‘Foragers’ film screening and talk with Palestinian Activists

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Speakers

Talha AlAli, speaker, Amnesty International Ireland
Fatin Al Tamimi, speaker, Vice-Chair, Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Stephen Bowen, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland

Full Event Details

Foragers depicts the dramas around the practice of foraging for wild edible plants in Palestine/Israel with wry humour and a meditative pace. Shot in the Golan Heights, the Galilee and Jerusalem, it employs fiction, documentary and archival footage to portray the impact of Israeli nature protection laws on these customs. The restrictions prohibit the collection of the artichoke-like ’akkoub and za’atar (thyme), and have resulted in fines and trials for hundreds caught collecting these native plants. For Palestinians, these laws constitute an ecological veil for legislation that further alienates them from their land while Israeli state representatives insist on their scientific expertise and duty to protect. Following the plants from the wild to the kitchen, from the chases between the foragers and the nature patrol, to courtroom defences, Foragers captures the joy and knowledge embodied in these traditions alongside their resilience to the prohibitive law. By reframing the terms and constraints of preservation, the film raises questions around the politics of extinction, namely who determines what is made extinct and what gets to live on.

This film screening will be followed by a talk with Palestinian activists to explore the joy and knowledge embodied in foraging traditions, alongside resilience to prohibitive laws than ban these customs by the Israeli State.

This event is hosted by the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Amnesty International Ireland.

Talha Al Ali – speaker (Amnesty International Ireland)

Fatin Al Tamimi – speaker (Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign)

Stephen Bowen, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland

Speaker Biographies:

Fatin Al Tamimi is Vice-Chairperson and a Director of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign. A Palestinian woman, she has been living and raising her family in Ireland for more than 30 years. Her family originally hails from Hebron and Gaza in Palestine, and she still has close relatives living in both areas. She has been involved for many years in Palestine solidarity work in Ireland, and in 2016 she was elected to the position of Chairperson of the IPSC in which she served for five years, the first Palestinian to hold the position. She is also active in anti-racist, anti-war and women’s groups in Ireland, and has spoken at many events.

Talha is a Youth Activism Officer with Amnesty International Ireland. A Palestinian human rights activist, performer, lyricist, and hip-hop artist. Talha started fighting for political change and social justice in Palestine at a young age through hip-hop music and theatre in the early 2000s. Talha’s passion for empowering people did not stop at music and theatre. He graduated from university as a psychologist and a counsellor and continued his post-grad in mental health and psychotherapy to work as a psychotherapist alongside his work in human rights.

Bowen, a barrister specialising in international human rights law and an academic with over 30 years’ experience, has served as the Chief of Staff and Legal Adviser at the UN Special Coordinator for Sarajevo, and as Chief Human Rights Officer to the UN Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNMIBH) during the conflict in the former Yugoslavia. He is also a former Director of the British Institute of Human Rights and most recently completed his role as Human Rights Course Director at Kingston University, London. Bowen has also been a Visiting Professor of International Human Rights Law at Queen Mary, University of London.

He not only brings his legal and academic expertise to the role, but also a wealth of NGO experience having spent time with Amnesty International UK as Campaigns Director and as Director for External Affairs with Scope, one of the UK’s leading disability equality charities. Bowen was Legal Adviser to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights in the Gaza Strip and is a former trustee of Manchester Pride. Today he is a trustee of Sheffield DocFest and a trustee of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Health, a faculty of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is a movement of 10 million people which mobilises the humanity in everyone and campaigns for change so we can all enjoy our human rights. Our vision is of a world where those in power keep their promises, respect international law and are held to account. We are independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. We are funded by our members and supporters. We believe that acting in solidarity and compassion with people everywhere can change our societies for the better. In Ireland, our 20,000 members and supporters campaign on issues like reproductive rights, ending torture and protecting migrant and refugee rights, among others.

What does Amnesty International do?

• We investigate and expose the facts, whenever and wherever human rights abuses happen.
• We lobby governments and other powerful groups to make sure they respect international law.
• We mobilise millions of supporters around the world to campaign for change and to stand in defence of human rights activists
• We support people to claim their rights through education and training.

Our History

In 1961, British lawyer Peter Benenson was outraged when two Portuguese students were jailed just for raising a toast to freedom. He wrote an article in The Observer and launched a campaign that provoked an unprecedented response. Reprinted in newspapers across the world, his call to action sparked the idea that people everywhere can unite in solidarity for justice and freedom.

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC)

The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) is the largest and longest established organisation working for Palestinian rights on this island. We formed in 2001 as a democratic, broad-based and multi-faceted campaign to support the human, civil, political and national rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Territories, in Israel and in the Palestinian Diaspora.

The IPSC is a volunteer-based coalition of individuals, human rights and political activists, academics, journalists and trade unionists all committed to a just peace in the Middle East. We are independent of all Irish and Palestinian political parties and groups.

The IPSC campaigns for freedom, justice and equality for the Palestinian people and for an end to Israel’s racist and colonialist apartheid system. We do this through raising public awareness about the human rights abuses in the occupied territories, the violations of international law and the historical causes of the injustices to the Palestinians that lie at the heart of the Palestine-Israel issue.

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