Giant Keffiyeh Unveiled at Ontario Legislature in Response to Ban

By Staff, Agencies

In a powerful display of solidarity, activists in Toronto unveiled a giant entirely handcrafted keffiyeh, the second largest in history. The event held at Queen's Park, the site of the Ontario legislature, aimed to protest the ban on keffiyehs inside the Legislative Building, a measure announced earlier in April.

Poetry readings, songs and impassioned speeches accompanied the unveiling, emphasizing the importance of this symbol and advocating for Palestinian rights.

The 75-meter-long keffiyeh was pieced together with 12 fabric panels, each bearing the names of over 15,000 Palestinian children and healthcare workers, who lost their lives in the Zionist genocide since October 7, 2023.

Additionally, organizers are calling on Ottawa to impose sanctions on the apartheid “Israeli” entity by severing diplomatic and economic ties and implementing a two-way arms embargo.

They also demanded official government recognition of the Nakba [the catastrophe] of 1948 that saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians forcibly removed from their lands.

The keffiyeh was also carried to the “People Circle for Palestine”, the ongoing student-organized encampment at the University of Toronto.

The students' encampment at the University of Toronto continues, even after many similar encampments around North America have been dismantled by a brutal repressive, police force.

Having been there for over a month and with the graduation ceremony set to begin, students say that they will not be moved until their demands to divest from “Israeli” apartheid and genocide are met.