Mohammed Khatib, the European coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, remains detained in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, denied proper medical care and medication, suffering from bed bug bites and dangerous, unhealthy conditions of confinement. He was arrested in the Heraklion airport on Saturday, 7 February after arriving to speak at an event on Palestinian prisoners, alongside liberated prisoner Abdel-Nasser Issa (who spoke virtually). Greek police claim that he was banned from Greece on 24 December 2025 — only two days after the Greece-Cyprus-“Israel” tripartite summit on economic, military and security cooperation — under a mysterious “national security” order.
However, he was not stopped from entering the country, but now remains detained indefinitely, awaiting deportation, in Crete. Despite the active work of his lawyers, Greek activists for Palestine, and the support of parliamentarians and political parties, he remains in dangerous, unsafe conditions and suffering from severe medical neglect. Protests are already taking place tomorrow, Wednesday 11 February, in Brussels and Athens in solidarity with Mohammed and demanding his immediate release. He issued a statement from detention today, and we urge all to spread it widely alongside demands for his immediate release:
Mohammed Khatib’s statement from the detention center in Heraklion, Crete
I thank everyone for their solidarity. My detention is not about me but for the Palestinian people. What I am going through cannot be compared to what the Palestinian people are going through. I am not the only one detained inside here, there are people from Sudan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, Egypt. Some of them have been detained for more than three months in bad conditions and the bed bugs are “eating” them.
It is a psychological and physical torture and it’s not a coincidence. It is systematic oppression and torture against people who confront colonialism and imperialism, racism and Islamophobia. Unfortunately, Greece is being used as a tool of oppression, serving colonialist interests.
I call on everyone to stand in solidarity with all those oppressed in the detention center and all prisons in Greece. As Palestine should be free, all oppressed people should be free, all refugees and migrants should be free.
I emphasize that my detention is the will and desire of Zionism.
Free Palestine! Free all political prisoners everywhere!
Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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