Al-Quds Day rally in Calgary, Alberta took place on May 31, 2019 in front of Calgary’s City Hall.
Here is the statement issued by the organizers:
Join us on Friday,May 31st 2019 to commemorate the International Day of Al-Quds. Al-Quds Day is a worldwide event dedicated to the rights and freedom of Palestinians against the illegal Zionist occupation as well as a day to stand in solidarity with all the oppressed of the world.
Typically, Al Quds Day is marked on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan. We ask all people of conscience to make an effort to attend this rally and use their voices on social media to stand up for the oppressed people of the world and in particular the people of Palestine.
“The Quds Day is a universal day. It is not an exclusive day for Quds [Palestine] itself. It is a day for the oppressed to rise and stand up against the oppressor.”
Here are excerpts from two of the speeches delivered at the event:
“Brother Ali”: Somebody recently said that and they declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I got news for you buddy. Nobody cares what you think. Nobody cares what you say. The capital of Palestine is right here. Jerusalem is not the capital of Israel. It is the capital for everybody. It is here in our hearts and the fact that we are all here standing today, showing our solidarity with the Palestinian people, the oppressed people, this right here shows a lot. Through over 70 years there have been atrocities and killings and genocide of Palestinians while the international community is still doing nothing. But this is all changing, because all over the world International Day of Al-Quds [unintelligible] from year to year it is growing, every year, year by year. I see it even over here in Calgary.
Aziz Raj: My brothers and sisters in faith and to all members in humanity, I’d like to greet you with peace and blessings. We have gathered here on this final Friday of [the month of] Ramadan while we are all fasting as a responsibility, a responsibility that first of all as humans it is in our innate nature to stand against injustice and also because Islam teaches us to stand against injustice. Islam teaches us to never oppress people… We are here to stand against all oppression, all injustices through the globe whether in the Muslim world or without the Muslim world, and in Bahrain people are being oppressed. In Yemen people are being oppressed, in China people are being oppressed, in the occupied lands of Palestine people are being oppressed, but here, even here in North America, in Canada, United States, people are being oppressed. What is the biggest oppression that is occurring here that people don’t know that their tax-money is being used to kill innocent people. This is a concern I have, not because I’m a Muslim, or as a human being, but because I’m a Canadian, I feel for my people and we are being oppressed by the government and by the Zionist lobbies within Canada and the United States. We condemn all those forms of oppression, all of it, no matter who it supports, because oppression anywhere is oppression everywhere. But there is a difference, my brothers and sisters, the oppression you see in Palestine, there is a difference between that oppression and other forms of oppression. The oppression in Palestine has been going on for the past 70 plus years. However, it has received legitimacy by certain powers and by certain international bodies… like the United Nations. This oppression has been legitimized. When they talk about occupation they don’t mean all of Palestine. They are talking about the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The rest of it is Israel. And that is legitimized. And that is the heart of the problem. Excuse me, but if someone kicked you out of your house and then said I want peace you should peacefully accept that I will take over your house. What kind of peace is that? Is that peace? How can we accept that? This is the difference, brothers and sisters. I promise I won’t take up all your time by listing every single human rights violation perpetrated by the Israeli government, but these are well known and have been well documented by every credible human rights organization in the world. Israel has been considered legitimate by my country Canada and by many other countries unfortunately, and this has led to a phenomenon that whoever stands up for Palestine and for the Palestinian people is considered a terrorist, and the states and countries that support the Palestinian people are considered state-sponsors of terrorism and an axis of evil by the illiterate President of the United States and many other politicians. We see the US President declared a year ago that the American embassy is going to be in capital pf Israel in Jerusalem, Al-Quds, which we know it is definitely not the capital of Israel. More recently he talked about the Golan Heights, which are of course is of [belong to] Syria, but he has declared that for Israel. We see since the beginning from the Balfour Declaration to the establishment of Israel, we see from the illegal settlements that are continued to be built, this is the problem. Every country is required [unintelligible] the treaty of non proliferation of nuclear weapons except for the Zionist regime of Israel. Now a country like Iran that has signed the treaty, that believes in the treaty and has passed any checkup by IAEA committee is considered going after nukes while the Zionist regime has nukes [unintelligible] is it legitimate? [unintelligible] What is this injustice my brothers and sisters? What is the biggest oppression that the people of the world are facing through the media. The media is oppressing the intellect, not the body, but the intellect of the human beings throughout the globe. Thus the Europeans kept millions uninformed on what is going on… Have you heard in the recent days and months have you anything about Palestine? You don’t see it. You don’t see the people dying there. One of the reasons that you and I are here is to make sure that we bring this oppression to an end. We may nor be able to go help the children in Palestine, because if we try and go it is legitimate for the [unintelligible] government to stop our boat in international waters and to not allow us to proceed even if you want to help them with humanitarian aid you would be labelled as a supporter of terrorism… from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea Palestine will be free.