We are republishing the following statement by Classe Contre Classe, Front Rev and the Popular Committee for Palestine in Belgium. Read more about the attempt to target Mohammed Khatib: Samidoun Europe coordinator Mohammed Khatib threatened with revocation of asylum in Belgium: Speak out to defend Palestine! Mohammed, the European coordinator of Samidoun, is currently serving as one of 1,000 international election observers in Venezuela of the upcoming elections on 28 July.
On 15 April, in close collaboration with the Zionist state and in the midst of genocide, the Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration, Nicole de Moor, initiated a procedure with the aim of withdrawing the political refugee status from our comrade Mohammed Khatib, as well as his right of residence in Belgium. This procedure embodies the imperialist solidarity of the Belgian state with the Israeli colonial state: Mohammed should have his papers withdrawn because his political work with Samidoun, the international Palestinian solidarity political prisoners network, “harms diplomatic relations with Israel”, according to Belgian intelligence.
We are used to saying that the Belgian police work slowly but effectively in their counter-revolutionary work. We note that it can also show zeal and act with speed when it comes to carrying out the dirty work of the imperialist bourgeoisie. It even seems that the whole political-bureaucratic apparatus is ready to sell out its own principles. The few old progressive rags with which the Western metropolitan bourgeoisie used to drape itself are falling to shreds in the light of the ongoing genocide.
Why our comrade? We are not going to repeat what others have said with far more accolade than we have: he was targeted because of Islamophobia, targeted because he was a refugee, attacked because of the political line he represents and hunted down because he was a revolutionary.
We believe that in the eyes of those in power, Mohammed has crossed another red line: practising revolutionary internationalism. Not the kind of internationalism that consists of institutional kowtowing or theatrical displays of solidarity. It’s internationalism from below, genuinely linked to the struggles of our metropolis. In these struggles, shoulder to shoulder, we nourish and enrich each other. An unbearable crime in the eyes of our enemies.
This relentlessness undoubtedly lies in the fact that the Belgian revolutionary left has more to learn from the Palestinian revolutionary movement than vice versa.
Nevertheless, our enemy’s determination to strike our comrade shows us what he fears: revolutionary internationalism.
From now on, we are going to draw inspiration from his way of doing things: we are going to work slowly and methodically in this direction, with Palestine as our compass.
In the meantime, we say to our Palestinian comrades:
Victory for the fighters
Honour to the martyrs
Health for the wounded
Freedom for the prisoners!
Long live international solidarity!
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