OVER 300 people attended a protest against newly elected US President Donald Trump in Aberystwyth yesterday (Jan 30).
During the protest, Ceredigion Labour Party member and Aberaid organiser Lindsey Gaunt spoke to the crowds about a 12-year-old girl from Yemen called Emma, who had waited for years to get residency permits to join her mother and sister in America, and was at the airport waiting to get on a flight to join her family in the US when the ban was announced.
Emma was told that as a result of Trump’s ban on Muslims entering the US she would not be allowed to fly to join her family. Her father had spent his last $2000 on the flight to get his daughter to safety in the US, away from Yemen which has been bombed for the last 2 years by a Saudi-led coalition that the US has been supporting and the UK has been arming.
The Aberystwyth protest had been spontaneously organised in less than 24 hours by another Labour Party member in Ceredigion. During the same 24 hour period, Ceredigion residents contributed 2,277 of 1,584,418 signatures to the online petition calling for Donald Trump to be prevented from making a State Visit to the United Kingdom.
Eluned Morgan AM for West & Mid Wales, said in response to the Aberystwyth protest: “President Trump’s shameful and cruel executive order against refugees and Muslims has shocked and appalled people around the globe.
“Whilst every country has the right to set its own immigration policies, Trump’s actions go against the very values of freedom and tolerance for which the US is renowned. It is divisive and wrong to stigmatise people of a particular origin or particular faith, putting them under general suspicion for no good reason whatsoever, in particular, when they are suffering through no fault of their own.
“May should immediately rescind the invitation to welcome Trump on a state visit to the UK with all the pomp and ceremony that this entails. This is the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a foreign dignitary, we should reserve this privilege for truly great people.
She has a responsibility to stand up for the values and responsibilities that we hold dear in the UK.”
Stephen Kalisky, the organiser of the protest, said: “This is a broad protest organised by many groups, Stand Up To Racism is one of them. We are shocked to the core that Trump has introduced policies that seem like something you read in history books about the 1930s.
“This is, however as it is spun, a ban on Muslims. More shocking is our own Prime Minister’s complicity. Torture? Banning Muslims? We will not stand for this.
“I was told that numbers of around 300 people showed their support. Thank you all for coming out and showing the world how great Ceredigion is.”
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