25 Million Stitches - One Stitch, One Refugee; Raising awareness of the global refugee crisis through Art

Refugee is a person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. The number of global refugees has been doubling roughly every decade.  —Panel by Penny Peters, Washington

 

From Kindergarten to Graduate students, schools from Dominican Republic, Canada, and the U.S. from 5 year old to 91 year olds, 3 generations in a family, groups of diverse faith organizations generously donated their time to build our community and express their support for the refugees

 

If you are interested in booking this show, please contact at: 25millionstitches@gmail.com

25 Million Stitches

One Stitch, One Refugee; Raising awareness of the global refugee crisis through Art

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 25 Million Stitches was initiated and conceived in May 2019 by Jennifer Kim Sohn, a multimedia artist and activist, in Sacramento, CA, to create a community of art activists to visually document the enormity of the number of refugees in the world and to sustain the concern for the refugees in the minds of global citizens. 

 https://www.25millionstitches.com/upcoming-shows

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies here, there- and everywhere]

"People talk about post-traumatic stress, but for us, there is no post-era; the trauma is ongoing. Keeping our people safe in such a context is incredably difficlut, especially when you see your mother in pieces, your father under rubble, and your friends gone. Such experiences profoundly affect your brain and emotions, and we must help our people to be resilient in this harsh reality." -Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb of Palestine

Bright Stars of Bethlehem  https://www.instagram.com/bright_stars_of_bethlehem/?g=5

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

A UN expert claimed Israel was systematically torturing Palestinians on a scale "that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent", in a report released to media on Friday.

Francesca Albanese is the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 (Andrej ISAKOVIC)

UN expert claims Israel using 'systematic' torture

AFP

Fri, March 20, 2026

A UN expert claimed Israel was systematically torturing Palestinians on a scale "that suggests collective vengeance and destructive intent", in a report released to media on Friday.

Francesca Albanese, the UN's special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said that since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, which triggered the Gaza war, Palestinians in custody "have been subjected to exceptionally ruthless physical and psychological abuse"... READ MORE  https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/un-expert-claims-israel-using-210403092.html

[AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

"No self-respecting journalist considers Holocaust denial a legitimate point of view, and no serious media organisation argues that impartiality requires it to provide Holocaust denial with a platform in any serious discussion about Germany's extermination of Europe's Jews during World War Two - let alone equal time, or beginning and ending every such discussion with "Germany said". Gaza Genocide denial, by contrast, is a well-organised and orchestrated global campaign sponsored, funded, and avidly promoted - without any hindrance whatsoever - by the regime perpetrating the genocide."

Paper boats and a 'Stop the genocide' poster at a Palestine solidarity protest during the Venice Film Festival on 30 August 2025 (Stefano Rellandini/AFP)

In the West, it is a crime to deny one Holocaust and dangerous to name another

Mouin Rabbani

5 September 2025 

 

While outlawing Holocaust denial, western governments punish critics of Israel's crimes and elevate denial of its ongoing genocide in Gaza to official policy and media orthodoxy

The difference between Holocaust denial and Gaza Genocide denial is that Holocaust denial is illegal or a criminal offence in many countries, and is, for the most part, the preserve of marginalised kooks and conspiracy theorists.

No self-respecting journalist considers Holocaust denial a legitimate point of view, and no serious media organisation argues that impartiality requires it to provide Holocaust denial with a platform in any serious discussion about Germany's extermination of Europe's Jews during World War Two - let alone equal time, or beginning and ending every such discussion with "Germany said".

Gaza Genocide denial, by contrast, is a well-organised and orchestrated global campaign sponsored, funded, and avidly promoted - without any hindrance whatsoever - by the regime perpetrating the genocide.

In many states, Gaza Genocide denial counts among its champions elected and other senior officials, influential lobbies and powerful organisations. Its messages are amplified by an international network of conspiracy theorists, fanatic ideologues and hired hands.

Serious media organisations not only consider it a journalistic requirement to give Gaza Genocide denial a platform and equal time, but they also routinely communicate Israel's talking points to their audiences. The BBC's compulsive resort to "Israel says" is a case in point.

In many of the same states that have criminalised Holocaust denial, it is opposition to, rather than open denial of, the Gaza Genocide that is criminalised and punished. People have been fired from jobs, lost business, forfeited careers and educational opportunities, and literally been imprisoned for speaking out against it.

This repression is happening during the Gaza Genocide, when such voices are most urgently needed to influence governments that, under the 1948 Genocide Convention, are obligated not only to punish but also to prevent genocide.

Denial as policy... READ MORE

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/west-criminal-deny-holocaust-while-it-is-dangerous-recognise-gaza-genocide

 AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine, or at least fair and just laws and policies]

"I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear." ... My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner A letter dictated by Mahmoud Khalil over the phone from ICE detention in Louisiana. Mahmoud Khalil March 18, 2025

Protestors show support for pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil on March 15, 2025, at the University of Washington campus in Seattle. Khalil was arrested without a warrant on March 8 by the Department of Homeland Security. Photo by Jason Redmond / AFP) (Photo by JASON REDMOND/AFP via Getty Images

The contents of this letter have not been edited.

My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law.

Who has the right to have rights? It is certainly not the humans crowded into the cells here. It isn’t the Senegalese man I met who has been deprived of his liberty for a year, his legal situation in limbo and his family an ocean away. It isn’t the 21-year-old detainee I met, who stepped foot in this country at age nine, only to be deported without so much as a hearing.

Justice escapes the contours of this nation’s immigration facilities.

On March 8, I was taken by DHS agents who refused to provide a warrant, and accosted my wife and me as we returned from dinner. By now, the footage of that night has been made public. Before I knew what was happening, agents handcuffed and forced me into an unmarked car. At that moment, my only concern was for Noor’s safety. I had no idea if she would be taken too, since the agents had threatened to arrest her for not leaving my side. DHS would not tell me anything for hours — I did not know the cause of my arrest or if I was facing immediate deportation. At 26 Federal Plaza, I slept on the cold floor. In the early morning hours, agents transported me to another facility in Elizabeth, New Jersey. There, I slept on the ground and was refused a blanket despite my request.

My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza, which resumed in full force Monday night. With January’s ceasefire now broken, parents in Gaza are once again cradling too-small shrouds, and families are forced to weigh starvation and displacement against bombs. It is our moral imperative to persist in the struggle for their complete freedom.

I was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria to a family which has been displaced from their land since the 1948 Nakba. I spent my youth in proximity to yet distant from my homeland. But being Palestinian is an experience that transcends borders. I see in my circumstances similarities to Israel’s use of administrative detention — imprisonment without trial or charge — to strip Palestinians of their rights. I think of our friend Omar Khatib, who was incarcerated without charge or trial by Israel as he returned home from travel. I think of Gaza hospital director and pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, who was taken captive by the Israeli military on December 27 and remains in an Israeli torture camp today. For Palestinians, imprisonment without due process is commonplace.

I have always believed that my duty is not only to liberate myself from the oppressor, but also to liberate my oppressors from their hatred and fear. My unjust detention is indicative of the anti-Palestinian racism that both the Biden and Trump administrations have demonstrated over the past 16 months as the U.S. has continued to supply Israel with weapons to kill Palestinians and prevented international intervention. For decades, anti-Palestinian racism has driven efforts to expand U.S. laws and practices that are used to violently repress Palestinians, Arab Americans, and other communities. That is precisely why I am being targeted.

While I await legal decisions that hold the futures of my wife and child in the balance, those who enabled my targeting remain comfortably at Columbia University. Presidents Shafik, Armstrong, and Dean Yarhi-Milo laid the groundwork for the U.S. government to target me by arbitrarily disciplining pro-Palestinian students and allowing viral doxing — based on racism and disinformation—to go unchecked.

Columbia targeted me for my activism, creating a new authoritarian disciplinary office to bypass due process and silence students criticizing Israel. Columbia surrendered to federal pressure by disclosing student records to Congress and yielding to the Trump administration’s latest threats. My arrest, the expulsion or suspension of at least 22 Columbia students — some stripped of their B.A. degrees just weeks before graduation — and the expulsion of SWC President Grant Miner on the eve of contract negotiations, are clear examples.

If anything, my detention is a testament to the strength of the student movement in shifting public opinion toward Palestinian liberation. Students have long been at the forefront of change — leading the charge against the Vietnam War, standing on the frontlines of the Civil Rights Movement, and driving the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Today, too, even if the public has yet to fully grasp it, it is students who steer us toward truth and justice.

The Trump administration is targeting me as part of a broader strategy to suppress dissent. Visa-holders, green-card carriers, and citizens alike will all be targeted for their political beliefs. In the weeks ahead, students, advocates, and elected officials must unite to defend the right to protest for Palestine. At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.

Knowing fully that this moment transcends my individual circumstances, I hope nonetheless to be free to witness the birth of my first-born child.

 https://inthesetimes.com/article/mahmoud-khalil-letter-from-a-palestinian-political-prisoner-in-louisiana

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or quotes or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine]

 

Jewish Voice for Peace protest in New York City Trump Tower for FREE SPEECH & Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil

 ~~~

Timeline: The Palestinian Nakba (Catastrophe) & Establishment of Israeli Apartheid

1. Prelude to Catastrophe (Late 1800s-1945)

"We shall try to spirit the penniless [Palestinian] population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country... expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discreetly and circumspectly." - Theodor Herzl, the founder of modern political Zionism, 1895... "  READ MORE  https://imeu.org/article/the-nakba-65-years-of-dispossession-and-apartheid

Key context on the Palestinian activist arrested by ICE: I Was a Columbia Student Journalist. Here’s What to Know About Mahmoud Khalil. By Irie Sentner 3/13/2025

There’s a website called Canary Mission that posts the names and images of anyone seen as anti-Israel — including student journalists whose coverage the Canary moderators don’t like.
 

New York Police Department officers surround the pro-Palestinian encampment at Columbia University in New York City, on April 30, 2024. | Irie Sentner/POLITICO

1

What was Mahmoud Khalil’s role in Columbia’s student protests? And do you know what his immigration status was during the protests?

2

Was deportation a widespread concern among immigrant students participating in the protests?

Absolutely. During the encampment, two friends who were international students told me they wished they could be there but couldn’t risk losing their visas. There was a similar fear among low-income students, who didn’t want to risk their scholarships or lose on-campus housing. Many chose to participate in other ways, like sharing pro-Palestinian content on social media or bringing food and supplies to the encampment.

At Barnard specifically, students who were suspended for protesting were evicted from their dorms almost immediately. That was also a major fear: There’s a big difference between someone who lives near New York or has a robust support system in the U.S., and a student who would be left on the streets of Manhattan because their family lives in another country... READ MORE 

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/13/columbia-student-journalist-mahmoud-khalil-00226729

3

Has there been a vibe shift on campus since Trump’s election?

4

How had student protesters tried to protect themselves from retaliation until now?

5

Has the debate surrounding student protests changed at all since 2024? Could Khalil’s arrest change it in any way?

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine ]

Mahmoud Khalil: When Speaking for Palestine Becomes a Crime Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner and his unlawful detainment is being used to set precedent implementing facisct policies reminiscent of McCarthy Era First Amendment restrictions

Ahmad Ibsais

Mar 12, 2025

 

Mahmoud Khalil joins a long lineage of political prisoners detained for advocating just causes throughout American history. From Eugene Debs imprisoned for opposing World War I, to Japanese Americans interned during World War II for their heritage alone, to Civil Rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. who wrote his famous 'Letter from Birmingham Jail' while detained for peaceful protest.

 

As a Palestinian, I learned very young that our very existence was a form of protest. Every family gathering that turned into a political discussion and every celebration existed in defiance of forces that would rather see us disappear. This is why the detention of Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil strikes at the core of my being—I recognize in his abduction the same suffocating tactics used to silence Palestinians for generations, now deployed on American soil against those who dare speak our name.

Khalil’s detention by ICE agents on March 8, marks a watershed moment in American democracy. As his pregnant wife watched helplessly, government agents took away a legal permanent resident whose only "crime" was serving as a negotiator in campus protests calling for university divestment from companies profiting from Israel's Genocide on Gaza.

Let us be clear: Mahmoud Khalil is a political prisoner—detained not for any recognizable crime, but for criticizing Israel. There is no law against calling for the end of Genocide, nor should there be in a constitutional democracy. Yet the Trump administration has effectively created such a crime, linking legitimate criticism of a colonial state to “antisemitism,” by abducting and detaining a green card holder solely for his political expression.

After Khalil's detention, the official White House Instagram account published an image of him with the words "Shalom Mahmoud" plastered across it—a chilling taunt that reveals the administration's contempt for due process and basic human dignity. His temporary disappearance into the ICE detention system—his lawyers couldn't locate him for over 24 hours—mirrors the tactics of authoritarian regimes worldwide.

What makes this moment particularly dangerous is that it didn't begin with Trump. It was precisely the Biden-Harris administration's demonization of student protesters as antisemitic that laid the groundwork for Trump's assault on Columbia and other universities. In January 2025, a far-right pro-Israel group submitted a list of students with visas to the Trump administration, urging their deportation for pro-Palestine advocacy. Within days, the administration issued an executive order threatening visa revocation for protesters. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the agenda explicit, writing: "We will be revoking the visas and/or green cards of Hamas supporters in America so they can be deported."

Across American universities, suppression has manifested in student expulsions, organizations being disbanded, and unprecedented surveillance: nine universities have forcibly shut down their Students for Justice in Palestine chapters; Columbia University expelled three students; and UCLA reportedly spent $12 million to surveil and challenge student protesters. This institutional violence mirrors the academic purges of the McCarthy era, when professors were blacklisted for ideological nonconformity.... READ MORE  https://ahmadibsais.substack.com/p/mahmoud-khalil-when-speaking-for?publication_id=1020749&post_id=158862987&isFreemail=true&r=34riug&triedRedirect=true

 [AS ALWAYS PLEASE GO TO THE LINK TO READ GOOD ARTICLES (or watch videos) IN FULL: HELP SHAPE ALGORITHMS (and conversations) THAT EMPOWER DECENCY, DIGNITY, JUSTICE & PEACE... and hopefully Palestine ]