Ho Chi Minh City – On 5th December 2014, the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Friendship Organizations, in cooperation with the Embassy of the State of Palestine in Vietnam, held a meeting and film screening in commemoration of the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian people.
Speaking at the meeting, Ambassador of the State of Palestine to Vietnam Saadi Salama said that the year 2014 has been proclaimed the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People by the United Nations General Assembly, in order to promote solidarity with the Palestinian people and generate further momentum and international support for the realization of their inalienable rights, including the right to establish an independent State of Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.
He thanked the Ho Chi Minh City Union of Friendship Organizations for co-organizing this event at the city named after the great leader of Vietnamese people for the first time.
“This is especially meaningful because Ho Chi Minh City has long been an enormous encouragement to the Palestine people as well as other national liberation movements around the world.”
“The victories of Vietnam over the years bring in not only invaluable lessons but also the inspiration and an enormous encouragement for Palestinian people to continue our enduring and difficult struggle for national independence and freedom.
Palestinian people have never forgotten President Ho Chi Minh’s words: “There is nothing more precious than independence and freedom”. Hope that those Independence and Freedom days will come to peace-loving Palestinian people in a near future”, said the Palestinian Ambassador.
The two documentaries Palestine in between occupation walls and Five broken cameras were also screened at the meeting in commemoration of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people in Ho Chi Minh City.
Palestine in between occupation walls is a 23-minute documentary produced by Vietnamese reporters after visiting Palestine in May 2011. The film depicts the life of Palestinian people living in the occupied land.
An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, Five broken cameras is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroachingIsraeli settlements. The film won awards at the International Emmy Awards 2013, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam and Sundance Film Festival in 2012. The movie was one of five documentaries nominated for an Academy Award in 2012.
The film screening was an opportunity for the people of Ho Chi Minh City to understand more about the country and the people of Palestine, as well as their indomitable struggle for independence and freedom, thus uniting together in the cause of building and developing the two countries.