PRESS RELEASE 01 June 2010

PRESS RELEASE 01 June 2010

Dear Press Members;

38 hours have passed since Israel carried out brutal attacks on our ships of “Palestine Our Route, Humanitarian Aid Our Load” campaign. Unfortunately, our concerned wait still continues. We have shared the stories of those who have been deported and returned to Turkey, with you. Their stories clearly show the extent that the Israeli terror goes to. Especially the testimony by Nilufer Cetin whose 1,5 year-old toddler was kept in detention for hours proves us right in our concerns. Nilufer, told us about those who martyred of treatable injuries following the attacks due to a lack of emergency treatment. Yesterday, we shared with you our concern about possible deaths of the injured due to a lack of treatment. Sadly, through our returning friends’ words, we found out that the ship turned into a lake of blood. Israel put handcuffs even on those who were severely injured. Moreover, Israel still has not given a definite number of our martyrs. We fear that our friends especially those from the organization’s administrative board might be prosecuted following the interrogations. We invite Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Ministry to be cautious about this. Another matter of fact that we continuously mention in our press meetings as well is that we will be pursuing legal action regarding both the terrorist attack and the aid cargo of ours. We will take it as far as it gets. Accordingly, families of those who were on the ship have given authorizations to the lawyers assigned by Mazlum-Der. We would like everyone to know that we will bring those who are responsible for the terrorist attacks to account. We also demand international independent observers to be present during the unloading of the ships in Ashdod harbor of Israel who once again has proven to be a terrorist state, because we fear that Israel will set up a complot by placing weapons into the humanitarian aid cargo while unloading. Everyone should be certain that the terrorist state will do everything to veil its brutality.

Kind Regards

IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation