Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network delivered a solidarity message to the Nakba commemoration demonstration in Copenhagen, Denmark, marking 69 years of the occupation of Palestinian land and the dispossession of the Palestinian people.
The Nakba demonstration focused – through speakers, music, banners, flyers and poems – on 69 years of Nakba and and at the same time, the resistance struggle of the Palestinian people throughout that period and continuing today. The demonstration expressed its deep solidarity with the hunger striking Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who not only fights for their human rights in the prisons but at the same time struggle against the Israeli occupation and apartheid. The demonstration called on boycott of Israel and emphasized the importance of involving the union movement in the Boycott Israel-movement.
The protest was organized by the Nakba Initiative, which includes the Democratic Palestine Committees of Denmark, the Boykot Israel Campaign and the Palestinian National Alliance in Denmark. The main slogans of the demonstration were “We will never forget the Nakba,” “Stop Israeli Apartheid,” “For the Right of Return,” and “Free Palestine.” Speakers included the Boykot Israel Campaign, Abdel-Nasser Ferwana from Gaza, and Annette Ekebjaerg-Jakobsen and John Ekebjerg-Jakobsen from the 3F Palestine Network. It also included musical performances by Marwan, Sanabel El Ard and Nassim.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network was invited to send a solidarity message to highlight the demonstration’s support for the Palestinian political prisoners on hunger strike since 17 April in the Strike of Freedom and Dignity. Our message follows:
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is honored to participate in this demonstration in Copenhagen commemorating 69 years of Nakba and standing with the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, 1500 of whom launched a hunger strike for freedom and dignity on 17 April 2017.
The hunger strikers have gone without food, subsisting on salt and water, for 35 days. As we stand here together, today, we demand the immediate implementation of these prisoners’ basic, human demands: to end the denial of family visits to Palestinian prisoners, for proper health care and medical treatment, to have access to continue their education, to end the use of solitary confinement and administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.
Palestinian prisoners are leaders and strugglers who are an example and a true leadership of the Palestinian resistance and Palestinian people. They represent the Palestinian resistance that has never been crushed through 69 years of Nakba or 100 years of colonization in Palestine. They represent the true leadership of the Palestinian people that the occupier attempts to isolate and lock away. They represent Palestinian national unity in their struggle and confrontation of the occupier. Even more, they exemplify the internationalist struggle of the Palestinian people and the struggle to free all political prisoners in imperialist jails around the world.
From Copenhagen to Berlin to Brussels to Paris to Johannesburg to New York to London to Madrid to Athens to Istanbul, alongside the streets of Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps, people have taken to the streets to stand with the prisoners and their brave and inspiring hunger strike. After 35 days, the situation is more urgent than ever and the prisoners need all of our support and solidarity, to take to the streets, pressure the governments and build the boycott of Israel at all levels to implement the demands of the Freedom and Dignity Strike and demand freedom for all Palestinian prisoners.
Today, we stand with you – we will never forget the Nakba. The prisoners will be victorious, freedom is inevitable, and all Palestinian refugees will return home to freedom in a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea.
