QUILCENE — Activist Kit Kittredge, detained by the Israeli navy last Friday, was expected to be home in Quilcene today after arriving in Seattle on Tuesday night, her domestic partner said.
“I don’t even know whose phone she was using,” said Keith Meyer of Quilcene, who talked with Kittredge briefly Tuesday afternoon.
“We didn’t talk long,” he said. “She sounded pretty shook up because maybe it’s just starting to sink in.”
Kittredge landed in New York and immediately transferred to a Seattle flight, Meyer said.
She was offered the chance to talk to media in New York but chose to come straight home, he said.
“She wants to talk to reporters but thought she could do it just as well on the phone,” Meyer said.
Kittredge, a member of Code Pink, was one of a reported 27 people taken into custody after they were apprehended at sea Friday.
The group was heading to Gaza on two boats, the Canadian-registered MV Tahrir and the MV Saoirse from Ireland, to deliver medical supplies and letters of support to Palestinians, they said, and had dubbed themselves “The Freedom Flotilla.”
After being taken into custody, the protesters were told they would be released immediately if they signed a declaration that they had entered Israel illegally and that they would not attempt to cross the Gaza blockade again.
Kittredge refused to sign. She said that, being 40 miles off the coast of Israel when she was detained, she was in international waters, and she believed she had been kidnapped.
Hopes for many greeters
Sallie Shawl, a Kittredge associate, was sending out email notifications Tuesday afternoon in the hopes of gathering a large crowd to greet her on her arrival.
“We want to get the Peace and Justice Movement to come out, but it is pretty last minute,” Shawl said.
Meyer said Kittredge’s plans after returning home are uncertain.
“I think she might want to lay low for a day or two,” he said.
“But knowing Kit, she might get some sleep on the plane and come home raring to go.”
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
