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Protesters mount vigil for Gaza

12:10pm Saturday 10th January 2009


MEMBERS of Swindon’s Stop The War Coalition attended a silent vigil at Regent Street war memorial last night in protest at the war in Gaza.

Bombs have rained down on the region for fourteen days pushing casualty figures towards a thousand.

Swindon protesters against the violence lit candles and held Palestinian flags last night as they attempted to garner support for a march on the Israeli embassy in London today. Protester Sara Amawi said the human casualties alone should be enough to force people to sit up and take notice.

The 20-year-old from town centre said: “I was born in Swindon but as my parents are both Palestinian by origin I have been brought up in that way.

“The Gaza conflict has got beyond religion and politics now, it’s about the human loss – that is the issue here.”

Sara and sister Dina had planned to visit Palestine in the summer but their parents are now too concerned for their safety to allow them to go.

Swindon’s Stop The War Coalition is holding it’s own rally in Wharf Green at 2pm on Saturday.


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Your Say YourSwindon

themagicroundabout, Swindon says...
1:53pm Sat 10 Jan 09

Well maybe if Hamas stopped firing rockets on Israel, Israel wouldn`t have retaliated?

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Mansoor the sec, Swindon says...
2:23pm Sat 10 Jan 09

maybe if israel stop conntrolling the land sea and air space of the gazan's they will stop firin the rockets. maybe if fuel supplies and power supplies of Gaza were given to Hamas andnot controlled by israel no rockets or anything would be fired..

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thenoose, Swindon says...
7:09pm Sat 10 Jan 09

Big up the Israeli massive. Show em you mean business, woo

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yeti, swindon says...
7:19pm Sat 10 Jan 09

a very sad state of affairs.both sides need to cut a bit of slack to say the least

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Captain Sensible, Near Highworth says...
7:47pm Sat 10 Jan 09

I don't know what these nieve protesters expect to gain by mounting a vigil, its quite clear to me that what Gaza needs is a shoulder to cry on, some sympathetic councelling and help with his drink problems.Its such a shame to see the former cheeky geordie chappy in such a mess.

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Captain T, Swindon says...
7:47pm Sat 10 Jan 09

6 of one half a dozen of the other

They're as bad as each other and they're equally to blame for this 'war' going on

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PeeveD, Swindon says...
10:30pm Sat 10 Jan 09

This just in from the strip... Hamas and the Israeli special forces.... they've heard about a few candles being lit in Swindon by the usual small bunch of "anti" everything give us something to protest about and we will brigade and have apologized to the world for causing such a fuss and have downed weapons!

And Finally... protesters in the middle of the gaza strip have been lighting candles and holding a vigil to protest about the level of
violence outside the Israeli embassy in London!

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molethemad, swindon says...
12:50am Sun 11 Jan 09

As has been said . . . 6 of 1 etc. What the 'anti-war, protest at anything brigade' should be concerned about is the 'RABBITS'!! Rabbits??? I was watching Newsnight the other evening & had the subtitles on for some reason. There was an Israeli government spokesman stating that the only reason they were bombing Gaza was" because Hamas keep firing rabbits deep into Israeli territory". So there you have it, the whole **** thing is to do with interpretations of Watership Down. Poor rabbits eh, ALF will be at the Cenotaph next week.

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Bobfm, South Marston says...
8:59am Sun 11 Jan 09

What is so sad about this whole affair is the Hamas are probably creating the climate for the Palestinians never to have the State their people so want.

With the Israeli elections a short while away, the current rulers need to be re-elected if negotiations are to move forward for an agreement on the State. Currently the hard line opposition are ahead in the opinion poles and their leader Benjamin Netanyahu is against a Palestinian State.

So one has to pose the question, who is pulling Hamas's strings, who stands to gain from this certainly not Israel, or the Palestinian people.

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Big Mac, Old Town says...
9:11am Mon 12 Jan 09

Having seen the violence committed by the peace protestors (oh, the irony) in London over the weekend, I am sad to say that, once again, they have done their cause no favours.

By all means be upset at the Palestinians indiscriminately firing rockets into Israel and killing innocent women and children. By all means be upset about the IDF fighting back, as they promised they would.

But don't expect to be taken seriously when you're seen destroying police vehicles, throwing objects at policemen and vandalising propery on London's streets.

Nobody in Israel or Palestine even knows what you're doing - and even if they do, they obviously couldn't care less.

I was shocked that only three people were arrested at the London demonstrations. Obviously we know the police are sensitive about arresting Muslims but come on, criminal behaviour is criminal behaviour. Just because you're on some self-styled 'Stop The War' march doesn't change that.

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Bobfm, South Marston says...
11:38am Mon 12 Jan 09

BM, what was interesting is that the Israeli protest on Sunday went off without incident. A police spokesman commenting, 'as we expected it to'.

Clearly they didn't have the same view of Saturdays.

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Big Mac, Old Town says...
2:06pm Mon 12 Jan 09

Maybe we should take a leaf out of the protesters' book and throw our shoes at Snelgrove and Wills whenever the opportunity arises?

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Peace protesters mount a vigil for Gaza Peace protesters mount a vigil for Gaza


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