Friday, March 29, 2024, 3:00 – 5:00 PM, Room 125 in Wiley Hall, 225 S 19th Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55455
UMN Educators for Justice in Palestine (EJP) in collaboration with the National Lawyers Guild and the MN Free Palestine Coalition has organized a lecture by the Palestinian-Amnerican attorney and human rights activist, Huwaida Arraf.
An internationally-known activist, Huwaida has been involved in a number of legal and grassroots initiatives for Palestinian rights in the past two decades. In 2001, she co-founded the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led non-violent resistance movement, which has twice been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. From 2007-2008, Huwaida helped build the first accredited clinical legal education program in the Arab world, based at Al-Quds University. She was one of the initiators and organizers of the first delegation of lawyers to enter Gaza following Operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), and co-authored the report on their findings, “Onslaught: Israel’s Attack on Gaza and the Rule of Law.” Huwaida is the former Chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, and from August to December 2008, led 5 successful sea voyages to the Gaza Strip to confront and challenge Israel’s illegal blockade on the 2 million Palestinians living there. She was one of the primary organizers of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and was traveling with it when it was lethally attacked by Israeli forces on 31 May 2010. In 2011, she was one of the six Palestinian Freedom Riders, who, inspired by the U.S. Civil Rights Movement’s Freedom Rides of the 1960s, attempted to ride segregated Israeli settler public transport, for which they were harassed then violently arrested.
Huwaida is currently based in Michigan where she practices civil rights law and continues to devote much of her time to activism on Palestine and other human rights and social justice issues. She is the co-chair of the National Lawyers Guild Palestine Subcommittee, and sits on a number of organizational boards, including New Generation for Palestine, Eyewitness Palestine and the Advisory Board of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights. In 2020 she served as a Bernie Sanders delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
