On October 15, the United States and Canada sanctioned Samidoun in an attempt to repress political organizing in support of the Palestinian people’s struggle against genocide, colonialism and occupation, and the more than 10.000 Palestinian political prisoners that are being tortured and killed by the Zionist entity. In the US, the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the sanctions, while the Canadian governmenthas listed Samidoun as a “terrorist entity” under its criminal code.
These decisions come at a time when the Zionist entity continues its genocide and massacres in Gaza, all of Palestine and Lebanon with full support from the US, Canada and the European Union. It is a coordinated attempt by the enemies of the Palestinian people to stop every form of solidarity with the Palestinian people and political organizing efforts to end Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity and occupation.
Our response to this designation is clear: we will keep struggling to stop the genocide, stop imperialist support for Israel, until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.
Besides sending weapons and money to the Zionist entity, imperialist powers are repressing the Palestinian diaspora, Arab community and international activists for Palestine that are resisting these countries’ support for the occupation. Thousands of activists in North-America and Europe have been arrested, their houses raided or imprisoned. Palestinians in various countries have received deportation orders for their political activism. In Germany, a ban has been implemented against the slogan “from the river to sea, Palestine will be free”.
This designation and sanctions should be of serious concern to all who carry out political work, especially for Palestinian liberation, just like the banning of Samidoun in Germany in November 2023. It is meant to introduce a norm in which organizations may be designated as “terrorist” for organizing demonstrations, lectures, publishing posters and engaging in entirely public and political work that challenges imperialist states’ complicity in Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ongoing genocide in Gaza. It comes at a time when more people than ever are speaking out for justice and liberation in Palestine and is meant as an attack on the movement as a whole.
We also express our strongest solidarity with Khaled Barakat, Palestinian writer and executive committee member of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, who was targeted by the US in the same order as a “specially designated global terrorist.” This is meant to silence his effective work and activity in organizing Palestinians in exile and diaspora in the struggle for return and liberation for Palestine.
The repression of Samidoun is part of a larger attack against the Palestinian diaspora, the Arab community and all internationalists that struggle for Palestine. All mainstream political parties, from Democrats to Republicans, and from social democrats to the extreme right-wing, have used the past year to propagate more racist, Islamophobic and repressive measures against the Palestinian people, Arabs, Muslims, refugees, migrants and activists. This repression reflects the interests of the US and Canada, themselves settler-colonial states built on genocide, ethnic cleansing and continued oppression of the Indigenous peoples, and Europe, the birthplace of the Zionist movement.
It is part of the global struggle against colonialism and imperialism that will continue until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and the liberation of all oppressed peoples and nations.
Like the Zionist entity fears the Palestinian resistance, so do the imperialist powers fear the Palestinian diaspora and their supporters that have been rising up again and again, especially since the start of operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the Zionist genocide. They fear a strong, popular movement that threatens their economic and political interests in Palestine and the region.
The repression is a sign of strength for the Palestinian movement and the international solidarity movement. This movement has mobilized the largest demonstrations for Palestine in history, has costed Israeli and Zionist companies billions of dollars in losses, it has united millions of people from across the world, and it has united virtually all social movements in every country for the Palestinian liberation struggle.
Samidoun is particularly targeted because of our political and vocal support for the Palestinian prisoners movement and the Palestinian people’s right to resistance. While the US and Canada are two of Israel’s biggest material supporters with weapons and money and repress the Palestinian movement in their own countries, their official outposts abroad have frequently sought to influence and direct Palestinian politics through conditional funding and similar colonial enterprises. Through these sanctions, the US and Canada wish not only to support genocide but to criminalize even verbal resistance to that genocide. The Palestinian people, like all colonized and oppressed peoples, have the right to resist to liberate themselves and their land from colonialism and occupation, from the river to the sea. Those who resist occupation and oppression — the Palestinian resistance — are not only heroes of the Palestinian people, they are defenders of all of humanity.
As Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, we reiterate our support for the Palestinian people, the prisoners and the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic resistance, who are confronting the genocide and occupation on a daily basis.
At the same time, we want to stress that Samidoun does not have any material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union.
We reiterate our words upon German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ announcement of the demand to ban Samidoun: In Arabic, the word “Samidoun,” means those who are steadfast. We use this name to refer to the Palestinian prisoners, who remain behind bars, struggling for freedom. Today we affirm that we shall remain steadfast and committed to the Palestinian people, until victory, return and liberation.
