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By Raúl Ayrala. Peninsula 360 Press.
With the student protests in our region, state and throughout the country, very present in the minds and hearts of organizers and attendees, last Saturday, May 4, the 2024 Testimonial Dinner of the Bay Area National Lawyers Guild (National Lawyers Guild or NLG).
The meeting was titled "In the streets / In our hearts", and the place chosen was the Instituto Familiar de la Raza, in the Latin neighborhood of the Mission. After the welcome by Camilo Pérez-Bustillo, executive director of the NLG, and while enjoying good wine, delicious bites and Arab desserts, three "Champions of Justice" were recognized: the Palestinian Youth Movement, the organization of defense Palestine Legal and activist Judith ?Mirk? Mirkinson.
?Despite everything that is happening in the world, the advance of fascism, here we are. And I want to tell you that there is nothing better than being an activist,” said ?Mirk? upon receiving recognition from the NLG.
Judith Mirkinson, former president of the local Executive Board of the National Lawyers Guild, has been an activist and organizer for 50 years. Beginning with her participation in marches and demonstrations against the War in Vietnam, she has been involved in internationalist causes, for example: the defense of women sexually enslaved by the Japanese army during World War II.
Mirk was crucial in 2015 in the construction of the monument that remembers the sadly called "comfort women" and which was built in San Francisco's Chinatown.
Last Saturday was a night "of celebration of the resilience of the movement against repression and fascism in the United States, against the students and against the Palestinian people," said Valeria Vera, one of the masters of ceremonies, belonging to the Table NLG executive.
According to Vera, who also studies law at UCSF, the university students' demonstrations are in response "to the genocide by Israel, which did not begin in October, but has been going on for decades."
Valeria stressed that Judith Mirkinson's words were inspiring and gave her encouragement. ?The best way to resist is to exist; demonstrate that we will not leave, and also train people who may be inadequately informed about what is happening? in the Middle East.
For her part, Julia Muhsen, who has Mexican and Palestinian roots and was in charge of presenting the NLG recognition to Palestine Legal, explained that the award-winning organization of lawyers founded in 2012, has been defending and supporting the Liberation movement for all these years. of Palestine.
Muhsen is a law student at Berkeley, volunteers for the NLG, and is about to graduate. His father was born in the West Bank (what in English is called the West Bank) and his mother in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico.
The third recognition was for the Palestinian Youth Movement, which is defined as a transnational, independent and grassroots organization made up of young Palestinians in exile as a result of the Zionist colonization and occupation of Palestine.
"Belonging to Palestine and our aspirations for justice and liberation motivate us to assume an active role as a young generation in the national struggle to liberate our homeland and our people," through popular mobilizations, political education and participation with other movements. So says the presentation of this activist group, detailed in the program of the NLG Testimonial Dinner, which is annual and began to honor its ?champions of justice? in the year 1979.
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