Samidoun Brussels organized several solidarity activities on Thursday, 20 April to support two Palestinian prisoners, Walid Daqqah, the Palestinian intellectual, writer and freedom fighter struggling against a rare cancer after years of medical neglect; and Khader Adnan, the Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike for the past 75 days. They organized a solidarity action in Bethlehem Square in the center of the Belgian and European capital, with wide participation of Palestinian, Arab and international activists.
Following the solidarity action, Samidoun Brussels organized an evening event together with Front d’Action Révolutionnaire, on the current situation in Palestine and the struggle in the occupation prisons. The event included the unveiling of a new photography exhibit on life in occupied Palestine, as well as live virtual interviews and discussions with former Palestinian prisoners in the West Bank of occupied Palestine.
These events coincided with an announcement of Samidoun Brussels’ participation in the International Workers’ Day march, the Revolutionary 1 May in Brussels, which will begin at 2 pm at Carré de Moscou on 1 May. This mass popular march will challenge austerity, capitalism and imperialism throughout Europe, especially with the rising economic crisis affecting working-class people.
Multiple future events are being planned in Brussels and throughout Belgium, including an upcoming screening of “Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight” on 11 May, which highlights the life in struggle of the Lebanese Arab struggler for Palestine Georges Abdallah, imprisoned in France since 1984.
These events follow on a mass demonstration for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day in Belgium on 15 April, in which Samidoun Brussels, the Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine, Classe Contre Classe and many other organizations participated. During the event, Mohammed Khatib, Samidoun coordinator in Europe, spoke, urging the need to support the prisoners’ movement as “the true, reliable leadership of the Palestinian people and our liberation struggle” and the importance of “the unity of our people in exile and diaspora, carrying out their national role and responsibilities, and their right to participation and expression” in the Palestinian cause.
