A British journalist, who participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla, has praised Türkiye’s hospitality after being deported from Israel but stressed that the most important thing Ankara did was to take activists to doctors and lawyers and gather “evidence of crimes against humanity.”
Kieran Andrieu is one of the 13 British citizens who were illegally detained by Israel after it attacked the Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters.
In an interview with Anadolu at Heathrow Airport, where he arrived late on Sunday from Türkiye along with three other British activists, Sarah Wilkinson, Francis Cummings, and Evie Snedker, he said that the trip itself lasted more than twice as long as they expected, as it was difficult.
However, he added, “We were held together by, first and foremost, our love of Palestine and our love of the people of Gaza. Second, by the bonds of loyalty that we developed with one another after we’d been on the boat for a period of time, and so that carried us through.”
Citing drone attacks, logistical nightmares, and storms while they were on board en route to Gaza, Andrieu said such hardship is nothing compared to the daily travails that an occupying, genocidal state has forced upon Palestinians.
“It was illegal under international law for them to board our boat, for them to intercept us. We had every right, as long as the people of Gaza want us in their territorial waters,” he said, mentioning Israeli attacks on the flotilla.
‘We were brought blindfolded’
About how the Israeli forces treated the activists after illegally detaining them, Andrieu said they were denied water for long periods of time, which is a violation of the Geneva Convention.
“We were brought blindfolded, tied on a bus that was freezing cold in the middle of the night, to a prison in the Negev desert, where Palestinian prisoners have been tortured in the past.”
Recalling that they were forced into tiny cells, 10 to 12 people in a cell, he said the activists were even denied essential medicines.
“People had their medicines thrown away in front of them. I saw people with heart conditions of all ages, including people in their 80s, have their medicine thrown away.”
Touching on Israeli officials’ statements labelling people on the Global Sumud Flotilla as “terrorists,” Andrieu said: “Interesting, terrorists whose only weapons are baby formula, food, packets of rice and medicines.”
“Obviously, the only terrorists are the people who are committing genocide, who think that they have total impunity to bomb all their neighbours whenever it suits them politically for domestic political reasons, and who have created more child amputees than at any other time in the past century anywhere in the world,” he added.
‘Clear torture’
Andrieu said that labelling activists as terrorists is “pathetic” and “laughable,” adding that those who think like that ought to “hang their heads in shame” every day for the rest of their lives.
“But they won’t, because nobody who has the capacity to do that would preside over such a disgusting genocide,” he added.