Mr. Pierre Galand, the international coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, confirmed at a Cape Town press conference on Thursday that the Tribunal´s third session will be held November 5-6 in Cape Town, South Africa.
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine is an international people’s tribunal to promote peace and justice in Palestine and the Middle East, inspired by 1967’s Russell-Sartre Tribunal, which evaluated American foreign policy and military intervention in Vietnam.
Cape Town’s session follows sessions in Barcelona and London last year, and will investigate the similarities between the current state of the Palestinian people living under Israeli occupation and the former system of apartheid in South Africa. The session seeks to determine whether Israel’s policies fit the international legal definition of the crime of apartheid.
The Tribunal will convene in Cape Town´s iconic District Six with Nobel Peace Price winning bishop Desmond Tutu and South African activist Winnie Mandela being among the conveners. Holocaust survivor Stephane Hessel, one the 12 authors of 1948´s Universal Declaration on Human Rights, will also participate.
“May this tribunal that is being held in our country later this year end the crime of silence,” said Ms Madlala-Routledge, a former South African cabinet minister and a member of the South African Support Committee, the organization which put together the Cape Town session.
