Samidoun Vancouver joined in the Days of Rage and Resistance – organized by the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement — with a banner drop in a busy area of the city on Sunday, 12 February 2023. Participants carried and waved Palestinian flags and hung banners with slogans including “Free All Palestinian Prisoners,” “Free Palestine: Return, Resistance, Liberation” and “End Israeli Apartheid.”
Participants emphasized that they were continuing to ensure that Palestine is visible in public space in Vancouver, especially after the right-wing City Council adopted the infamous IHRA definition of anti-Semitism over the objection of the vast majority of speakers in November 2022. (The next month, the neighbouring city of Richmond took the IHRA definition off the agenda after pushback.)
Other activists in Vancouver also responded to the call for the Days of Rage and Resistance by dropping their own banner at the Burrard Street Bridge with an anti-colonial message from Vancouver to Palestine.
Several days later, Samidoun Vancouver members posted images of Palestinian prisoners serving lengthy sentences in Israeli occupation prisons in a busy area of the city, part of the Over 30 Years: Pre-Oslo Prisoners campaign. Posters of Walid Daqqa, Mohammed Abu Tus and Ibrahim Abu Mokh were posted along Commercial Drive as part of the campaign’s first week.
These interventions in public space followed several other actions, including the posting of a large mural of imprisoned Palestinian leftist leader Ahmad Sa’adat as part of the international Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat.
The mural posting was followed by another banner drop by Quebec Street highlighting Palestinian prisoners and solidarity with the Palestinian people and their resistance on 18 January.
The mural and banner drop came one day after an evening event on the case of Ahmad Sa’adat, where Samidoun member Nadia provided an overview of the Sa’adat’s case and the role of various forces, including the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority and the United States, Britain and Canada (all of which sent international forces responsible for keeping Sa’adat and his comrades imprisoned and colluded with the Israeli occupation to allow for his kidnapping).
Palestinian writer and activist Khaled Barakat provided an analysis of the Palestinian situation today, including the struggle of Palestinian prisoners and the meaning of the far-right Zionist forces and escalating attacks targeting Palestinians.
Samidoun Vancouver is continuing its activities in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian people and their resistance. On Monday, 27 February, Samidoun Vancouver is organizing a banner and art-making party for Palestine at 6 pm at 1803 E 1st Ave in Vancouver and all are invited to attend.
