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Caoimhe Butterly (born 1978) is an Irish human rights activist, who has worked with AIDS victims in Zimbabwe, the homeless in New York, and with Zapatistas in Mexico as well as more recently in the Middle East. During an Israel attack in Jenin she was shot by an Israeli soldier. Butterly spent 16 days inside the compound where Yasser Arafat was besieged in Ramallah. [1]. She was mentioned as one of the european heroes (cat.activists) of the year 2003 by Time Magazine.
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Caoimhe Butterly was born in Dublin to a family therapist. Her stepfather's work as a UN economist moved the family from Ireland to Zimbabwe when Caoimhe was a young child. She grew up in Canada, Mauritius, and Zimbabwe. She spent time working in the New York Catholic Worker Movement, then moved to Latin America where she spent 3 years living with indigenous communities in Guatemala and in Chiapas Mexico. She also lived in Jenin refugee camp on the West Bank for a year. She has visited Iraq on numerous occasions[2], she recently visited Lebanon, where she protested British prime minister Tony Blair's visit to the country after he allowed US bomb shipments to be sent to Israel via Britain during the 2006 Lebanon War.
Caoimhe was brought up in a culture of liberation theology, which, she says, "deeply inspired" her to spend her life campaigning for human rights. At a very young age, she says, she developed a deep sense of duty. "I've always felt the need to almost a painful degree of needing to stand up against injustices in whatever contexts they lie." She left school at 18, wanting to travel, and headed to New York, where she spent time working in soup kitchens for the US Catholic Worker movement, which was founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin in 1933. She went on to Guatemala and from there to Chiapas in Mexico, where she worked for two years among the separatist Zapatista communities. In 2001 she spent 10 days fasting in front of the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs, in protest at the government's decision to allow US warplanes to refuel at Shannon Airport in their way to Afghanistan. She was arrested while trying to block the runway.[3]
On November 22, 2002, during an Israeli military operation in Jenin, Butterly, then 24 years old, was shot by an Israeli soldier and suffered a thigh injury. She had been trying to lead a group of Palestinian children to safety.[3][1]
In an interview in The Guardian,[specify] journalist Katie Barlow reported being inspired to meet Butterly by the footage of her blocking Israel Defence Force tanks as they fired over her head, and stories of her standing in the line of fire between soldiers and Palestinian children, as the IDF threatened to "make her a hero".[cite this quote] In the report, Barlow described how Butterly ran straight, despite the continuing fire, toward a disabled Palestinian boy who was shot by an Israeli sniper. Later a Red Crescent ambulance arrived at the scene and amid continuing gunfire, the paramedics got the boy into the vehicle, the snipers managed to shoot through the ambulance window, shattering glass all over the boy, and nearly killing the local cameraman who was filming a report. The boy would survive, but was paralysed from waist down.
After being shot, Butterly, who had by then spent more than a year standing in the path of Israeli tanks and troops, refused to leave: "I'm going nowhere. I am staying until this occupation ends. I have the right to be here, a responsibility to be here. So does anyone who knows what is going on here."[cite this quote]
Before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Butterly campaigned against the Irish government's decision to allow the United States military to use Shannon Airport. She was initially a signatory to the Pitstop Ploughshares action that disabled a US warplane at Shannon in February 2003, but decided ultimately not to participate out of a desire to travel to Iraq in solidarity with civilians there. At a 2003 Belfast summit between U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Butterly was arrested and dragged away by her hair for smearing red jam on the riot shields of two policemen.[citation needed] "There is no such thing as a benign occupation" she says. "It's time to focus again on what is happening in Baghdad."[cite this quote]
After the war that destroyed most of Lebanon infrastructure,[specify] British Prime Minister Tony Blair went on a political trip to the Middle East for meetings with leaders of the region. A feeling of anger against the British Prime Minister was mounting in Lebanon, in relation to his stance during the war, his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire and his aligning of his policies with those of [American] president George W. Bush in support of the Israeli military operation. Butterly interrupted Blair's press conference with the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Seniora, accusing Blair of complicity in the recent Israeli bombardment of Lebanon. "This visit is an insult", "Shame on you Tony Blair" Butterly shouted as Saniora and Blair spoke at Saniora's office complex. She held a banner saying "Boycott Israeli apartheid" in front of live TV cameras, until security guards holding her by arms and legs carried her out. Blair and Saniora stood quietly as she shouted. [4]
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