Call to Action: 10 Days of Struggle for Palestinian Prisoners’ Liberation, 15 to 25 April 2022

  • Join the Palestinian Prisoners’ Days of Struggle, 15 to 25 April 2022 with protests and actions
  • Palestinian prisoners represent the Palestinian resistance — solidarity and support are key to upholding their leadership in the liberation struggle. 
  • These are also days of action to defend the Collectif Palestine Vaincra against French repression.
  • Get involved with actions and events in your city and community! 

Every year, 17 April marks Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, an international day of action, solidarity and resistance for the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners. This year, in 2022, join us to stand with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, the Palestinian people and their resistance in the struggle for liberation. Between 15 and 25 April 2022, organize demonstrations, actions, meetings, events and rallies to commemorate this day and rally support and solidarity for imprisoned Palestinians, leaders of the resistance on the front lines of struggle from behind bars, and to stand together against anti-Palestinian repression.

As we mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day 2022, there are nearly 4,500 Palestinian prisoners behind bars in Israeli jails. Of these, 530 are jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention. There are 160 child prisoners, 32 women prisoners and 549 serving life sentences. Palestinian prisoners are from all areas of occupied Palestine: there are 70 from occupied Palestine ’48, a number that has only escalated particularly in the year since the Unity uprising of May 2021; over 500 Palestinian Jerusalemite prisoners; and 210 Palestinian prisoners from besieged Gaza.

Palestinians in exile and diaspora as well as Arab and international strugglers for Palestine are also jailed as political prisoners. In the United States, the Holy Land Foundation Five are imprisoned for sentences of up to 65 years for their charitable work for Palestine. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab struggler for Palestine, has been jailed in France for over 37 years and denied release to Lebanon by intervention at the highest levels of the French and U.S. governments. Fusako Shigenobu, longtime struggler for Palestine, remains imprisoned in Japan awaiting release.

Palestinian prisoners targeted for colonial repression

The Israeli regime has always used imprisonment as a colonial weapon targeting the Palestinian people, as the British colonial mandate in occupied Palestine did before it. Since the Nakba of 1947-48, approximately 1 million Palestinians have been imprisoned by the Zionist project, and approximately 800,000 since the expansion of the occupation too the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. In the immediate post-Nakba period, Palestinian scholars have documented the widespread use of forced labour by imprisoned Palestinians to construct the Zionist state.

Palestinian prisoners are workers and farmers, teachers and students, adults, children and elders, community organizers and freedom fighters. They are leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement and representatives of the Palestinian resistance. The Palestinian prisoners are not the perpetrators of “security coordination” of the Palestinian Authority under Oslo, but instead those who are sacrificing their freedom for the freedom of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Stand with the Collectif Palestine Vaincra

On these days of action, we also urge people around the world to join the week of struggle in solidarity with the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, which has with other pro-Palestine, antifascist and social justice organizations, been targeted by the French government for administrative dissolution — banning under the threat of imprisonment or fines for organizing for Palestine. In addition to their campaigns for the boycott of Israel, their advocacy for the Palestinian prisoners and for the liberation of Georges Abdallah has been specifically targeted for repression. The Collectif is filing their legal appeal, and a group of organizations in Toulouse have come together to organize a committee against the dissolution.

Click here to learn more or make a donation to the Collectif’s legal campaign!

Administrative Detainees Boycott the Military Courts

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day this year also comes as the 530 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention have been engaged since 1 January 2022 in a collective boycott of the Israeli military courts. These so-called courts present a rubber stamp of the detention orders created by the occupation military, which can be indefinitely and repeatedly renewed. As a result, Palestinians can be jailed for years at a time under secret evidence with no charge and no trial — not even the sham military trials used to imprison Palestinians.

As a result, administrative detainees have come together in a collective act of resistance, refusing to enter the military courts and demanding an end to the policy, which is routinely used to target Palestinian community leaders, student organizers, activists and human rights defenders.

Palestinian Children Struggle for Freedom

Even Palestinian children — like Amal Nakhleh, not only detained without charge or trial for over a year but also suffering from a life-threatening autoimmune disorder — are subjected to administrative detention without charge or trial. There are approximately 160 Palestinian children currently imprisoned in Zionist jails, subjected to the same conditions of torture, solitary confinement and arbitrary colonial imprisonment as Palestinian adults. However, this obscures the true number of Palestinian children and youth targeted for imprisonment.

Many young adult Palestinian prisoners turned 18 while behind bars and continue to be jailed. The case of Ahmad Manasra, whose brutal and abuse interrogation as a 13-year-old was captured on video and has continued to experience mental and physical health issues related to his experience seven years later, has brought the situation of imprisoned Palestinian young adults into even greater relief. People around the world have joined together to call for Ahmad’s freedom and the freedom of all Palestinian children — and adults — from occupation and colonialism.

These days of action for Palestinian prisoners are also days of international struggle — as Samidoun in occupied Palestine has noted, “We remind ourselves and the world of the suffering of our fellow political prisoners in the prisons of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Greece, the Philippines, Colombia, the United States and elsewhere, and we call for support for their resistance and liberation. This week of solidarity with our Palestinian prisoners is also a week of solidarity with every prisoner fighting for liberation, social justice and victory over the systems of oppression, exploitation and persecution wherever they are….We also demand the liberation of all political detainees in US prisons, including the veteran leaders of the Black Panther movement, and we affirm the depth of the relationship of joint struggle between our Palestinian people and the Black Liberation Movement in the United States. The distance between us does not undermine the realities of our joint struggle, shared goals and common enemy.”

Today, the Palestinian Resistance, inside and outside prison walls, is fighting for the liberation of Palestine, defending the people of Palestine — and indeed the world, from the forces of Zionism, imperialism and reaction. On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and throughout these days of struggle, we stand with the resistance that built a Freedom Tunnel to liberation and that defends Jenin camp from invasion, that resists colonization in al-Naqab and fights for freedom in Gaza, that marches on the border for return from Lebanon and Syria and that organizes for liberation in Berlin, New York, Sao Paulo, Madrid, London, Toronto and Paris.

Join us on 15-25 April 2022 to support the struggle of the Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian people for liberation and freedom, from the river to the sea and to fight back against anti-Palestinian repression, from France to the US to occupied Palestine.

Take Action for Palestine!

Please join us in taking action for the Days of Struggle for Palestinian Prisoners! Your local actions are incredibly important in building the movement that is so necessary for the cause. Here are a few action ideas that you can use. Please share yours with us at [email protected].

1. Demonstrations, rallies and street actions – including actions to boycott Israel!

Have a protest or action to free Palestinian prisoners, support the Palestinian struggle for liberation, stand with the Palestinian resistance and boycott Israel and its complicit corporations. There are many different kinds of actions that you can take that are safe while still getting out on the streets – check out the Stands for Palestine that have been organized by Collectif Palestine Vaincra in Toulouse, France; or the outdoor informational gatherings in Aachen and Dusseldorf, Germany, organized by Samidoun Deutschland for Land Day and the Free Palestinian Students campaign. Amid Ramadan, it’s important to highlight the campaign to boycott Israeli dates in particular! Include the Palestinian prisoners in your campaign against the agriculture of apartheid.

You can also check out the civil disobedience actions organized against Elbit, the arms manufacturer, by Palestine Action in the UK for direct actions targeting the apartheid war machine.

2. Support Collectif Palestine Vaincra!

At the request of Emmanuel Macron, French interior minister Gérald Darmanin officially administratively dissolved (essentially, banned) the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, which will soon file an appeal before the Council of State, the relevant appeals court.

Make a donation to support the appeal : afgj.salsalabs.org/samindoun-soutiencpv
Sign the petition : change.org/solidaritecollectifpalestinevaincra

The Committee against the Dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, which brings together trade unions, political organizations, collectives and associations, calls for a week of mobilization from 15 to 22 April 15 against the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and against the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine, in the days leading up to the appeal to the Council of State by the Toulouse collective.

Follow the social media accounts of the unified committee: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

3. Letter Writing Actions

Support the steadfastness of Palestinian prisoners by writing letters to them. You can send them directly to Israeli prisons — making clear not only to the prisoners but also to the prison administration that the world is watching and Palestinian prisoners are not isolated. Click here to download one list of addresses for Palestinian prisoners. Join with the Salah Hamouri campaign to send him birthday greetings on 25 April.

In addition, Samidoun Palestine is in touch directly with the families of Palestinian prisoners. Take photos of your letters and send them to us via email at [email protected] or via WhatsApp at +32466904397. You can even send us a voice note to broadcast on the radio stations transmitted to the prisoners.

4. Creative Actions

Creative actions are a wonderful way to spread the word and highlight the struggle of the Palestinian prisoners – even when you are engaging in physical distancing and health precautions. The banner hung by Samidoun España in Madrid at the University metro station highlighted the struggle of Palestinian students, while the campaign to symbolically rename streets after Georges Abdallah internationally commemorated his birthday and amplified the demand for his liberation.

These actions only require one, two or a few people. You can even simply poster and sticker around your neighbourhood. Contact us via email at [email protected] or via WhatsApp at +32466904397 if you are looking for image ideas or resources! 

5. Show Your Support Online!

Take photos, share information and join in online campaigns to free Palestinian prisoners. The campaign to #FreeAhmadManasra has unified people around the world, as has the campaign for Palestinian prisoners overall. Use the images and graphics below or post a solidarity selfie to support Palestinian prisoners.

Please note: Samidoun has speakers that can participate in your events and activities, online or in-person, in Arabic, English, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and other languages. Contact us via email at [email protected] or via WhatsApp at +32466904397 to inquire about a Samidoun speaker! 

Endorse or Submit Your Action

Please use the form below — or contact us via email at [email protected] or via WhatsApp at +32466904397 or over social media to send us your events and actions!

Resources

Join the @samidoun_network channel on Telegram

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR