P.R: 6 Arab. Sec/22/3/2004
Doc: 4/3/2004
Sheikh Ahmed Yassin was assassinated at dawn on 23rd March 2002 as he was coming out of the mosque in his wheel chair after performing Fajr prayers. He and his nine companions were killed by three missiles. Both his sons were injured and one is in a crucial situation.
This was the massacre perpetrated by Sharon which he boasted to the world. For the first time in history an official declares he is a killer and is not arrested. Sharon and this heinous crime in killing a crippled old man after performing his prayers and his declaration that it was only the beginning for more brutal acts has ruptured all peace efforts and heralds more massacres. For he is the prime assassin in the world, the prime terrorist in the world and the prime racist in the world.
Sheikh Yassin was born in a village near Al Goura near the city of Al Magdal, south of Palestine in 1938. He was wounded in 1953 when he was in primary school which resulted in his being crippled. Nonetheless, he studied in Ein Shams University for a year and returned to Gaza and was a teacher in Gaza Preparatory School. He was arrested for the first time in 1983 and accused of possessing weapons in his home. He was released in May 1985. He was arrested once again by the occupation forces in the summer of 1988 for inciting the killing of informers cooperating with Israel. He was one of the leaders of the Islamic assembly that decided the establishment of the Islamic resistance movement – Hamas – at the end of 1987.
Israel is the only country in the world that declares that its leaders are killers and assassins. They are not indicted or brought to trial because the United States supports Israel and protects it from any condemnation and extends to it all means of support. In fact, Israel would not have taken such an action had it not been given the green light from America, the sole super power that justifies all its crimes and claims that it is a war against terrorism and self defense.
AAPSO condemns this crime and urges all national progressive democratic forces worldwide not only to denounce Sharon but his racist regime and his State as well that are based on invasion, expansion, settlement and occupation as well as to denounce all countries that support it.
Moreover, AAPSO calls upon the forces of peace and liberation to step up their efforts for the implementation of international legitimacy resolutions numbers 181, 194, 338, 242 and to demand the immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from the occupied Palestinian territories and the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with Al Quds as its capital.
AAPSO demands the immediate deployment of international forces until this is accomplished.
AAPSO extends to the Palestinian people and families of martyrs, above all Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and to the Palestinian authority its deepest condolences.