ISRAELI MILITARY REFUSENIK

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2014 :: RMTnews 26 A young woman jailed by the government of Israel for refusing to serve in its army of occupation paid a visit to RMT headquarters recently. Noam Gur is a 19 year old anti-militarist activist from Jerusalem. In April 2012 she was jailed for refusing to serve in the Israeli Defence Force as part of compulsory national service. Noam said that she refused to join an army that has been engaged in dominating another nation, in plundering and terrorising a civilian population that is under its control. “The systematic destruction and dispossession that form part of a long-established policy of population-transfer, murder of non-violent demonstrators, the Apartheid wall, the massacre 'operations' that the Israeli army chooses to carry out, and the rest of the daily violations of the human rights of the Palestinians have led to a long but preventable cycle of bloodshed. "For years I have been told that this control is supposed to protect me, but information about the suffering caused due to terrorizing the Palestinian population is omitted from the story. “The road to achieving true and just peace is long and hard, but as I see it, these actions by the Israeli army only push it further away. “Over this past decade, the Palestinian people have been increasingly choosing the path of non-violent resistance, and I chose to join this path and to turn to a popular, nonviolent struggle in Palestine - this, rather than to serve in the Israeli army and continue the violence,” she said. Noam is an activist with organisations including Ta'ayush, a joint Jewish-Arab campaign which takes direct action in defence of the Palestinians. RMT general secretary Bob Crow welcomed Noam to Unity House and expressed solidarity with the refusnik movement inside Israel. “As workers we all want the same things, we want a home, dignity and respect and where workers are struggling we give all the support we can," he said. Noam also spoke at a meeting hosted by RMT’s Central Line East branch in London. Unions around the world expressed solidarity with South Korean rail workers on strike last month against privatisation by staging protest actions at Korean diplomatic missions. The strike by the Korean Railway Workers Union (KRWU) has been declared illegal, despite the fact that the union is complying with the minimum services requirement prescribed by national legislation. The union reports that the workers taking part in the strike have met with severe repression and the rail company Korail has pressed charges against nearly 200 KRWU officials. Mass rallies have been held across the country last month to demand that rail privatisation is stopped and hundreds of ITF- affiliated union around the world have sent e messages to the Korean government urging them to respect the right to strike. On the ninth day of the strike last month police raided the offices of the Korail union in Seoul, confiscating computers and internal documents. An 84-year-old passenger was also killed when a subway car dragged her along after a scab, untrained worker closed the train doors prematurely. Israeli woman jailed for refusing to serve in the Israeli army of occupation visits Britain ISRAELI MILITARY REFUSENIK SOLIDARITY: RMT executive committee member Janine Booth, Bob Crow and Noam Gur SOLIDARITY FOR KOREAN RAIL WORKERS