My first rally of the year - a rally for peace in Gaza. This rally was in Charlotte, NC. I first heard about it on New Year's Day, and emailed some friends to see if they wanted to go - one friend did, so we left for Charlotte about 9:30 this morning. We were expecting a rally that lasted an hour, and thought it would start at noon. It did not start until 1 PM, and it included a march and a second rally. We left to go home at 2:30.It was a peaceful and respectful rally. They mentioned all the people around the world who were attending rallies against Israel's bombing of Gaza, including rallies inside Israel and the West Bank. Here's a link to a rally in Toronto.
And here is a link to some other rallies. Paris had over 21,000 protesters and London had over 10,000. In London, they also threw shoes at 10 Downing Street. It appears that throwing shoes is catching on around the world. Here is a link to the protests inside the USA.
I am happy to report that there was no Israeli bashing, just bashing of Israel's policies. When we arrived they handed us two handouts - one on the facts about Israel's war on Gaza, and the other one had the march route, the rules of the rally (to stay civil and orderly and to promote peace) and some contact information for legislative officials. The co-sponsors of the rally were the Muslim American Society Charlotte, Al-Awda, Islamic Political Party of America, Action Center for Justice, Masjid Ash-Shaheed, Code Pink (but I did not see any pinkers there), Islamic Society of Greater Charlotte, Muslim Women of the Carolinas, and the Islamic Center of Charlotte. I wish they had handed out a list of the speakers for the rally. There were lots of cute little kids running around.
Next time I will focus more on the speakers and less on taking photos. But I like the photos!
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