Ontario, June 7 (RHC)-- In a powerful display of solidarity, activists in Toronto unveiled a giant entirely handcrafted keffiyeh, the second largest in history. The event held at Queen's Park, the site of the Ontario legislature, aimed to protest the ban on keffiyehs inside the Legislative Building, a measure announced earlier in April.
Poetry readings, songs and impassioned speeches accompanied the unveiling, emphasizing the importance of this symbol and advocating for Palestinian rights.
One of the organizers of the protest, Fred Roy, said: "We want to get the governments of Canada whether they be municipal, provincial, or, federal, to understand that any form of a keffiyeh ban is actually cultural discrimination against the Palestinian culture and the Palestinian people."
Activists in Canada are countering the vilification and censorship of Palestinians through impactful large-scale art. The 75-meter-long keffiyeh was pieced together with 12 fabric panels, each bearing the names of over 15,000 Palestinian children and healthcare workers, who lost their lives in the Zionist genocide since October 7, 2023.
"If you look at the symbols and the icons on the keffiyeh, they far exceed the Israeli occupation in terms of time; the keffiyeh has been around for centuries." Fred Roy went on to say: "It is part of the culture, it is part of the land, and it is part of us as our Palestinian identity."
Grahame Russell, a Canadian human rights activist, told reporters: "What Canada is doing is atrocious in terms of both directly supporting and legitimizing the genocide in Palestine, and that the Ontario legislature would be pass this type of ban. It's tiny and it's horrific at the same time, but it's part of Canada's role in sort of supporting and/or legitimizing what Israel is doing in Palestine. And these are war crimes and crimes against humanity of the highest order."
Protesters in Canada are putting pressure on their government to end military support for Israel.
Additionally, organizers are calling on Ottawa to impose sanctions on Israel by severing diplomatic and economic ties and implementing a two-way arms embargo.
