Saturday, April 16, 2011

Candlelight vigil held for Italian activist


(Click on photo to enlarge)

Mourners rally in the Gaza Strip for Vittorio Arrigoni, found dead after being kidnapped by an al-Qaeda-linked group.

Al-Jazeera

"....There has been an outrage over the cold-blooded killing of the Italian. "I was about to cry when I heard the news. That man quit his family for us, for Gaza, and now Gazans killed him. That was so bad," Abu Ahmed, a supermarket owner, said. Samira Ali, a teacher, said: "Those who killed him are not Muslims and certainly not Palestinians." Arrigoni's kidnappers described him as a "journalist who came to our country for nothing but to corrupt people" - a charge completely rejected by activists and aid workers who knew him in Gaza. "He's very well-known, he lives among the people," said Huwaida Arraf, a co-founder of ISM. "Vit has repeatedly put his life in danger, put his life on the line in support of the Palestinians." A journalist colleague at the Italian daily Il Manifesto said he was "astounded" by Arrigoni's death. Arrigoni is the third ISM member to be killed in Gaza - US national Rachel Corrie was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer in March 2003, and a month later Briton Tom Hurndall was shot and critically injured by the army. He died in January 2004......"

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