South Africans to Al Jazeera Net: The assassination of Sherine Abu Akleh brought back to our memory the crimes of the apartheid regime

Johannesburg -

The South African government has condemned the assassination of Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh by Israeli forces. express international law.

Danur stressed, in a statement to the media, that protest action in the event of occupation is one of the few ways that Palestinians can make their voices heard, noting that "international human rights law obliges the occupying power to allow freedom of expression and protests."

Zain Danour receives the protest document against the assassination of Sherine Abu Akleh by South African demonstrators (Al Jazeera)

memories of apartheid

In this context, Director of the Center for South African and Middle Eastern Studies, Naim Gina, points out that the attack on the funeral of Shireen Abu Akleh brought back many South Africans' memories of the South African security forces attacking the funerals of black activists in the 1970s and 1980s.

Speaking to Al Jazeera Net, Gina explains that this is another example of how South Africans see apartheid in Israel's actions against the Palestinians.

He adds that "when blacks in South Africa look at the Israeli occupation's treatment of the Palestinians, they remember how they were two or three decades ago, but it remains that the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians is worse than what the blacks faced in our country."

Writer and activist Zubaydah Jaafar expressed her dissatisfaction with the terrible attack on the funeral of journalist Sherine Abu Akleh.

In her social media posts, the writer asserts that the incident reminded her of the South African anti-apartheid activist Ashley Creel;

When police shot the coffin, they attempted to forcibly remove the ANC flag from the coffin in 1987.

While writer Tony Caron tweeted that in 1987 police attacked Ashley Creel's coffin to seize the ANC flag that had wrapped it;

Just as the Israeli occupation police attacked the coffin of Shireen Abu Aqleh today, in an attempt to seize the Palestinian flags, indicating that "the apartheid regimes wage war on their victims even after death."

The South African cleric and director of the Churches Committee for International Affairs in the World Council of Churches, Frank Chikany, had stated that the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh, in his opinion, "is only comparable to the crimes of the assassination of political leaders in South Africa for its atrocity."

Chikani explains, in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, that the assassination of Sherine is only a reminder to him of obscuring his identity and obscuring the truth.

Naim Jena delivers a speech in his protest against the assassination of colleague Sherine Abu Akleh (Al Jazeera)

assault on freedom

The Pan-African African Forum specialized in Progressive Thought issued a strongly worded statement about the assassination of Shireen Abu Akleh, describing what happened as a "despicable attack on freedom."

The spokesperson for the African Forum, David Monyah, notes that the Israeli security forces must be held responsible for the increasingly violent "criminal" attacks on the Palestinian people.

Monyah told Al Jazeera Net, "The forum is forced to speak out against the shameful assassination of journalist Sherine Abu Akleh, and that the sadistic forms of violence directed against mourners, including the storming of the home of the bereaved family, are nothing but a shocking reminder to the people of South Africa of the horrors of the brutality of apartheid." ".

He adds, "The compelling evidence that the bullet that killed Shirin was fired by an Israeli sniper points to a previously planned conspiracy to remove the voice of justice for Palestinian rights, which has long highlighted the excessive aggression of the Israeli occupation to silence dissent and subjugate the Palestinian people."

From the writer Zubaida's page, in which she tells about her experience in supporting the Palestinian cause (social networking sites)

due accountability

“These outrageous attacks on the Palestinian struggle for freedom and justice are an assault on every citizen of South Africa,” Monyah explains, adding that “the defeat of the apartheid regime in South Africa taught them that unless the policy of impunity is ended with accountability, evil will continue.” in victory."

Activists in the country said - in a statement - that "the Israeli apartheid state must be isolated and exposed, as the killing of the militant Steve Biko at the hands of the South African regime stimulated the anti-apartheid liberation forces," and called on Palestinian activists to intensify their efforts to put a decisive end to apartheid. Israeli.

While Imtiaz Kaji, nephew of Ahmed Timol (killed by the Apartheid Security Police in South Africa by being thrown from the tenth floor of John Forster Square Police Station in Johannesburg), stated that "Israel is another practical example of the apartheid state they lived in South Africa."

Kaji points out to Al Jazeera Net that the painful pictures the world saw reminded him of the injustice that happened to his uncle during apartheid and that this should not continue.