Samidoun: Freedom now for youth in Jordan arrested for protesting Bahrain conference!

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network stands in solidarity with the youth activists in Jordan who have been arrested for protesting against Jordan’s participation in the Bahrain “economic conference,” widely condemned by all sectors of Palestinian society. Suhaib Nasrallah, Malik al-Jaizawi and Mohammed Ajaj were all detained by Jordanian security forces under the charge of “disrupting the relationship with a sister country.”

In reality, these three young men were arrested because they were part of the massive protests expressing the will of the Jordanian and Palestinian people to completely reject the Bahrain “economic conference” organized at the behest of the United States and its most reactionary allies in the Arab world in order to promote the liquidation of the Palestinian cause and the subjugation of the Palestinian people. We express our strongest solidarity with these three prisoners of conscience and all of the Jordanians and Palestinians who are facing repression because they stand against imperialism, colonization and reaction.

The three young men are currently being held by the Jordanian Preventive Security forces under a 15-day arrest warrant issued by a “state security court.” Meanwhile, Dr. Said Diab, the General Secretary of the Wihda Party in Jordan (Popular Democratic Unity Party) was detained, searched and questioned by Jordanian security services after he crossed the Syrian-Jordanian border. He was returning from a conference in Damascus: the 62nd convening of the Arab Parties Conference under the slogan, “From Jerusalem to the Golan Heights, Restoring our Land.”

All of these attacks come along the lines of a series of repressive measures carried out against Palestinians and Jordanians defending Palestinian rights, including the suppression and prohibition of events in honor of Abu Ali Mustafa, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine assassinated by the Israeli occupation in August 2001, and ongoing harassment, interrogation and arrests of Jordanian and Palestinian activists who uphold Palestinian rights and fight imperialism and Zionism in the region.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network strongly condemns the arrest of these youth activists who are standing for justice and dignity: confronting the malicious plans of U.S. imperialism in the region, the most reactionary Arab regimes and the normalization of Israeli colonialism, racism and apartheid. We urge all supporters of justice in Palestine, who stand with the Jordanian and Palestinian people against Trump’s “deal of the century,” to join the call for the liberation of Suhaib Nasrallah, Malik al-Jaizawi, Mohammed Ajaj and all political detainees in Jordanian prisons.