Dozens of Palestinian and Arab youth organizations issued a collective statement in support of the 30 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to demand an end to their administrative detention. Released by the Handala Center for Prisoners, the statement calls for urgent action to confront normalization with Zionism throughout the region and to escalate the struggle for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners and support of the Palestinian resistance.
The full statement follows:
Thirty Palestinian administrative detainees are engaged in an open hunger strike to reject the policy of administrative detention. This is a criminal policy in which a struggler is detained without charge or trial, and is subjected to repression and abuse by the Zionist jailers, especially as there are sick, wounded and elderly among the administrative detainees.
This escalation within the occupation prisons comes in light of the escalating pace of events in Palestine and the comprehensive aggression perpetrated by the Zionist enemy against cities, villages and camps, the last of which was in the resisting city of Jenin al-Qassam, which led to the martyrdom of a new group of resistance fighters, wounding many, including school students, and destroying a number of buildings and homes.
We in the progressive youth and student organizations, in light of this Zionist escalation against the prisoners and the Palestinian people, affirm the following:
First, we express our solidarity, our pride, and our confidence in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, led by the administrative detainees and the hunger strikers who are waging a heroic battle on behalf of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation and humanity as a whole. They bravely stand up to the Zionist prison administration and its racist, fascist practices.
Second, Supporting the Palestinian people and the prisoners’ movement in particular is a duty and a necessity for all of us, as everyone must bear their responsibilities for victory for Palestine, the prisoners, and the values of justice and humanity. This requires a serious undertaking through which all capabilities and methods of pressure are put at the service of this battle.
Third, The Zionist enemy is delusional if it thinks for a moment that the policy of administrative detention will break the will of the strugglers of the Palestinian people or their resistance, or will succeed in isolating them from their people. The administrative detainees and the hunger strikers have proven that they are more powerful than all the mechanisms of oppression and Zionist repression.
Fourth, The approach of normalization and all methods of containment and subjugation against the peoples of the region will not succeed in isolating their people, youth, students, parties, forces, unions and organizations from the central cause, which will remain their first cause [Palestine]. If there are some Arab regimes and governments that have sunk into the mud of normalization and relations with the Zionist entity, the entire Arab nation is unanimous in its rejection of normalization and its absolute refusal of the Zionist entity, and its support for and cohesion with the Palestinian people in their just struggle for self-determination. In light of this duty, the cause of the prisoners and their suffering remain a priority of the conscience and commitment of the Arab nation and the free people of the world.
Fifth, we call on young people and students to carry out the widest campaign of solidarity and support with the hunger-striking prisoners, through mobilizations of rage, activities and sit-ins, to show and demonstrate their solidarity with the cause of Palestine and the prisoners.
Sixth, The progressive youth and students send a message of anger to the international community and international institutions, demanding that they stop the policy of silence on the crimes that the the Zionist enemy is committing against the Palestinian people and their prisoners in particular.
Finally, in the progressive youth and student organizations, we renew our support for and allegiance to the Palestinian people and their brave prisoners in the occupation prisons. We express our firm confidence that the prisoners will extract their demands from the Zionist jailers, on the path to freedom.
Progressive youth and student organizations
1. Palestinian Progressive Youth Union
2. Progressive Student Action Front – Occupied Palestine
3. The Youth of the Jordanian Democratic People’s Unity Party
4. Al-Wad Youth Union – Tunisia
5. Tunisian Communist Youth Union
6. Progressive Student Union Bloc – Universities and Institutes of Occupied Palestine
7. The Progressive Left Students Faction – Morocco
8. The Revolutionary National Democratic Youth Organization – Kifah
9. General Union of Tunisian Students
10. Palestinian Youth Organization
11. Progressive Youth Union – Egypt
12. The Jordanian Democratic Youth League “Rashad”
13. Youth of the National Movement
14. The Jordanian Democratic Youth Union
15. The Jordanian Communist Party Youth
16. The Lebanese Democratic Youth Union
17. Palestinian Communist Youth Union
18. Bahrain Youth Society
19. Syrian Democratic Youth Union
20. Kuwaiti Democratic Youth Union
21. Palestinian Communist Party Youth
22. The Youth Action of the Democratic Path – Morocco
23. Union of Youth Forces – Tunisia
1 October 2022
