{"id":19327,"date":"2010-06-01T03:20:20","date_gmt":"2010-06-01T01:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turkishforum.com.tr\/en\/content\/?p=19327"},"modified":"2023-04-04T18:47:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-04T15:47:14","slug":"mandela-tutu-others-criticise-flotilla-deaths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/2010\/06\/01\/mandela-tutu-others-criticise-flotilla-deaths\/","title":{"rendered":"Mandela, Tutu &amp; others criticise Flotilla deaths"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0<strong>Sunny Hundal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Elders group of past and present world leaders, including former South African president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu today condemned as \u201ccompletely inexcusable\u201d the deadly Israeli attack on a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Elders have condemned the reported killing by Israeli forces of more than a dozen people who were attempting to deliver relief supplies to the Gaza Strip by sea,\u201d the 12\u2014member group said in a statement issued in Johannesburg, where it met over the weekend.<\/p>\n<p>The group, which was launched by Mr. Mandela on his birthday in 2007 to try to solve some of the world\u2019s most intractable conflicts, called for a \u201cfull investigation\u201d of the incident and urged the UN Security Council \u201cto debate the situation with a view to mandating action to end the closure of the Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-19328\" src=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/The-Elders-Group.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"635\" height=\"408\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/The-Elders-Group.jpg 635w, https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/The-Elders-Group-300x193.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 635px) 100vw, 635px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cThis tragic incident should draw the world\u2019s attention to the terrible suffering of Gaza\u2019s 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under the age of 18,\u201d<\/strong> the group said.<\/p>\n<p>Israel\u2019s three\u2014year blockade of Gaza was not only <strong>\u201cone of the world\u2019s greatest human rights violations\u201d and \u201cillegal\u201d under international law,<\/strong> <strong>it was also \u201ccounterproductive\u201d<\/strong> <strong><em>because it empowered extremists in the Palestinian territory, they said.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Elders includes <em>six Nobel peace prize winners <\/em><\/strong>\u2014 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, former US president Jimmy Carter, detained Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi and Mr. Mandela and Tutu.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Norway\u2019s first female Prime Minister Gro Brundtland; former Brazilian president Fernando Henrique Cardoso; former Irish president and ex\u2014UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson; Mozambican social activist Graca Machel; Indian women\u2019s rights activist Ela Bhatt; and Algerian veteran UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi are the other members.<\/p>\n<p><em>From a press release<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>, 1 June 2010<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by\u00a0Sunny Hundal The Elders group of past and present world leaders, including former South African president Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu today condemned as \u201ccompletely inexcusable\u201d the deadly Israeli attack on a flotilla carrying aid for Gaza. \u201cThe Elders have condemned the reported killing by Israeli forces of more than a dozen people who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":19328,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148,922],"tags":[3057],"class_list":["post-19327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-israel","category-world","tag-the-elders-group"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}