashtag #freepalestine.

Aysha Jamali
Press and Guide