Shalit letters delivered to the UN

THOUSANDS of letters signed by AJN readers calling on the United Nations Secretary-General to step up his efforts to secure the release of Gilad Shalit have been hand-delivered to the UN headquarters in New York.

Huge bundles of correspondence, citing the inhumane treatment of the young Israeli soldier kidnapped in 2006 by Hamas, were handed over to Australia’s Ambassador to the UN, Gary Quinlan, last week by the newspaper’s international editor, Ahron Shapiro.

Pledging to pass the letters on to Ban Ki-moon’s office, Quinlan hailed the campaign as “remarkable”, and stated that the overwhelming response was “an important expression of something which we know that all Australians adhere to ‚Ķ that this is an unacceptable situation, where someone like this has been taken prisoner and has not had humanitarian access and should not be held in the circumstances and the way in which he is being.”

Reflecting on the impact the letters would have, Quinlan added, “I think the Secretariat, by seeing this kind of effort and concern in the way it was expressed, will actually find this useful in reenforcing their own sense that this was wrong.

“The Secretary-General himself, of course, has called for the immediate release, so this is very helpful in that regard. We will personally ensure that it gets to the Secretariat and the right parts of the Secretariat.”

Since The AJN launched the campaign in June, more than 3000 letters have been sent into the newspaper’s office from all over Australia. A further 2000 have been signed by members of the Jewish community overseas.

AJN STAFF