There are two important cases in France for the Palestine movement that will be heard on Thursday, 27 January. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network released this international video to support Georges Abdallah and Olivia Zémor, and to express our global solidarity with their ongoing struggles for justice and a liberated Palestine.
TEVA and the case of Olivia Zémor
Samidoun expresses its strongest solidarity with Olivia Zémor, chair of CAPJPO-EuroPalestine. On 27 January 2022, Zémor will once again go to court in Lyon, France, to defend the right to boycott Israel and Israeli products. Major Israeli pharmaceutical corporation TEVA — backed by two far-right Zionist organizations — sued Zémor for publishing a 2016 protest in Lyon calling for the boycott of TEVA, whose tax revenues to the Israeli state contribute to the Israeli occupation, its war crimes in Gaza and ongoing violations of Palestinian rights.
Zémor won the case on 18 May 2021 after the judges hearing the case ruled in her favor, dismissing TEVA’s attempt to silence grassroots activism. However, now TEVA and its far-right supporters are appealing the judgment, once more seeking to silence the call to boycott Israel in France.
TEVA is one of the largest manufacturers of generic drugs in the world. It also provides millions of dollars in tax revenue to the Israeli colonial and occupation regime and its military. TEVA’s profits have been accumulated on the back of the colonization and exploitation of the land and people of Palestine. TEVA seeks to use the mechanisms of the French state — with their extensive legacy of colonialism and ongoing imperialism throughout the Arab region and Africa — to aggressively seek to shut down and silence those who expose and challenge corporate complicity and profiteering from the Israeli occupation regime.
We express our solidarity with Olivia Zémor and call for people of conscience to boycott TEVA and boycott Israel in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for justice, return and liberation.
Georges Abdallah’s lawyer challenges the French Interior Ministry
On the same day, 27 January, Georges Abdallah’s lawyer will appear before an administrative tribunal in Paris. Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine, has been imprisoned in France for over 37 years. Despite being eligible for release since 1999, he has remained imprisoned by the French state, with the complicity and involvement of the United States and Israel.
During this time, he has appealed for release eight times, one of which was finally accepted in 2013. However, as his comrades and family awaited his return in Lebanon, his release was blocked as Manuel Valls, then Minister of the Interior, refused to sign the document necessary for him to return to his homeland, Lebanon.
Abdallah’s lawyer filed a request with the administrative court to compel the Interior Minister to stop blocking his return to Lebanon and order him to sign the necessary documents. Pending since November 2020, the appeal will be heard in Paris on this day.
Georges Abdallah’s case is an international symbol of Palestinian resistance and struggle behind French bars. He is recognized by the Palestinian prisoners’ movement as part of their struggle, and has participated in multiple occasions in collective hunger strikes from French prison. His ongoing imprisonment, with the complicity of France, the United States and Israel, speaks to the alliance of imperialism and Zionism against the Palestinian cause.
We once again demand Georges Abdallah’s immediate release. The growing movement for his freedom brought over 1,000 marchers outside the prison walls where he is held in 2021 — we must build the movement until he returns home as a leader of the Palestinian, Arab and international liberation movement.
Text of the Samidoun video
We stand with the struggles for justice in Palestine taking place in France!
On January 27, Olivia Zemor, president of EuroPalestine, will once again face a legal complaint from TEVA, the massive Israeli pharmaceutical company, backed by far-right Zionist organizations.
TEVA is appealing because she already defeated this attempt to silence advocacy for Palestine and the boycott of Israel in court last year. TEVA is bringing Olivia Zemor to court again because she posted a call for the boycott of TEVA.
TEVA provides millions of dollars in tax revenue to the Israeli colonial occupation regime and its military.
Supporting Olivia Zémor is supporting the right to boycott Israel and fighting back against the criminalization of the Palestine solidarity movement in Europe.
On the same day, the French administrative courts will also hear an appeal in the case of Georges Abdallah. The appeal aims to force the Minister of the Interior to stop obstructing George’s release to Lebanon.
Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese Communist struggler for Palestine, has been imprisoned in France for over 37 years.
From the Naqab to Jerusalem to Gaza, the Zionist state continues to intensify its brutal policies of racism, colonization, apartheid, mass imprisonment, land confiscation, and siege. We must take action and boycott Israel!
We stand with Georges Abdallah and demand his immediate release.
We stand with Olivia Zémor and the right to boycott Israel.
We stand with the Palestinian resistance until return and liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Watch and share the video: https://youtu.be/AGaZWbaT9hQ
Watch our previous solidarity video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btp_n3swC9A
Take Action
Mobilizations in France are already taking place in Toulouse, Paris, Lyon and Bordeaux! Around the world, we can and must support these important struggles for Palestinian rights and Palestinian liberation.
We urge supporters of Palestine around the world to deliver a letter of protest to the French embassy or consulate near you or take a solidarity photo with the posters below and share it on your social media. Send us a link or your photo at [email protected]!
https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/boycott-teva.pdf
https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/boycott-israel-solidarity.pdf
https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/boycott-teva2.pdf
https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/free-georges-english.pdf
https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/327613907-Free-Georges-Abdallah-Poster.pdf
https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/327613423-Sign-Freedom-for-Georges-Abdallah.pdf
https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/visuel-Georges-Abdallah-anglais.pdf
