Media Release

Palestine Human Rights Campaign

Release of Gaza Hostages 28 August 2006

The Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) of Auckland, welcomes the release, unharmed, of New Zealander Olaf Wiig and his Fox News American colleague Steve Centanni. PHRC also like to pay tribute to the tremendous efforts of the New Zealand government and Palestinian Prime Minister Haniyya in securing the release of Olaf Wiig and his colleague since their abduction a fortnight ago.

PHRC would welcome similar efforts by New Zealand and other members of the international community to secure the release from Israeli detention, of some 47 members of the Palestinian Parliament. These include the Speaker of the House, the Deputy Prime Minister, and four other ministers of the Hamas led Government in occupied Palestine.

PHRC is dismayed that world media and governments have paid scarce attention to the kidnapping by Israel of democratically elected members of parliament in occupied Palestine and have not acted to put an end to the barbarous military actions by the Israeli Defence Forces in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Human rights groups and the United Nations have alerted the world to the catastrophic results of the on-going Israeli slaughter in occupied Palestine. Since June, nearly two hundred people have been killed by Israeli military action as well as the intentional destruction of water and electricity and food supplies, all of which threaten the well-being of hundred of thousands of people living in Palestine, most particularly in Gaza.

ENDS

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