We will wear this everyday until Palestine is free and every Palestinian returns with their key

KEY48 is a student created and student led campaign with no political, religious, or other affiliations. In January of 2017 our Palestine Society at the University of Westminster decided that we wanted to create the ‘Palestinian version of the poppy’, essentially create a symbol that we could wear everyday and attach to our clothes, something that would symbolise the plight of Palestinians, and for us nothing was more important, nor more symbolic than the key of return, than, KEY48. We wanted to keep the hope of the Palestinian Right of Return for over 7 million refugees alive, as well as advocate its legal grounds.

The Palestinian Right of Return is legally outlined in UN Resolution 194:

‘The Palestinian refugees wishing to return to their homes, should be permitted to do so at the earliest possible time, as well as compensation to be paid, for property lost, by the government or authority responsible.’ (UN, 1948)

UN General Assembly Resolution 3236:

‘The inalienable right of Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced or uprooted and calls for their return.’ (UN, 1974)

Israel’s denial of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees amounts to a war crime, and an act of aggression, as Israel’s admission to the UN was conditional on its acceptance of resolution including UN Resolution 194.

The Story of the Key

In 1948 Zionist terrorist gangs and extremist groups ethnically cleansed and destroyed over 500 Palestinian towns and villages, renamed them, and repopulated those towns and villages with Jewish immigrants in order to create Israel. Palestinian refugees fled for their lives, leaving everything behind except one thing, the key to their homes, with the belief that one day they will return. Palestinian refugees to this day still have these keys, and pass them onto the next generation in the hope that they will be the generation that returns. The catastrophe of 1948 created the world’s largest as well as the world’s longest waiting refugee population, from being both internally and externally displaced. Today there are over 7 million Palestinian refugees, who are denied their Right of Return. The majority of these refugees are forced to live in refugee camps either in Gaza, the West Bank, or in Lebanon, Jordan or Syria, where they are not recognised as citizens, have laws that directly discriminate them for being Palestinian and are forced to live in a vicious cycle of both violence and poverty.

 The Creation of KEY48

In 2017 our Palestine Society collaborated with Olive, a youth organisation focused on the empowerment of Palestinian youth in the UK, and we collectively made it happen, and created our first batch of KEY48’s. We had our official KEY48 launch at the University of Westminster in October 2017, and had Palestinian refugees host the launch, perform at the launch, and had Palestinian refugees wearing KEY48 for the first time and demanding their Right of Return. We also wanted KEY48 wearers to be at the forefront of Right of Return advocacy, so if a person sees them wearing KEY48, they can explain to them why they are wearing it, why they are calling for the Palestinian Right of Return and why the person asking them why they’re wearing it, should call for it too. A huge part of KEY48 for us, is to educate and to inform, to use social media and other platforms to give Palestinians the platform to explain what is happening in Palestine, and to not further feed the biased media’s pit of conflict confusion. We believe the best way to do this is to deconstruct the conflict analogy, and replace it with three clear demands, and these three demands is what you’re calling for when you wear and support KEY48. As these three demands immediately disqualify the media’s conflict myth.

When we wear KEY48 we are demanding:

1. An end to the illegal military blockade of Gaza
2. An end to the illegal military occupation of Palestine
3. The Right of Return for ALL Palestinian refugees

KEY48 Launch 2017:

KEY48 Today

In just two years after our launch, we have KEY48’s being worn in over 33 countries, including the US, Chile, Zambia, Morocco, Palestine, Russia and Japan. We have journalists, to singers, to MP’s, to Ahed Tamimi all wearing KEY48 and demanding the Palestinian Right to Return. We have hosted over 15 events about the Right of Return, and in 2020 we have big things lined up that we hope you can be a part of with us.

We hope you can join us in wearing KEY48 everyday until Palestine is free and every Palestinian returns with their key.

To get more information on KEY48 and to get your own KEY48 visit: key48.com

A huge part of KEY48 is education, and we utilise social media to educate and inform KEY48 wearers about whats happening in Palestine, in Palestinian refugee camps, and current news:

Instagram @officialkey48

Twitter @officialkey48

Facebook @KEY48

Ahed Tamimi supporting KEY48

Al Jazeera News Reporter Jamal ElShayyal wearing KEY48 live on air

The KEY48 team are pictured below, all wearing KEY48 and calling for the Palestinian Right to Return

(from left to right: Farah Koutteineh, Fawziya Haque, Wissam Yasser)