On Thursday December 1 in Paris, a huge banner was unfurled over a busy street, calling for the immediate release of Salah Hamouri, the French-Palestinian lawyer imprisoned without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention regime since 7 March 2022. The banner was widely seen by many passers-by, both pedestrians and drivers at the Porte de Vincennes. Numerous motorists honked their horns in support of Hamouri, who is known in France as a symbol of the struggle for justice in Palestine.
Coordinated by Samidoun Paris Banlieue with the support of ACTA and the Collective Boycott Apartheid Israel Paris Banlieue, this action was organized the day after the announcement by the Israeli occupation authorities to forcibly deport Salah Hamouri to France on 4 December, the date on which his administrative detention is due to end.
Since June 2021, the human rights defender has been fighting against the attempt by the Israeli authorities to forcibly deport him by depriving him of his identity and residence in Jerusalem, the city in which he was born and where he lives. The fascist interior minister Ayelet Shaked signed the order to revoke his Jerusalem identity and forcibly expel him in 2021 — and he was arrested and thrown in administrative detention only days after publishing a major international essay fighting back against the attempt to expel him from his homeland and home city. She announced on 1 December that she had signed an order revoking his residency and ordering his deportation, which Salah Hamouri completely rejects.
This attack on Salah Hamouri is an integral part of the policy of ethnic cleansing perpetrated by Zionist colonial forces in the Palestinian capital, Jerusalem. Indeed, Israel has withdrawn residence permits from more than 14,600 Palestinians since 1967, which constitutes a war crime.
As France attempts to criminalize the boycott of Israel and ban organizations working for justice in Palestine, such as the Collectif Palestine Vaincra (a member organization of the Samidoun Network), it once again shows its complicity with Israeli apartheid by its near total inaction to uphold the rights of Salah Hamouri despite the positive positions taken by the mobilization of hundreds of associations, parliamentarians and local elected officials. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network calls for more solidarity initiatives in France and around the world to allow Salah Hamouri to live free in Palestine with his family!
