21 February, Ghent: Imprisonment and Solidarity in Palestine (Eye on Palestine)

This event is part of the Eye on Palestine film festival, running from 18 to 24 February in Ghent, Belgium. The theme of this year’s festival is “Processions of the Sun” and is informed by Greg Thomas‘ work on George Jackson in the Sun of Palestine. View the full schedule of events: http://www.eyeonpalestine.be/

Wednesday, 21 February
7:30 pm
De Exepditie
Dok Noord 4F
9000 Ghent
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/165220037537826/

A panel with Rasmea Odeh, Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Charlotte Kates moderated by Luk Vervaet

This panel brings together key figures in the Palestinian struggle and the Black and Prison Abolitionists movements to discuss similarities and differences of Black and Palestinian life under conditions of mass incarceration. Drawing parallels between these movements, the discussion will deal with questions of racist state violence in an era of neoliberal globalization, the ramified effects of this violence across public and intimate spheres of social life, the connections and solidarities across continents needed to confront it, and the legacies of past movements and struggles that continue to inform the work of human liberation.

Rasmea Odeh is a leading member of Chicago’s Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim communities, and her decade of service in Chicago has changed the lives of thousands of people, particularly disenfranchised Arab wom- en and their families. She has been with the Arab American Action Net- work (AAAN) since 2004, and is responsible for the management of day-to-day operations and the coordination of its Arab Women’s Com- mittee, which has a membership of nearly 600 and leads the organi- zation’s work in the areas of defending civil liberties and immigrants’ rights. She is a mentor to hundreds of immigrant women, as well as many members of the AAAN’s sta and board, and is a well-known and respected organizer throughout Chicagoland, the U.S. and the world.

Dhoruba Bin Wahad was a leader member of the new York Black Panther Party, a Field Secretary of the BPP responsible for organizing chapters throughout the East Coast, and a member of the Panther 21. Arrested June 1971, he was framed as part of the illegal FBI Counter Intelligence program (COINTELPRO) and subjected to unfair treatment and torture during his nineteen years in prison. During Dhoruba’s incarceration, litigation on his behalf produced over three hundred thousand pages of COINTELPRO documentation, and upon release in 1990 he was able to bring a success- ful lawsuit against the New York Department of Corrections for all their wrongdoings and criminal activities. Living in both Ghana and the U.S. Dhoruba, an uncompromising critic of imperialism and capitalism, con- tinues to write and work promoting freedom for all political prisoners and revolutionary Pan-Africanism.

Charlotte Kates is the international coordinator of Samidoun Palestini- an Prisoner Solidarity Network and the coordinator of the International Committee of the National Lawyers Guild. She is also a member of the Organizing Collective of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultur- al Boycott of Israel and Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition.

Luk Vervaet is a prison activist and author. From 1973 to 2003, he was one of the leaders of the group “Alle Macht aan de Arbeiders” (All Power to the Workers) and of the “Partij van de Arbeid” (Workers Party of Bel- gium). He le the party in 2003 and started working as a prison teacher in Brussels from 2004 until 2009. In 2009 he was banned from prisons on ‘security grounds’. Two years later, the Constitutional Court revoked the ban, but his exclusion by the prison authorities and the ministry of Jus- tice has been upheld. Luk Vervaet is the author of ‘Le making-of d’An- ders B. Breivik’ (2012), ‘Nizar Trabelsi: Guantanamo chez nous?’ (2014) and ‘De grote stap achterwaarts, teksten over straf en gevangenis” (2016).
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Full programmation on: http://www.eyeonpalestine.be/program/?lang=en
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Praktisch:

– Aanvang: 19:30 uur
– Vrije bijdrage
– De Expeditie Dok Noord 4F, 9000 Gent
– Taal: Engelse

Practical information:

– Start: 7:30 PM
– Free contribution
– De Expeditie Dok Noord 4F, 9000 Gent
– language English