The case of Anan Yaeesh and his fellow targeted Palestinians, Ali Irar and Mansour Doghmosh, and the active support campaign for them, have raised the alarm Italy’s ongoing imprisonment of another Palestinian political prisoner, Palestinian refugee Ahmed Salem, from Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon, who has been imprisoned for six months for calling upon people to mobilize to confront the imperialist-Zionist genocide in Gaza.
When he applied for political asylum in Italy, he was instead criminalized and his phone searched — and now he is facing criminal charges for posting a video on social media urging Palestinians and Arabs in the West Bank and Lebanon to act for Gaza, and for having viewed widely circulated videos of Palestinian resistance operations confronting genocide. This case is, in part, based on new additions to the Italian criminal code introduced this year for the purpose of targeting local social movements as well as internationalist and anti-imperialist struggles, particularly, the Palestinian cause.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges the immediate liberation of Ahmed Salem as well as that of Anan Yaeesh, and calls on supporters of Palestine everywhere to demand that Italy cease its imprisonment of Palestinian political prisoners — part and parcel of its imperialist complicity with genocide.
We are republishing the text of the Free Anan campaign below, translated to English:
The case of Ahmad Salem
In prison for six months for calling for mobilisation against genocide
Ahmad Salem is a 24-year-old Palestinian, born and raised in the Baddawi Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. He arrived in Italy seeking international protection and, after his arrival, went to Campobasso to apply for political asylum.
During the hearing before the Territorial Commission, his phone was seized and searched, and Salem was charged under Articles 414 (incitement to commit a crime) and 270 quinquies (self-training for the purpose of terrorism) of the Italian Criminal Code. The Italian authorities, as well as the press, described him as a ‘jihadist’ who incited hatred and instigated terrorist acts, claiming that his phone contained ‘instructional material’ useful for terrorist purposes.
The entire case against him is based on a couple of sentences taken out of context from an eight-minute video posted online, in which Ahmad called for mobilisation against the ongoing genocide in Gaza, for an uprising in the West Bank and for people to take to the streets in Lebanon; and a passage in the video in which Ahmad condemns the silence and inaction of the Arab and Muslim world in the face of Israel’s crimes becomes, for the Campobasso Digos, a video of “jihadist propaganda”.
As for the alleged ‘instructional videos’, it emerged that these were footage of operations by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza against Israeli military vehicles, the same videos that had been circulating for months on television channels and in the media; these were found to contain no technical or training information, as claimed by the prosecution; so much so that the same videos released by the Palestinian resistance in Gaza have been repeatedly made publicly available and broadcast by Italian media outlets, including Rai News, La Repubblica, La Stampa and others, over the last two years.
Despite this, Ahmad has been in prison for over six months, under high security, in Rossano Calabro, awaiting trial. His lawyers have appealed to the Court of Cassation and raised the issue of the constitutionality of Article 270 quinquies, known as “terrorism of speech”, recently introduced with the “Security Decree” (formerly DDL 1660) in April, further expanding the scope of repression in Italy. This case is part of a broader political and legal context, namely one in which the Italian state is equipping itself with increasingly stringent repressive measures, not only to crack down on social struggles and solidarity movements, but also on any expression of support for Palestine and the Palestinian people’s legitimate struggle for independence and self-determination…
We would add that in Rossano prison (in the province of Cosenza, Calabria) there is a high-security wing where around twenty similar cases are being held, young immigrant proletarians, as well as some long-standing Red Brigade comrades who were recently transferred there.
Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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