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Japanese
Suicide In Protest As Britons Join In Human Shield
TOKYO,
April 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Japanese campaigner for
Palestinian rights committed suicide by setting himself on fire in a
Tokyo park to protest the Israeli security clampdown in the Middle
East, a fellow activist said Monday, quoted by news agencies.
Takao Himori, 54, poured gasoline over his body and set himself alight
Saturday, said his friend Masao Adachi.
Police spokesman Koji Hata confirmed that a man burned to death over
the weekend in the park, but refused to reveal his identity.
“People
watching the cherry blossoms suddenly saw flames shoot up and called
the police,”' Hata said.
Himori, a member of the activist group “Voice,” frequently
participated in hunger strikes and candlelight vigils in support of
the Palestinian cause, said Adachi.
After firefighters extinguished the flames, they asked Himori if the
burns were self-inflicted, Adachi said, quoting a police report shown
to family members.
“He
nodded in assent, and died,” Adachi said.
A number of Japanese activist groups held rallies Saturday, celebrated
by Palestinians as ‘Land Day,” to protest Israel's crackdown on
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat. Israeli forces kept Arafat
trapped in his Ramallah office for a fourth day Monday, as they
stepped up incursions in the West Bank.
Earlier,
Japan called on both Israelis and Palestinians Saturday to exercise
self-restraint to prevent the conflict between them from escalating
further, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.
"Our
country for its part is determined to make utmost efforts with other
countries concerned to find a solution to the status quo," the
statement said.
Meanwhile,
more than 200 international volunteers, including some 50 Britons,
deployed themselves in Ramallah and two refugee camps at Bethlehem
Sunday night in an attempt to form "human shields" for
Palestinian families, the British daily online The Guardian reported.
The
British contingent, ranging from a retired nurse from Kent to a group
of students from Manchester, joined Americans and Europeans dispersed
among houses close to Yasser Arafat's headquarters and Israeli
occupation army tank formations near Bethlehem's Azar and Aida refugee
camps.
Israel
ordered all foreign volunteers and journalists to leave Ramallah
Sunday after announcing it as a closed military area, as another media
worker was shot and wounded while covering the fighting in the city.
The
warning came as Anthony Shadeed, an American reporter for the Boston
Globe, was wounded in the back and shoulder after being shot near the
city's main square. He said he was walking along one of the main
streets with a Palestinian when he was hit from behind by a single
sniper shot.
But
speaking above gunshots and the clatter of a surveillance helicopter,
Rory Macmillan, an international business lawyer from Scotland, said
he was at the Aida camp in Bethlehem to offer non-violent resistance
to any attempt by the Israelis to arrest Palestinians or threaten
families, The Guardian said.
"I
decided to use my Easter holidays to come out with a group to dig up
roadblocks and block tanks in the occupied territories," he said.
"There are 15 or more tanks close by and there's a general
expectation that they'll move in.
"The
soldiers don't use the streets - they move from house to house,
blasting holes in the wall to get through. We're here in the hope
they'll hold back if there's a foreign national."
In
Ramallah, Osama Mutawa from Brighton said his group of human shields
asked the British consulate Sunday to evacuate them but had been told
there were no plans to do so.
He
said "the British public has no idea what is going on here. We
decided we should come and try and stay with families to protect
them."
Sarah
Irving, 26, a Manchester University MA student in political economy,
who is also staying at Azar, said “You can't go anywhere at the
moment, it's too dangerous, but we are each staying with a family.
There are 38 tanks at the nearest checkpoint and we can hear an
Israeli Cobra helicopter overhead."
Mortaza
Sahibzada, another British volunteer, said that despite the
deteriorating situation, he planned to stay on at Aida until the
second week in April, when he had to get back to his work as a
research fellow in engineering at Imperial College, London.
Most
of the British volunteers traveled to the Middle East with the
International Solidarity Movement, a coalition of groups concerned
about the plight of the Palestinians.
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