Tag Archives: immigration

Khaled Bakrawi’s Legacy Continues: Refugee Resource Center Opens

7 Jun

Some months back while my wife and I were traveling, I received an email from the Palestinian Youth Movement, which announced the opening of the Khaled Bakrawi Center in El Cajon, California.  Because we were traveling where we only had at best unreliable access to the internet, I did not read the email until much later after getting home.  While it’s been more than four months since the center’s opening, I’m compelled to write about it.

The Khaled Bakrawi Center, according to the PYM (US) website, “was created for… serving immigrant and refugee youth by teaching various life skills, such as English language, and computer training…. (The) trauma informed services and culturally relevant programs generate a sense of collective healing and community power meant to minimize senses of alienation and loss which often accompanies war trauma and the struggles of exile for these children and youth. There is significance in opening a center catered to immigrant and refugee youth in El Cajon. Since the 1990s, this city, sometimes called ‘Little Baghdad,’ has been a hub for refugees, specifically Iraqi refugees fleeing dictatorship, sanctions, and imperialist wars.”

To read the PYM statement on the opening of the center, click here.

However, what I was most interested was to understand who Khaled Bakrawi was and how he died.  To that end what follows is my attempt at answering those two questions.

Much of Budour Youssef Hassan’s Feb. 18, 2015 piece “Syria’s disappeared Palestinians,” for the Electronic Intifada, is devoted to Khaled Bakrawi.

Hassan said Bakrawi was a prominent activist and co-founder of the Jafra Association for Aid and Development, which works to improve conditions in Palestinian refugee camps in Syria, and as “(a) refugee from Lubya (During the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, the Israelis destroyed the town and its population was removed.), Bakrawi was active around Palestinian refugee rights well before the (Syrian Arab Spring) uprising began and was shot by Israeli occupation forces in June 2011 during the Naksa Day march to the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.  But after…displaced Syrians sought refuge in Yarmouk, he directed his efforts towards organizing humanitarian aid to them.”

Hassan, who is identified as an anarchist in the same story, also said, from interviews of Bakrawi’s friends, that Syrian security forces arrested Bakrawi in January 2013 and his family did not learn of his death until September.

To read Hassan’s story, click here, click here.

In a Zaman al-Wasl news story, “Khaled Bakrawi: Activist of Unforgettable Chivalry” of Feb. 22, 2015 by Faris al-Rfai with translation by Yusra Ahmed, al-Rfai quotes artist and activist Mohamed Zaghmout from his documentary, “Words about Khaled Bakrawi.” Zaghmout said, ‘Khalid -the camp- (sic) as his friends used to name him was an icon of aid and relief work inside Palestinian camps all over Syria, he participated in funerals, educated youth by (sic) many lectures and supported displaced children.’

To read the news story by Faris al-Rfai in Zaman al-Wasl, click here.  According to the Zaman al-Wasl news website, Fathi Bayoud founded Zaman al-Wasl in Homs, Syria in 2005 and it is “Syria’s leading news site delivering fast, in-depth coverage of the events shaping the war-torn country.”

Khaled Bakrawi Exhibit from the SYRIAN TORTURE VICTIMS Exhibition in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photo by Masih Sadat/The Turban Times

The 88-page study, “Palestinians of Syria: Bloody Diary and Unheard Screaming,” by the Action Group for Palestinians in Syria and the Palestinian Return Centre-London, claims Bakrawi was identified as being tortured through leaked photos.  According to the AGPS website, AGPS is “a London-based human rights watchdog that monitors the situation of Palestinian refugees in war-torn Syria” and that “AGPS material is purely fact-based and rooted in real data compiled by a team of professional journalist, on-the-spot reporters, news correspondents, veterans and local activists.”  According to the PRC website, the PRC “is an independent consultancy focusing on the historical, political and legal aspects of Palestinian Refugees (sic).”

To read the study, click here.

According to the PYM announcement of the opening of the center, Bakrawi was 24 when he died.

 

 

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United Church of Christ Marches for Just Immigration Reform in Downtown Long Beach

3 Jul

Organized by the United Church of Christ and as part of its General Synod 2013, about 200 people marched on the sidewalk in downtown Long Beach, first to the office of Immigration Customs and Enforcement, then to City Hall, and finally to the office of Congressman Alan Lowenthal, on Monday, July 1, in support of just and comprehensive immigration reform.

While the UCC organized the march, it was endorsed by the Long Beach Immigrants Rights Coalition, FilipinoMigrantsCenter, and other local immigration rights groups.

While marching, one chant was “We are people.  We are not illegal.”  Another chant was “Stop deportations now.”  A third chant was “The people united will never be defeated.”  A fourth chant was “Education, not deportations.”  Also to the tune “Down by the Riverside,” the marchers, while walking, sang, “We’re all God’s children.  We ain’t going to build that border fence.”

Some marchers wore buttons, which said, “Jesus was a low-wage worker.”

One marcher was Kirk Laubstein, 32.  Laubstein, who is a third-year student at the Chicago Theological Seminary, said, “It says in the Bible God welcomes everyone … that is what we should do in America.”

Another marcher, Beverly Travers, 65, who is from Arizona, said she was marching because she opposes deportation of immigrants.

A third marcher was Rev. Dale Parson.  Parson said that he was “marching in solidarity with those whose daily lives are impacted by the reality of deportation and discrimination. . . .We’re marching for the rights of all immigrants, their families, for justice, for equality.”     

At each of the three stops a religious ritual was performed; at the immigration office, holy water was sprinkled; at City Hall, feet were washed; and at congressional office, bread was broken.

At the office of Congressman Alan Lowenthal, his field representative, Irantzu Pujadas thanked the marchers for their hard work and then read from Congressman’s statement of the previous week, which in part, said, “I look forward to supporting the comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House (of Representatives) that not only secure our borders, but protects our workers, reunites families, and offers an earned path to citizenship.”

Saved on home computer

2 July 2013

353 words

Organized by the United Church of Christ and as part of its General Synod 2013, about 200 people marched on the sidewalk in downtown Long Beach, first to the office of Immigration Customs and Enforcement, then to City Hall, and finally to the office of Congressman Alan Lowenthal, on Monday, July 1, in support of just and comprehensive immigration reform.

While the UCC organized the march, it was endorsed by the Long Beach Immigrants Rights Coalition, FilipinoMigrantsCenter, and other local immigration rights groups.

While marching, one chant was “We are people.  We are not illegal.”  Another chant was “Stop deportations now.”  A third chant was “The people united will never be defeated.”  A fourth chant was “Education, not deportations.”  Also to the tune “Down by the Riverside,” the marchers, while walking, sang, “We’re all God’s children.  We ain’t going to build that border fence.”

Some marchers wore buttons, which said, “Jesus was a low-wage worker.”

One marcher was Kirk Laubstein, 32.  Laubstein, who is a third-year student at the Chicago Theological Seminary, said, “It says in the Bible God welcomes everyone … that is what we should do in America.”

Another marcher, Beverly Travers, 65, who is from Arizona, said she was marching because she opposes deportation of immigrants.

A third marcher was Rev. Dale Parson.  Parson said that he was “marching in solidarity with those whose daily lives are impacted by the reality of deportation and discrimination. . . .We’re marching for the rights of all immigrants, their families, for justice, for equality.”     

At each of the three stops a religious ritual was performed; at the immigration office, holy water was sprinkled; at City Hall, feet were washed; and at congressional office, bread was broken.

At the office of Congressman Alan Lowenthal, his field representative, Irantzu Pujadas thanked the marchers for their hard work and then read from Congressman’s statement of the previous week, which in part, said, “I look forward to supporting the comprehensive immigration reform bill in the House (of Representatives) that not only secure our borders, but protects our workers, reunites families, and offers an earned path to citizenship.”

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Long Beach Immigration Rally

3 Apr

About 150 people from the Long Beach community, mostly youth of color, on Saturday, March 30 marched from City Hall to Caesar E. Chavez Park in support of comprehensive immigration reform.

Some marchers carried signs, which read, “No human being is illegal.” Another sign some marchers carried said, “This is what an immigrant looks like.”

The Filipino Migrant Center, Miguel Contreras Foundation, Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach, Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition and Bienestar (Spanish for wellbeing), which provides HIV prevention services in the LGBT-Latino community, each had a contigent.

One speaker at the park was Uduak Ntuk, from Organizing for Action, who characterized his organization as closely aligned with President Obama, said he was a neighborhood team leader, a second generation immigrant, born in southern California, whose parents’ backgrounds were German, Irish, French and Nigerian. Ntuk said, “Our city has more 125,000 foreign-born residents. The immigrant story is an American story. The immigrant story is a Long Beach story. We all deserve a common sense comprehensive immigration reform, that keeps our families together….The facts are immigrants are a net positive for our country and our community. They are paying more into the system than they are taking out.”

In an email the Long Beach Coalition for Good Jobs and a Healthy Community, a co-sponsor of the event, sent said the other co-sponsors were Filipino Migrant Center, Coalition for Latino Advancement, Future Underrepresented Educated Leaders, Miguel Contreras Foundation, Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, Standing on the Side of Love, Orange County Dream Team, The Gay and Lesbian Center of Long Beach, Asian and Pacific American Law Center and Organizing for Action.

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