Candlelight vigil takes place on Piazza

On Tuesday the 20th of January hundreds of candles spelt “No Light for Gaza” unlit in the Warwick Piazza in a vigil held by Friends of Palestine Society.

While some suggested that this was intentional and gave the message a greater power through some poignant irony, it was, in fact not intended.

Friends of Palestine Society had told University Security of their plans to light the candles, offering to lay down a mat underneath them, have a fire extinguisher on stand-by and cordon off the area, but all to no avail.

91 signatures were collected by Friend of Palestine to petition for the allowance of the candles to be lit.

Novel solutions to overcome not being able to light the candles were tried. One was to have mobile phones over the top of the candles, the only problem being that someone had to go around pressing buttons on all of the phones to keep the back lights activated. The next solution was Christmas light on top of the letters.

Students walked out of The Graduate’s party showing Obama’s inauguration onto the Piazza. The protest continued in the cold, handing out leaflets about the occupation and protest badges.

Discussions ensued as to the solutions to and causes of the situation. The protest itself highlighted one of the most pressing political issues for the new administration.

This protest took place after the ceasefire but Friends of Palestine exec member Christos Symeou, emphasised that Gaza’s problems are far from over with reference to Israel’s US and EU backed blockade.

“People die every day because they can’t eat or from common diseases because they have no medical supplies, live in sewage and with no electricity, that’s violence too.

“We sometimes say imprisonment is a worse punishment than death. Not only are the people of Gaza imprisoned, they face conditions of humiliation that are the worst sort of violence, and come directly from the conditions imposed on Gaza by Israel.”

President of friends of Palestine Lina Nassar, herself from East Jerusalem, when asked what “no light” meant, answered that it had many meanings; that the Palestinian people “had no fuel, no electricity and no hope.”