Samidoun Brazil and the international Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network express our strongest solidarity with Muslim Abuumar and his family, a Palestinian family deported from Sao Paulo airport to Malaysia on Sunday, June 23. We denounce the family’s deportation and warn that it serves as a dangerous example of the undermining of Brazil’s national sovereignty and self-determination, alongside the rights of the Palestinian people, by the Zionist regime and the United States, which have targeted Muslim Abuumar because he publicly advocates for the Palestinian people, their rights and their liberation.
We further express our full agreement with and endorsement of the statement below by IBRASPAL, the Brazil-Palestine Institute. We are very concerned that, as reported by journalists, “Judge Milenna da Cunha said in her ruling…that Brazilian federal police received an alert from the US embassy that ‘a Hamas operative, Muslim Abuumar’ would be arriving in Brazil on Friday from Kuala Lumpur…The judge’s decision approving the deportation cited Abuumar’s social media postings of him meeting in Doha with Ismail Haniyeh, a chief political leader of Hamas.” Rather than exercising Brazilian law, under which Hamas (and all Palestinian resistance organizations) are not considered “terrorists,” the Brazilian Federal Police immediately sought to implement this directive from the United States, the key funder, backer and full partner in the ongoing US-Zionist genocide in Gaza.
We express our further concern regarding the recent reports of Brazilian Federal Police meeting with CONIB, a Zionist lobby organization that claims to represent the Brazilian Jewish community yet focuses its attention on promoting the Zionist regime, defending its genocidal attacks on Gaza and seeking to criminalize the movement in support of Palestine. CONIB has sought to criminalize Brazilian Jewish journalist Breno Altman for speaking out for Palestine, among numerous other interventions designed to protect the Zionist regime from criticism.
US and Zionist “terrorist lists” and “designations” should have no operative power or legal authority in Brazil, a Latin American nation in a continent that has repeatedly suffered from US intervention and imperialist domination. The deportation of Muslim Abuumar only comes in service of the ongoing Zionist genocide in Gaza, of which the Brazilian government has expressed its condemnation on multiple occasions. We further emphasize that Palestinian resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people, who require the support of Brazil and all nations and peoples of conscience, particularly at this urgent moment. We urge the government of Brazil to rectify this situation, remove the ban on Muslim Abuumar, welcome him back to the country, reject US and Israeli interference in the lives, travel and free movement of Palestinians and Brazilians; and immediately cut off its arms trade and diplomatic relations with the Zionist regime.
Statement by IBRASPAL follows:
CLARIFICATION NOTE ON THE PALESTINIAN CITIZEN ARRESTED BY BRAZILIAN FEDERAL POLICE AT THE BEHEST OF MOSSAD AND FBI
On Friday, June 21, the Brazilian Federal Police detained Palestinian citizen Muslim M. A Abuumar at Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo. He was accompanied by his wife, who is seven months pregnant, a six-year-old son and his 69-year-old mother-in-law. On June 13, he obtained a visa to stay in Brazil for 90 days. His family, who are Malaysian citizens, did not need a visa.
The Palestinian was detained on an absurd pretext. According to the Federal Police, he is on the FBI’s list of suspected members of “terrorist groups” – the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC).
The Federal Police said that Abuumar wanted his son to be born in Brazil in order to obtain citizenship and thus allow the family to immigrate to the country, something completely legal. Coincidentally, this argument is often used against immigrants in the US. On the basis of this “investigation”, Muslim would be summarily deported.
Faced with a lawsuit filed by IBRASPAL (Brazil-Palestine Institute) and other Palestinian advocacy organizations, federal judge Milenna Marjorie Fonseca da Cunha prevented Muslim’s extradition until there was a “better understanding of the facts” and gave the Federal Police 24 hours to provide more information.
The Federal Police act at the service of foreign governments
The case is absurd in every sense. Firstly, and most importantly, because the Federal Police is acting to enforce US government orders in Brazil. The TSC list has no support in Brazilian law. By using it as a criterion to prevent a Palestinian citizen from entering Brazil, the PF is acting as a branch of the FBI.
Secondly, because under Brazilian law, Palestinian resistance organizations are not considered terrorists. The same applies to the UN and the overwhelming majority of countries in the world. Only a small minority of countries consider the Palestinian resistance to be terrorists and these are the same countries that support the genocide that has been taking place in Gaza for more than eight months.
Thirdly, the Federal Police is accusing Muslim of being part of a terrorist organization without conducting any kind of investigation. In other words, it would be taking into account not only US law, but also the US investigation itself. It is thus, once again, placing itself as a real front for the FBI’s actions in Brazil.
Fourthly, the United States of America has no authority whatsoever to claim that no one in the world is a terrorist. They are the main allies of the Zionist regime in the genocide taking place in the Gaza Strip. They provide the bombs, vehicles, economic and political support. It would be impossible for the Zionist regime to promote the genocide in Gaza without the support it receives from the US. And this is just one of the terrorist monstrosities carried out by the US government.
Brazil is a sovereign country and a friend of Palestine. IBRASPAL, through this note, which is also signed by other organizations, asks the government to act immediately to end this US interference in the country and to guarantee the rights of Muslim Abuumar, a victim of political persecution simply for being Palestinian.
Brasilia, June 23, 2024.
Dr. Ahmed Shehada
President of the Brazil-Palestine Institute – IBRASPAL
