21 January, Berlin: International Feminist Block to Free Ahed Tamimi!

Sunday, 21 January
11:00 am
Brandenburger Tor
Pariser Platz
Berlin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/147923372654432/

International Feminist Block to Free Ahed Tamimi!

HOW TO FIND OUR BLOCK IN THE DEMO: Details to follow

~ ~ Join us in solidarity with women* and girls* in Palestine and worldwide resisting colonization, military occupation, dictatorships and all forms of injustice! ~ ~

Ahed Tamimi is a 16-year-old Palestinian girl and courageous activist, imprisoned by Israeli authorities for defending her right as a Palestinian to live in peace and in accordance with human rights in her country of birth and belonging. Ahed was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier after they had invaded her home and shot her 15-year-old cousin, Mohammad Tamimi, in the face. Ahed, her mother and another cousin have been detained.

Ahed is now indicted in the Israeli military court with no less than 12 charges (on various accounts of assaulting a soldier, threatening a soldier, disturbing a soldier, incitement, throwing objects) but her true offence is just one: proudly and boldly resisting a colonizer, an occupying military power in her home and in Palestine! Meanwhile, Israeli settlers are quickly released without charges when violently attacking Israeli soldiers. Systematic and repeated violent attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian people, including brutal abuse of children, go unpunished.

Another detention is the one of Khalida Jarrar who is a Palestinian feminist and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Her administrative detention by the Israeli authorities, without charge or trial, has just been extended to one year and can be extended again.

Ahed’s and Khalida’s imprisonments just point to the tip of the iceberg. It is estimated that 300 Palestinian children are currently imprisoned by the Israeli state. More than 6,000 Palestinians are imprisoned by Israel, and as of late November 2017, 425 are held in administrative detention – without charge or trial. According to the United Nations, the Israeli military court which only tries Palestinians – people under military occupation – is in itself a violation of the international human rights law. The conviction rate is nearly 100%, often leading to harsh imprisonment.

THE STRUGGLE IS GLOBAL!

Ahed and Khalida are among the millions of women* and girls* worldwide resisting injustice! The time for solidarity is NOW.

Kurdish Women, such as Gültan Kışanak, feminist activist and member of the HDP in Turkey remain in detention since 2016. Gültan is not the first Kurdish woman in Turkish prisons. Turkey, with the complicity of the German state has been colonising Kurdish lands for a 100 years now. Systematic imprisonment, torture and sexualised violence of Kurdish women is central to their facist rule. According to Amnesty International, it is 17.000 women who remain detained for political reasons. Such “political reasons” are simply the defence of one’s land, community and standing up to the fascist state violence.

Samira Khalil is a Syrian revolutionary activist who, after having spent years in prison for opposing the regime, was reportedly abducted in 2013 in Douma along with award winning human rights lawyer Razan Zaitouneh. The two have been missing ever since with Wael Hamada, Zeitouneh’s husband, and poet Nazem Hammadi. Zeitouneh’s leadership role in the 2011 uprising has been instrumental in grassroots and community organizing between protestors in cities and the suburbs. Since 2011, over 200,000 syrian have been imprisoned and more than 65,000 have disappeared.

Mahinour el-Masry is an Egyptian activist and human rights lawyer, arrested for her organization of and participation in anti-regime protests, as part of the current crack-down of the Al-Sissi regime on its dissidents.

TOUCH ONE TOUCH ALL!

WHY JOIN WOMEN’S MARCH AS A BLOCK?

Because we reclaim feminism for all women*, trans and nonbinary people.
Because feminism can only work intersectional and relational
Feminism that is freedom and liberation for all!
For those in prisons and detention centers.
For those resisting physical and bureacratic state violence and institutional racism at the hands of colonial state and neoliberal authoritarianism
For those defending their bodies, their autonomy, their lands, their communities.

WHO WE ARE
Independent feminist activists from Berlin. This block is not organized by any particular political group, nor does it claim affinity to any. We are joined by the call for solidarity across struggles, geographies, and circumstances. We wish to break the monopoly of interpretation of the people’s will and their resistance(s)from the hands of states, their institutions, and hegemonic forms of political organizing.