Entry Title: " Popular struggle in Bil'in"
Name: Simon Krieger, Switzerland
Category: Non-Professional, War/Conflict


Entry Description: Since more than six years people in Bil‘in (Palestine) are organizing weekly demonstrations and other non-violent actions against the separation barrier which annexed 60% of the villages agricultural land. With the support of international as well as israeli activists and organizations the residents are determined to struggle for peace and freedom.

I am a photojournalist from Bern, born in 1989. While becoming a software engineer I started developing a passion for photography. Through my interest in the non-violent movements in Palestine have I gotten into contact with Israeli activists and was thus able to visit the region in 2010. This first short visit led to the book «das recht zu leben». Since then I lived in the Palestinian village Bil‘in for a couple of months – as a photographer, a journalist but also as a friend. Living there gave me the opportunity of getting to know the community, experiencing life under occupation and to join the demonstrations every week. The warm and friendly way people treated me, allowed me to handle the depressing and shocking circumstances they have to live in. It is important to me to try to understand these experiences to document the situation, to take action. Currently I study process design at HyperWerk, Institute for Postindustrial Design in Basel. My focus there lays on peace design: How to deescalate and how to create sympathy between "enemies" – which I believe is crucial for non violent movements in order to succeed.