On March 13th, five years since Oakland activist Tristan Anderson was shot in Palestine, some one hundred people gathered at Oscar Grant Plaza in solidarity.
On March 13, 2009, American ISM volunteer Tristan Anderson was critically injured after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops… Anderson was taken to a hospital in Israel, where he underwent brain surgery, and had to have a portion of his frontal lobe and fragments of shattered bone removed.
Gabby, hosting the gathering at OGP, had noted on Democracy Now in 2009
“We were at a demonstration against the wall, against the Israeli apartheid wall in the West Bank village of Ni’lin, which is about twenty-six kilometers west of Ramallah. I was very close to him when he was shot. I was only a few feet away. The demonstration had been going for several hours. It was wrapping up; it was almost over. Most people had already gone home. We were standing on some grass nearby a village mosque, and Tristan was taking pictures whe] he was shot in the head with the extended range tear gas canister.”
A march, enlivened by the Brass Liberation Orchestra, then took place, stopping in front of Veolia’s Oakland office, where Paul Larudee, a human rights activist, and local labor and justice advocate Tova, spoke out against Veolia company’s oppression of its workforce around the world.
Then on to 19th & Telegraph, where Gabby spoke, among other things, about what happened to Tristan and others who helped him at the time he was shot and its immediate aftermath. Tristan was delayed at an Israeli checkpoint for 15:00 critical minutes, ultimately getting treatment in a Tel Aviv hospital for fifteen months because he would not have had health insurance had he come back to the United States.
A listing of video times for the speakers and such:
- Eva Bartlett: 3:15
- Noura Khouri 16:00
- BLO in front of Veolia: 25:30
- Paul Larudee in front of Veolia: 27:30
- Tova: 32:00
- BLO at the 19th & Telegraph statues: 33:40
- Gabby at the statues: 35:30
- “All of these people in these pictures have been, either killed, mostly killed…” : 40:00
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