Growing call for freedom for Khalida Jarrar: 275 organizations sign call to free Palestinian leader jailed by Israel

Graffiti in France urging Khalida’s release. Photo: Coup Pour Coup 31

International support for detained Palestinian parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar is continuing to grow. The leftist, feminist Palestinian leader and advocate for political prisoners has been jailed by Israel without charge or trial for a year. The Israeli military recently ordered her to another four months of administrative detention, an extension awaiting approval by an occupation military court.

275 international political parties, feminist organizations, solidarity groups, student organizations, social justice movements and others have signed on to the campaign to free Khalida Jarrar, coming together in a common statement to demand her release. Since the statement was announced last week, over 90 organizations have added their endorsements, including the third-largest party in the Turkish parliament, the HDP (People’s Democratic Party).

In France, anti-imperialist collective Coup Pour Coup 31 – a member of the Samidoun network – noted the appearance of “Free Khalida Jarrar” graffiti in the Toulouse area, demanding the release of all Palestinian prisoners.

New Yorkers protest to free Khalida Jarrar. Photo: Joe Catron

New Yorkers demonstrated outside the offices of the “Friends of the IDF,” an organization that raises money for the Israeli occupation army, demanding Jarrar’s release, on 30 June. Samidoun activists and others distributed information and material about her case and the situation of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.

In Berlin, a Samidoun delegation visited the South African ambassador, with information about the situation in Palestine and the case of Khalida Jarrar. The South African government has officially called for Jarrar’s release, from the time of her arrest in 2017.

And in Gaza, Palestinians took to the streets to call for freedom for Khalida Jarrar and Hassan Shokeh, a fellow administrative detainee who has been on hunger strike for nearly a month. Gathering outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, demonstrators demanded the abolition of administrative detention and the freedom of Palestinian prisoners.

Gaza protest urges Khalida Jarrar’s liberation. Photo: Hadf News

It is more important than ever that our voices are heard and our actions are visible to demand freedom for Khalida Jarrar and all Palestinian prisoners. You can download flyers, materials and visit petitions to join the campaign here: http://samidoun.net/2018/06/take-action-to-free-khalida-jarrar-june-30-july-2-organize-for-freedom/

You are invited to add your organization’s name to the following statement to demand freedom for imprisoned Palestinian leader Khalida Jarrar! We will continue to update this statement and re-release with additional signatories. To endorse, please use the form or email samidoun@samidoun.net with your group’s name.

Freedom for Khalida Jarrar! End administrative detention!

We, the undersigned organizations, come together to demand freedom for Palestinian political leader Khalida Jarrar, prominent leftist, feminist, prisoners’ rights advocate and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. She has been imprisoned without charge and without trial since July 2017 – and now the Israeli military occupation has declared that her imprisonment will be extended for an additional four months.

On July 2, 2017, Khalida Jarrar’s home was raided by Israeli occupation soldiers in a pre-dawn raid. She was ordered shortly thereafter to administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. She is one of approximately 450 Palestinians held under administrative detention, a relic of the British colonial mandate that has been used by the Israeli occupation to jail thousands of Palestinian community and political leaders, and one of approximately 6,100 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

In December 2017, her detention was renewed for another six months. Now, another military order declares that she will be imprisoned for four more months. Administrative detention orders can be issued for up to six months at a time and are indefinitely renewable. Palestinians can spend years at a time jailed under these orders, never knowing when they could be released, if ever.

As Addameer notes, “This practice of arbitrary detention is a grave violation of international laws and human rights standards, particularly articles 78 and 72 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which state that an accused individual has the right to defend him/herself. This also violates Article 66 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the basic standards of fair trial.”

On July 2, an Israeli military court is scheduled to approve the detention order. Jarrar, like all administrative detainees, has boycotted these hearings since February, as they are mere rubber-stamp sessions used as a fig leaf to “legitimize” the arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinians.

Jarrar is a Palestinian political leader, representing the Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc, allied with the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in the Palestinian Legislative Council. She is a frequent leader and participant in demonstrations and popular actions for Palestinian freedom, a a long-time Palestinian political prisoners’ advocate and former executive director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and now a member of its board, and chair of the Prisoners’ Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

She has also been active in the Palestinian women’s movement since her earliest days as a university student organizing with other female students to challenge the occupation. She is a leading organizer of International Women’s Day events in Palestine and coordinates closely with Palestinian women’s organizations. “Palestinian women are full partners in the Palestinian struggle,” she emphasizes.

Khalida Jarrar is heavily involved in the fight to hold Israeli officials accountable for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. She is a member of a Palestinian commission charged with bringing complaints and files before the international court about ongoing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, from attacks on Gaza to land confiscation and settlement construction to mass arrests and imprisonment.

Since 1998, she has been forbidden to travel outside occupied Palestine. When she needed medical treatment in Jordan in 2010, she struggled for months in a public campaign before finally receiving it. The Israeli occupation attempted to forcibly displace her from her home to Jericho in 2014, and in 2015, arrested and jailed her 14 months for her political activities.

The extended administrative detention of Khalida Jarrar is an attempt to remove an effective, grassroots leader from the Palestinian national movement. Especially now, when people are taking to the streets throughout occupied Palestine and thousands are marching in Gaza for the Great Return March, leaders like her are targeted for arrest and imprisonment in an attempt to defuse the Palestinian struggle.

Khalida Jarrar is being targeted as a Palestinian leader, a Palestinian voice for justice, and an active Palestinian woman. Her imprisonment is yet another attack by the Israeli colonial state against the Palestinian people struggling for freedom, and administrative detention and the mass imprisonment of Palestinians are two of the weapons used in an attempt to break the Palestinian liberation movement.

We come together today to demand the immediate release of Khalida Jarrar, an end to the policy and practice of administrative detention and freedom for Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. We pledge to struggle for justice through protests, actions, organizing and escalating boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) actions against Israel, in Khalida’s own spirit of resistance.

Signed,

  1. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
  2. Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition
  3. Al-Awda, The Palestine Right of Return Movement
  4. Action Antifasciste NP2C
  5. Actions4Palestine
  6. Alkarama Movement of Palestinian Women
  7. Al-Quds Day Committee of New York
  8. American Muslims for Palestine – NY/NJ
  9. American Party of Labor
  10. Anticapitalistas
  11. Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland
  12. Anti Internment Group London
  13. Anti-Zionist and Anti-Imperialist Friends of Palestine
  14. ArbeiterInnenmacht (Germany)
  15. Arbeiter*innenstandpunkt (Austria)
  16. Asociación Palestina BILADI
  17. Association Belgo-Palestinienne
  18. Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP)
  19. Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), India
  20. Association France-Palestine Solidarité
  21. Association France-Palestine Solidarité — Groupe du Pays de Cornouaille
  22. AFPS 63 (Association France Palestine Solidarité 63)
  23. AFPS 59/62
  24. AFPS Albertville
  25. AFPS Alès-Cévennes
  26. AFPS Paris 14-6
  27. Associazione Amicizia Sardegna Palestina
  28. Assopace Palestina – Italy
  29. ATIK – Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe
  30. BAF – Brigade Antifasciste de Strasbourg
  31. Balfour Declaration Centenary Campaign
  32. BDS Berlin
  33. BDS France Saint-Étienne
  34. BDS France Toulouse
  35. BDS Italia
  36. BDS Turkey
  37. BDS UChile (Universidad de Chile)
  38. BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish
  39. BDS Zürich
  40. Belgian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (BACBI)
  41. Biellesi per la Palestina Libera Committee
  42. Black Alliance for Peace
  43. Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (aka Boycott from Within – Israeli citizens for BDS)
  44. Bruxelles Panthéres
  45. Cafe Palestina of the Southern Berkshires
  46. California Coalition for Women Prisoners
  47. Campagne BDS France
  48. Campagne unitaire pour la libération de Georges Ibahim Abdallah (Paris)
  49. Campaign to Boycott Supporters of “Israel” in Lebanon
  50. Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat
  51. Canada Palestine Association
  52. Canadian BDS Coalition
  53. Canadian Friends of Sabeel
  54. Centre de la Communauté Démocratique Kurde de Toulouse
  55. Cercle de Silence – Amiens
  56. Christchurch Progressive Network
  57. Coalition for Justice – Blacksburg
  58. Coalition of Women for Peace
  59. CODEPINK – Women for Peace
  60. Colectivo Contraimpunidad
  61. Collectif 69 de soutien au peuple palestinien
  62. Collectif de Soutien à la Résistance Palestinienne 59-62
  63. Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine
  64. Collectif Justice pour la Palestine Annecy
  65. Collectif pour la Libération de Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
  66. Colletivo Palestina Rossa
  67. Comité Internacional Paz,Justicia y Dignidad a los Pueblos
  68. Comité de Vigilance pour la Démocratie en Tunisie
  69. Comité Poitevin Palestine
  70. Comite pour le Respect des Libetés et des Droits de l Homme en Tunisie CRLDHT
  71. Committee to Stop FBI Repression – National
  72. Committee to Stop FBI Repression – NY
  73. Committees for a Democratic Palestine – Europe
  74. Communist Party, Sweden
  75. Coordinamento Napoli Palestin
  76. Coordinamento di Solidarietà con la Palestina – Sicilia
  77. Corsica Internaziunalista
  78. Corvallis Palestine Solidarity
  79. Coup Pour Coup 31
  80. Dones x Dones
  81. Dun Padraig Friends of Palestine
  82. Egitim Sen Istanbul 6 Nolu Üniversiteler Subesi
  83. EH Bildu municipal group of Donostia
  84. Eye On Palestine Arts and Film Festival
  85. Familles de prisonniers pour la Justice – Belgique
  86. Femmes en lutte 93
  87. Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Manchester
  88. F.O.R. Palestine (Berlin)
  89. Free Gaza Movement
  90. Free Palestine Movement
  91. Freedom Archives
  92. Freedom Road Socialist Organization
  93. Friends of Palestine Network
  94. Friends of Sabeel North America
  95. Frihet åt Ahed Tamimi Göteborg
  96. Fronte Palestina
  97. Gaza Action Ireland
  98. General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS Aix-Marseille)
  99. General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS France)
  100. Gents Actieplatform Palestina
  101. Global Campaign for Palestinian Political Prisoners (GCPPP)
  102. Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
  103. Greek Front of Resistance and Solidarity with Palestine “Ghassan Kanafani”
  104. Green Mountain Solidarity with Palestine
  105. Greenville for Gaza
  106. Groupe Non-Violent LOUIS LECOIN
  107. Handala Center for Prisoners and Former Prisoners – Palestine
  108. Harakat Shaab – Lebanon
  109. HDP Peoples’ Democratic Party
  110. HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) Central Women’s Assembly
  111. Hilombé Solidaridad
  112. Human Rights Defenders
  113. ICAHD
  114. If Americans Knew
  115. Independent Jewish Voices – Canada
  116. Indivisible Midlands
  117. Inminds Human Rights Group
  118. intal
  119. International Action Center
  120. International Association of Democratic Lawyers
  121. International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
  122. International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) Spain
  123. International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network – Canada
  124. International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS)
  125. International Red Help
  126. International Women’s Alliance
  127. Internationalt Forum – Denmark
  128. Invictapalestina – Documentation Center
  129. Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
  130. Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA)
  131. Irish Socialist Republicans
  132. ISM France
  133. Izquierda Unida – Spain
  134. Jacksonville Community Action Committee
  135. Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network
  136. Jericho Movement – National
  137. Jericho Movement – New York City
  138. Jersey City Peace Movement
  139. Jeune Garde Lyon
  140. Jeunes Révolutionnaires Genève
  141. Jeunes Révolutionnaires Vaud
  142. Jewish Liberation Theology Institute
  143. Jewish People’s Liberation Organization
  144. Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
  145. Jewish Women for Justice in Israel/ Palestine
  146. Jews Against Genocide (JAG)
  147. Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
  148. Justice For Palestinians, Calgary
  149. Justice for Palestinians – San Jose
  150. Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights – Philippines
  151. Katie Miranda Studios
  152. Kia Ora Gaza (New Zealand)
  153. Kickapoo Peace Circle
  154. LA4Palestine
  155. Labor for Palestine
  156. Laura Wells for Congress, District 13
  157. La Voix des Prisonnier.ère.s Politiques de Turquie et Kurdistan
  158. Le Collectif Rouge Internationaliste pour la libération des prisonniers révolutionnaires (Paris)
  159. Le Comité d’action et de soutien aux luttes du peuple marocain (Paris)
  160. League for the Fifth International
  161. Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre
  162. Links Ecologisch Forum/Forum Gauche Ecologie – LEF-FGE
  163. Libérons-les
  164. London Palestine Action
  165. Madison-Rafah Sister City Project
  166. MADRE
  167. Manchester Boycott Israel Group
  168. Manchester Palestine Action
  169. Mouvement Citoyens Palestine
  170. National Campaign to Free Georges Abdallah – Lebanon
  171. National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy
  172. National Lawyers Guild International Committee
  173. National Lawyers Guild- Massachusetts Chapter
  174. National Student Federation (Pa
  175. New Orleans Workers Group
  176. Newry Palestinian Support Group
  177. NION (Not In Our Name)
  178. No One Is Illegal – Vancouver Coast Salish Territories
  179. NY4Palestine
  180. NYU Disorientation Guide
  181. NYU Jewish Voice for Peace
  182. NZ Palestine Solidarity Network
  183. Palbox
  184. Palestine Democratic Forum
  185. Palestine International Network – Lebanon
  186. Palestine Solidarity Committee – Austin, TX
  187. Palestine Solidarity Network – Edmonton
  188. Palestinian Child and Youth Institute (PCYI)
  189. Palestinian Cultural Club – American University of Beirut
  190. Palestinian Cultural Club – Beirut
  191. Palestinian Progressive Student Bloc
  192. Palestinian Refugee Portal
  193. Palestinian Support Centre- Kingston ON
  194. Palestinians and Jews Decolonize
  195. Palestina Toma La Calle
  196. Palestinian Youth Movement – USA
  197. Partido Comunista de España
  198. Party for Socialism and Liberation
  199. Paz con Dignidad
  200. People Power Assembly Queens
  201. People’s Power Assembly
  202. Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee
  203. Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine
  204. Popular Resistance
  205. Potere al popolo Biella e Valsesia Party
  206. Progetto Palestina
  207. Progressive Palestinian Youth Union
  208. Progressive Scouts Group – Gaza
  209. Progressive Student Labor Front (Palestine)
  210. Project South
  211. Queer Palestinian Empowerment Network
  212. RAGE – Réseau d’Agitation Genève
  213. RedMed Web Network
  214. Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP
  215. Republican Network for Unity
  216. Revolutionary Socialist Movement (Pakistan)
  217. Revolutionary Workers Party (DİP) (Turkey)
  218. REVOLUTION (youth movement)
  219. Rifondazione Comunista Biellese Party
  220. Right of Return Coalition – Baddawi Camp, Lebanon (composed of 22 organizations)
  221. Saoradh
  222. Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
  223. Secours Rouge Belgique / Red Help Belgium
  224. Secours Rouge Canada
  225. Secours Rouge Genève
  226. Sheffield Hallam Palestine Society
  227. Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine
  228. Sheffield Labour Students
  229. Sheffield Palestine Education Network
  230. Sodepaz Euskadi
  231. Solidarity with Palestine St. John’s
  232. Studenten voor Rechtvaardigheid in Palestina (SRP-NL)
  233. Students Against Israeli Apartheid at York University
  234. Students for Justice in Palestine – CCNY
  235. Students for Justice in Palestine – College of Staten Island
  236. Students for Justice in Palestine – Houston
  237. Students for Justice in Palestine – NYU
  238. Students for Justice in Palestine – Temple University
  239. Students for Justice in Palestine at University of South Carolina
  240. Syria Solidarity Movement
  241. Taqadomy Media Team
  242. TJA (Tevgera Jinên Azad)  – Free Women Movement
  243. The Bronx Green Party
  244. The Palestine Project
  245. The Red Nation
  246. Toronto BDS Action
  247. UNADIKUM Association
  248. United National Antiwar Campaign (UNAC)
  249. Union of Palestinian Communities and Institutions – Europe
  250. Unión de Juventudes Comunistas de España
  251. Unione Democratica Arabe Palestina (UDAP)
  252. Union des consommateurs musulmans de la région parisienne
  253. Union juive française pour la paix (UJFP)
  254. United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network
  255. United for Palestine Toronto/GTA
  256. University of Leeds – Palestine Solidarity Group
  257. University of Sheffield Palestine Society
  258. UGEP (Unión General de Estudiantes Palestinos Chile)
  259. US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)
  260. US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
  261. Vermonters for Justice in Palestine
  262. Victoria Coalition against Israeli Apartheid
  263. Victory to the Intifada Manchester
  264. Vlaams-Socialistische Beweging (Flanders)
  265. Vrede vzw
  266. WESPAC Foundation
  267. Within Our Lifetime • United for Palestine
  268. Women Against Military Madness
  269. Women In Solidarity With Palestine
  270. Women for Women’s Humans Rights – New Ways
  271. Women’s Organization for Political Prisoners (WOFPP)
  272. Women’s Solidarity Foundation (KADAV)-Turkey
  273. Workers World Party
  274. YECHOUROUN-Judaisme contre sionisme
  275. Young Democratic Socialists – University of South Carolina