Date: August 5, 2009
To: The Committee of Mourning Mothers
From: Bay Area Women in Black
Oakland, California, USA
Dear Mourning Mothers,
We would like to convey to you our sense of sorrow and outrage at the treatment you and your loved ones are receiving from the Government of Iran. We conduct a silent vigil each Saturday to express our desire for the end of all injustice and repression, particularly in the Middle East but in any area where violence is done to human beings. We will dedicate our forthcoming vigils to the Mourning Mothers in the hopes that your children may be freed and that justice may be done.
In solidarity,
Bay Area Women in Black
* * * * * *
Bay Area Women in Black are Jews and allies in the United States who stand against militaristic and fundamentalist leadership in all countries, including our own. We are committed to nonviolent resistance against injustice, believing that all people have the right to security, home, education, justice and freedom. We are part of the international movement of Women in Black, a transnational network of feminist activists which includes women of many ethnic and national backgrounds who cooperate across these and other differences. Our international solidarity is an expression of the political decision to attempt to create a moral and ethical way to live our interconnected lives.
Our central focus is working non-violently to end the Israeli Occupation which we believe is a violation of human rights and international law. Only a just resolution of this conflict can bring peace and security for Israelis, Palestinians and the whole Middle East community. We challenge the key role of the United States government in supporting the Occupation through financial and military aid, and believe it only increases the threat to global security and widening militarism in the Middle-East.
We wear black and stand in public space in silence as a symbol of sorrow– for all victims of war, of religious, political and nationalistic struggles around the world and as a way to transform women’s mourning for the dead into a powerful refusal of the inevitability of war. Together we educate, inform and influence public opinion, and work cooperatively to create a future for our children, grandchildren and the earth
