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Monday, December 22, 2025
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Layan Nasir is free: Escalate the campaign to #FreePalestinianStudents

Palestinian student Layan Nasir was released from Israeli prison on Thursday, 26 August, welcomed home by her family, comrades and loved ones.

A 21-year-old fourth-year nutrition student at Bir Zeit University, Nasir has been detained by the Israeli occupation since 7 July 2021, when occupation forces stormed and invaded her family home. Just two days earlier, on 24 August, her military court hearing was postponed until 5 October, but she was ordered released. Her release comes after a surge in worldwide and Palestinian support for her case, with organizations from the Anglican church to French trade unions calling for her freedom.

Nasir is continuing to face charges before an Israeli military court that accuse her of participating in student events and activities on her campus, including events like book fairs and group meals. Specifically, Layan Nasir is being accused of supporting an “unlawful organization,” namely the Progressive Democratic Student Pole, the leftist student bloc at Bir Zeit University. These arbitrary designations of Palestinian organizations as “unlawful” may be issued at any time by an Israeli military commander of occupation forces in the West Bank, and are used as a pretext to round up, detain and violently attack Palestinian organizations and movements.

As a condition of her release, Nasir was required to pay bail and to complete the unjust military trial outside detention. Israeli military courts convict over 99% of the Palestinians brought before them.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Layan Nasir upon her release. Her case indicates why it is so urgent for people around the world to support Palestinian students — and all Palestinian prisoners — struggling for freedom.

At Bir Zeit University alone, Nasir’s university, approximately 74 students were detained by occupation soldiers during the 2019-2020 academic year. Students are routinely and specifically targeted for Israeli colonial imprisonment and repression for their student activism, organizing student events and participation in student elections and other political and social activities on campus.  In July, a UN panel declared that the imprisonment of Palestinian students Layan Kayed, Ruba Assi and Elia Abu Hijleh was unlawful and arbitrary, calling for their release.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Layan Nasir and urges all friends of justice in Palestine to join the #FreePalestinianStudents campaign. 

We join together to call for action and support for Palestinian students behind bars, including:

  • Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including Israeli academic institutions, which are fully complicit in the systematic deprivation of Palestinian rights.
  • Ending all military and economic aid, military transactions, joint projects and direct funding to the Israeli occupation regime by governments around the world.
  • Challenging “normalization” programs that aim to legitimize Israeli occupation — this is an attempt to legitimize the criminalization and targeting of Palestinian students.
  • Organizing to build direct links of solidarity with Palestinian students and the Palestinian student movement, to ensure that they will not be isolated from their global community of support despite all attempts by the Israeli occupation.

For the full campaign statement, resources, posters, photos and more, including translations in eight languages, please visit: https://freepalestinianstudents.org/ Add your organization’s name to this statement: http://bit.ly/palstudentsignon

Free Anhar al-Deek, Palestinian mother imprisoned in her ninth month of pregnancy!

Detained Palestinian mother Anhar al-Deek, 25, is currently in her ninth month of pregnancy, jailed in the Israeli occupation’s Damon prison. Her baby is due in the coming days, and she has already been told that she will receive a Caesarean section to deliver her baby and that she and her baby will be isolated after the delivery, ostensibly because of COVID-19. Rather than receiving the support of her husband and her loved ones, she will be accompanied by Israeli occupation prison guards and jailers only.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network echoes Anhar’s call to the world for action to demand her freedom, joining Palestinians and people of conscience everywhere calling for Anhar to be immediately released.

Anhar al-Deek, from the village of Kafr Ni’ma, west of Ramallah, was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 8 March 2021 — International Women’s Day — when she was four months pregnant. With only a small fruit knife in her possession, she was accused of attempting to stab an Israeli illegal settler.

Throughout her imprisonment and her pregnancy, she has experienced severe physical and mental health symptoms and was diagnosed with bipolar depression. Rather than receiving the support and medical care that she needs and the presence of her loved ones, she has been thrown into the Israeli military legal system, where she continues to await trial and sentencing even as her delivery date approaches. Her military trial has been postponed 7 times; the Israeli military courts convict over 99% of the Palestinians brought before them.

The Israeli occupation has not permitted al-Deek family visits with her husband and baby daughter, Julia. Her husband was able to see her three months ago during the military court, and her brother said that he saw his sister five months ago in another military court hearing.

She issued a touching letter from inside Israeli prisons, which sparked a firestorm of outrage on social media, calling for her immediate release:

I miss Julia, my beloved daughter, so deeply. My heart cries for her, wishing I can hug her and hold her in my heart. The pain in my heart cannot be expressed.

What can I do if I have to give birth away from you, shackled? You know what it is like to go through a Caesarean delivery outside of prison. How will it be to go through it chained inside the prison?

I am so tired and have severe pain…I do not know how I will take my first steps after the surgery, when the jailer holds my arm with disgust…How can I protect the baby from the terrifying jailers?

I ask all free and honorable people of conscience to act, even by raising a word!…

Anhar is currently among 40 fellow Palestinian women prisoners held in Israeli jails, out of a total of 4,750 Palestinian political prisoners. Eleven of the detained women are mothers separated from their children by the Israeli occupation; just last month, Palestinian political leader and feminist Khalida Jarrar was denied early release or even the opportunity to see her daughter’s body after the untimely death of her daughter, Palestinian activist and human rights defender Suha Jarrar.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins with organizers throughout Palestine and internationally in raising our voices and our words to demand Anhar al-Deek’s immediate release. We urge all supporters of justice in Palestine to join in the campaign to #SaveAnhar and her child. Take action to stand with Anhar al-Deek and urge freedom for Palestinian women, Palestinian children, and all of Palestine, from the river to the sea!

Join the social media campaign!

Thousands of people around the world have already posted about Anhar under the hashtag #SaveAnhar. Use the images on this page to post and call for her immediate release.

Protest at the Israeli Embassy or Consulate in Your Country!

Join the many protests taking place around the world — confront, isolate and besiege the Israeli embassy or consulate in your city or country of residence. Make it clear that the people are with Palestine! Send us your events at samidoun@samidoun.net.

Take to the streets: Organize a protest in solidarity with Palestine!

Take to the streets and join the actions on our full list of events, which is constantly being updated as new actions are announced! Organize your own if there is none in your area, and send us your events at samidoun@samidoun.net.

Boycott Israel!

The international, Arab and Palestinian campaign to boycott Israel can play an important role at this critical time. Local boycott groups can protest and label Israeli produce and groceries, while many complicit corporations – including HP, G4S, Puma, Teva and others, profit from their role in support Zionist colonialism throughout occupied Palestine. By participating in the boycott of Israel, you can directly help to throw a wrench in the economy of settler colonialism.

Demand Your Government Sanction Israel!

The racist, settler colonial state of Israel and its war crimes against the Palestinian people are enabled and backed extensively by the over $3.8 billion each year given to Israel by the United States — targeted directly to support the Israeli occupation military killing children, women, men and elders throughout occupied Palestine. From Canada to Australia to the European Union, Western governments and imperialist powers provide ongoing diplomatic, political and economic support to Israel as well as selling billions of dollars of weaponry to the settler-colonial state. Meanwhile, they also purchase billions of dollars in weaponry from the Israeli state. Governments in league with imperialist powers, such as in the Philippines, Brazil, India and elsewhere, also buy weapons and “security” services — all “battle-tested” on the Palestinian population. Call your representatives, MPs, political officials and demand your government sanction Israel now, cut off all aid, expel its ambassadors, and stop buying and selling weapons!

Ghassan Zawahreh jailed without charge or trial by Israeli occupation military order

Palestinian struggler and community organizer Ghassan Zawahreh was once again ordered jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, only days after he was seized by Israeli occupation forces from his home in Dheisheh refugee camp. On Tuesday, 24 August, the Israeli military ordered Zawahreh detained for a four-month period, which is indefinitely renewable.

Zawahreh has been repeatedly detained since 2002, when he was only 14 years old. He was last released from Israeli occupation prisons on 4 March 2021 after 28 months jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention. Almost every time he is released, he may spend only a few months with his family and community before being ripped away once again for arbitrary imprisonment with no charge or trial. He was once again seized from his home on 19 August, only six months after his last release.

During his last detention, Zawahreh highlighted the injustice of administrative detention, announcing his boycott of the military courts: “Administrative detention is a heinous crime for the ages. What is even more criminal is the occupation’s attempts to mislead through mock courts and charades where the executioner and the ruler, dressed up in military suits, represent the Occupation and its crimes.”

He has spent nearly 16 years in total in Israeli prisons; his brother Moataz Zawahreh was murdered by Israeli occupation forces as he participated in a popular protest in Bethlehem in 2015. Moataz had actually returned home to Palestine from where he was studying in France to support Ghassan, who was engaged in a long-term hunger strike against his imprisonment without charge or trial. He won his release in December 2015, only to be seized again by occupation forces seven months later.

He is well-known in Dheisheh refugee camp as a community activist and volunteer in popular programs that provide social services to people in the camp. He worked as a taxi driver in order to support his family, on the Bethlehem-Ramallah road.

Administrative detention was first used in Palestine by the British colonial mandate and then adopted by the Zionist regime; it is now used routinely to target Palestinians, especially community leaders, activists, and influential people in their towns, camps and villages.

There are currently approximately 550 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, out of 4,750 Palestinian political prisoners. These orders are issued by the military and approved by military courts on the basis of “secret evidence”, denied to both Palestinian detainees and their attorneys. Issued for up to six months at a time, they are indefinitely renewable, and Palestinians — including minor children — can spend years jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention. There are currently nine Palestinians on hunger strike to end administrative detention without charge or trial.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Ghassan Zawahreh, dedicated struggler for Palestine and leading political prisoner repeatedly attacked by Israeli occupation forces, and all of his fellow Palestinian political prisoners. We are committed to organize, struggle and work to achieve the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Salem Zeidat, Mujahid Hamed, Omar al-Jabari suspend hunger strikes; six continue the battle of empty stomachs

Three Palestinian prisoners jailed without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention suspended their hunger strikes after reaching an agreement for their release; six more continue their strikes to demand freedom and an end to the administrative detention policy. Salem Zeidat, from Bani Naim near al-Khalil, suspended his open hunger strike on Monday, 23 August after 43 days. He will be released at the expiration of his current administrative detention order in November. He has been detained since 22 February 2020, jailed without charge or trial, and his detention repeatedly extended.

On Tuesday, 24 August, Mujahid Hamed and Omar al-Jabari ended their strikes. Hamed, from Silwad near Ramallah, suspended his strike after 42 days; he will be released in January 2022, at the end of his current administrative detention orders. He has been detained since 22 September 2020 and has spent 9 years in Israeli occupation prisons. He was seized and thrown in administrative detention only three months after his release.

Omar al-Jabari of Jenin suspended his strike after 7 days after also reaching an agreement for the end of his administrative detention. Kayed Fasfous, Miqdad Qawasmeh, Ahmad Hamamra, Akram Fasfous, Alaa al-Araj and Hisham Abu Hawash are continuing their strikes. All of the detainees on hunger strike are held in solitary confinement or isolation, denied family visits, stripped of their possessions and frequently delayed or denied access to their lawyers in an attempt to force them to end their strikes.

What Is Administrative Detention?

Administrative detention was first used in Palestine by the British colonial mandate and then adopted by the Zionist regime; it is now used routinely to target Palestinians, especially community leaders, activists, and influential people in their towns, camps and villages.

There are currently approximately 550 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, out of 4,750 Palestinian political prisoners. These orders are issued by the military and approved by military courts on the basis of “secret evidence”, denied to both Palestinian detainees and their attorneys. Issued for up to six months at a time, they are indefinitely renewable, and Palestinians — including minor children — can spend years jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Who Are the Hunger Strikers?

  1. Kayed Fasfous: from Dura – Hebron, started the strike 41 days ago. He is 36 years old, detained without charge or trial since October 2020, and held in Ramon prison.

2. Miqdad Qawasmeh: from Hebron, started 34 days ago. Miqdad Qawasmeh is a Palestinian university student, 24 years old. He has been jailed without charge or trial since January 2021 and is held in Ofer prison.

3. Ahmad Hamamra: from Beit Sahour, started the strike 25 days ago. He has been imprisoned without charge or trial since 17 August 2020 and previously participated in the 2017 collective hunger strike while detained. His administrative detention order was renewed while on hunger strike.

4. Akram Fasfous: from Dura, al-Khalil (Hebron), launched his strike 20 days ago. He is the brother of Kayed Fasfous, on hunger strike for 28 days, and of Mahmoud Fasfous, who was previously on strike before suspending due to severe health deterioration. He has been jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention since October 2020. He is 38 years old, married and the father of four children.

5. Alaa al-Araj: from Tulkarem, launched his strike 17 days ago. He has been jailed since 30 June without charge or trial under administrative detention and is held in Megiddo prison. He is 34 years old.

6. Hisham Ismail Abu Hawash, 39, from Dura, al-Khalil, has been on hunger strike for 9 days. He has been jailed without charge or trial since October 2020 under Israeli administrative detention. Over multiple arrests, he has spent eight years in Israeli prisons. He is married and the father of four children; his youngest child suffers from kidney failure.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all supporters of Palestine to take action to support these Palestinian hunger strikers and all Palestinian prisoners struggling for freedom, for their own lives and for the Palestinian people. They are confronting the system of Israeli oppression on the front lines, with their bodies and their lives, to bring the system of administrative detention to an end. Take these actions below to stand with the hunger strikers and the struggle for liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea!

Download these signs for use in your campaigns:

TAKE ACTION: 

Sign the petition!

Independent grassroots international activists have launched a petition in support of the hunger strikers and to end administrative detention. Show your support by signing on – in addition to taking action in person! Sign here: change.org/NoChargeNoTrialNoJail

Protest at the Israeli Embassy or Consulate in Your Country!

Join the many protests taking place around the world — confront, isolate and besiege the Israeli embassy or consulate in your city or country of residence. Make it clear that the people are with Palestine! Send us your events at samidoun@samidoun.net.

Take to the streets: Organize a protest in solidarity with Palestine!

Take to the streets and join the actions on our full list of events, which is constantly being updated as new actions are announced! Organize your own if there is none in your area, and send us your events at samidoun@samidoun.net.

Boycott Israel!

The international, Arab and Palestinian campaign to boycott Israel can play an important role at this critical time. Local boycott groups can protest and label Israeli produce and groceries, while many complicit corporations – including HP, G4S, Puma, Teva and others, profit from their role in support Zionist colonialism throughout occupied Palestine. By participating in the boycott of Israel, you can directly help to throw a wrench in the economy of settler colonialism.

Demand Your Government Sanction Israel!

The racist, settler colonial state of Israel and its war crimes against the Palestinian people are enabled and backed extensively by the over $3.8 billion each year given to Israel by the United States — targeted directly to support the Israeli occupation military killing children, women, men and elders throughout occupied Palestine. From Canada to Australia to the European Union, Western governments and imperialist powers provide ongoing diplomatic, political and economic support to Israel as well as selling billions of dollars of weaponry to the settler-colonial state. Meanwhile, they also purchase billions of dollars in weaponry from the Israeli state. Governments in league with imperialist powers, such as in the Philippines, Brazil, India and elsewhere, also buy weapons and “security” services — all “battle-tested” on the Palestinian population. Call your representatives, MPs, political officials and demand your government sanction Israel now, cut off all aid, expel its ambassadors, and stop buying and selling weapons!

 

Israeli military court postpones hearing for detained Palestinian student Layan Nasir

Palestinian student Layan Nasir remains imprisoned by the Israeli occupation, her military court hearing postponed until 5 October 2021. Nasir, 21, is a student of nutrition at Bir Zeit University. She has been detained since 7 July 2021, when Israeli occupation forces stormed and invaded her family home, and is now being charged before an Israeli military court with participating in student events and activities on her campus.

Specifically, Layan Nasir is being accused of supporting an “unlawful organization,” namely the Progressive Democratic Student Pole, the leftist student bloc at Bir Zeit University. These arbitrary designations of Palestinian organizations as “unlawful” may be issued at any time by an Israeli military commander of occupation forces in the West Bank, and are used as a pretext to round up, detain and violently attack Palestinian organizations and movements.

Israeli military court hearings are routinely delayed and continued on multiple occasions. These repeated lengthy delays are also a mechanism of pressure used to compel forced plea bargains from Palestinian political prisoners in order to bring the process to an end. The repeated trips to and from the military courts are themselves a mechanism of pressure, with detainees enduring travel in the “bosta,” the military vehicle transporting detainees to and from the courts. Journeys that should take an hour often take a full day, with detainees denied food or access to sanitary facilities during the lengthy waits in the heat.

Last week, several French trade unions issued a solidarity statement calling for Nasir’s release as well as that of her fellow detained Palestinian students.

There are currently hundreds of Palestinian students detained by the Israeli occupation. At Bir Zeit University alone, Nasir’s university, approximately 74 students were detained by occupation soldiers during the 2019-2020 academic year. Students are routinely and specifically targeted for Israeli colonial imprisonment and repression for their student activism, organizing student events and participation in student elections and other political and social activities on campus.  In July, a UN panel declared that the imprisonment of Palestinian students Layan Kayed, Ruba Assi and Elia Abu Hijleh was unlawful and arbitrary, calling for their release.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Layan Nasir and urges all friends of justice in Palestine to join the #FreePalestinianStudents campaign. 

We join together to call for action and support for Palestinian students behind bars, including:

  • Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including Israeli academic institutions, which are fully complicit in the systematic deprivation of Palestinian rights.
  • Ending all military and economic aid, military transactions, joint projects and direct funding to the Israeli occupation regime by governments around the world.
  • Challenging “normalization” programs that aim to legitimize Israeli occupation — this is an attempt to legitimize the criminalization and targeting of Palestinian students.
  • Organizing to build direct links of solidarity with Palestinian students and the Palestinian student movement, to ensure that they will not be isolated from their global community of support despite all attempts by the Israeli occupation.

For the full campaign statement, resources, posters, photos and more, including translations in eight languages, please visit: https://freepalestinianstudents.org/ Add your organization’s name to this statement: http://bit.ly/palstudentsignon

French trade unions issue call to free detained Palestinian student Layan Nasir

Several French trade unions issued a solidarity statement on 20 August 2021, calling for the freedom of detained Palestinian student Layan Nasir, a 21-year-old nutrition student at Bir Zeit University. She has been jailed since 7 July 2021, when Israeli occupation forces stormed and invaded her family home. Union Syndicale Solidaires, SUD Education, SUD Research EPST, Solidaires Student Union of Struggle and AURDIP (University Association for the Respect of International Law in Palestine), issued the joint statement (translation below) calling for Nasir’s immediate release.

She will be brought once again before an Israeli military court at Ofer prison on 24 August, where she is accused of “membership in an illegal organization,” in this case, the Progressive Democratic Student Pole, the leftist student bloc at Bir Zeit University. These arbitrary designations of Palestinian organizations as “unlawful” may be issued at any time by an Israeli military commander of occupation forces in the West Bank, and are used as a pretext to round up, detain and violently attack Palestinian organizations and movements.

There are currently hundreds of Palestinian students detained by the Israeli occupation. At Bir Zeit University alone, Nasir’s university, approximately 74 students were detained by occupation soldiers during the 2019-2020 academic year. Students are routinely and specifically targeted for Israeli colonial imprisonment and repression for their student activism, organizing student events and participation in student elections and other political and social activities on campus.  Earlier in July, a UN panel declared that the imprisonment of Palestinian students Layan Kayed, Ruba Assi and Elia Abu Hijleh was unlawful and arbitrary, calling for their release.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Layan Nasir and urges all friends of justice in Palestine to join the #FreePalestinianStudents campaign. 

We join together to call for action and support for Palestinian students behind bars, including:

  • Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including Israeli academic institutions, which are fully complicit in the systematic deprivation of Palestinian rights.
  • Ending all military and economic aid, military transactions, joint projects and direct funding to the Israeli occupation regime by governments around the world.
  • Challenging “normalization” programs that aim to legitimize Israeli occupation — this is an attempt to legitimize the criminalization and targeting of Palestinian students.
  • Organizing to build direct links of solidarity with Palestinian students and the Palestinian student movement, to ensure that they will not be isolated from their global community of support despite all attempts by the Israeli occupation.

For the full campaign statement, resources, posters, photos and more, including translations in eight languages, please visit: https://freepalestinianstudents.org/ Add your organization’s name to this statement: http://bit.ly/palstudentsignon

Read the French unions’ statement (Original French at Solidaires):

Support for the Palestinian civilian population and its students: free Layan Nasir!

The last Israeli attack on Gaza last May was met by the solidarity mobilization and unwavering unity of the Palestinian civilian populations of the West Bank and Israel. The extremely widely supported general strike demonstrated the power of trade union organizations in a situation of generalized crisis.

Following the ceasefire, the Israeli army has been conducting an offensive for several months against these organizations and the activists it considers the most effective. The result is several hundred arbitrary violent arrests, detentions, dissolutions of organizations, closures of premises, theft of computer equipment, etc.

For decades, the youth and students who contribute to popular resistance against the apartheid Israeli regime have been a prime target of attempts to silence them. Student organizations are particularly targeted, and dozens of students have been arbitrarily arrested, assaulted and detained.

The case of Layan Nasir, 21, a fourth-year student in nutrition studies at Bir Zeit University in the occupied West Bank, is emblematic. Her house was stormed by the Israeli army on 7 July 2021. Layan Nassir was then handcuffed, a mask covering her eyes, another her mouth, arrested and transported to the Ofer military camp for interrogation, then transferred to HaSharon Prison where she is still incarcerated.

The charges against Layan relate mainly to her alleged membership of a left-wing student organization (the Democratic Progressive Student Pole) which the IDF has declared illegal, as it does for all student organizations, a practice denounced by Palestinian human rights organizations. The Ofer Military Court has scheduled a new hearing for Layan Nasir on 24 August 2021.

Faced with this obvious denial of freedom of association, freedom of expression expression and the right to form student unions, we demand the immediate and unconditional release of Layan Nasir, as well as dozens of detained students. for similar reasons, such as the 45 Bir Zeit students arrested on July 14 after returning from a peaceful demonstration in support of the villagers of Turmus Ayya.

  • Union syndicale Solidaires
  • SUD Éducation
  • SUD Recherche EPST
  • Solidaires Etudiant-e-s Syndicat de Lutte
  • AURDIP (Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine)

https://samidoun.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/2021_08_-_communique_soutien_layan_nasir.pdf

One year of political imprisonment: Free Dr. Issam Hijjawi Bassalat!

Dr. Issam Hijjawi Bassalat, Palestinian activist in Scotland and a medical doctor, remains a political prisoner alongside his fellow detainees, the Saoradh 9, one year after “Operation Arbacia,” a series of political arrests. Today, he remains jailed in the Maghaberry high security prison, in the British-occupied north of Ireland. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network renews our call for the immediate release of Dr. Issam Hijjawi Bassalat and all political prisoners in British jails.

He was targeted by an MI5 infiltrator, Dennis McFadden, to attend a bugged meeting with members of Saoradh, an Irish republican socialist political party that advocates for an end to British colonialism and a united Ireland. He was detained on 22 August at Heathrow Airport on the same day that nine members of Saoradh were also arrested by British forces. Throughout the past year, his bail applications have been repeatedly denied, despite serious health issues and the damaging effects of incarceration on his and his fellow detainees’ well-being.

Dr. Hijjawi Bassalat, 62, came to the UK in 1995 to work as a doctor, and he is a well-known, respected member of the Palestinian community in Scotland and the father of four. He previously served as chair of the Association of Palestinian Communities in Scotland (today, the Scottish Palestinian Society) and has been active throughout Europe in advocating for Palestinian rights to return, freedom and justice, speaking frequently at meetings, conferences and events.

“Operation Arbacia” sprang from the decades-long infiltration of Irish republican movements by MI5 agent Dennis McFadden, detailed in a Channel 4 News report. Issam was entrapped into a meeting with McFadden on false pretenses after he was told by British officials that he had to pick up his daughter’s passport renewal in Belfast instead of Glasgow. There, he was invited to what was presented to him as a Saoradh meeting to discuss international solidarity and the Palestinian cause; he had previously spoken to a Saoradh Ard Fheis (annual meeting) about Palestine, an open, public event.

He is charged with “preparatory acts of terrorism” under the 2006 Terrorism Act, based on his attendance at this meeting engineered by MI5. Issam’s solicitor, Gavin Booth, has seen the transcript of the meeting Issam was compelled to attend, noting that “Everything that’s contained within the transcripts and the recordings is about Palestine, is about peaceful and democratic change. There’s nothing in the transcripts from Dr Bassalat that would support violence in any way.” Despite these facts and the presumption of innocence that is supposed to apply, he has been held on remand for a full year.

In addition to his ongoing, unjust imprisonment, pre-trial detention and denied bail, Dr. Hijjawi Bassalat has suffered further injustice. His bank account was frozen, denying him access to funds and creating even more inconvenience and trauma for his family — again, all while he ostensibly retains the presumption of innocence. Issam’s licence to practise medicine was suspended by the General Medical Council (GMC) on 26 October 2020 after the charges filed against him, despite the fact that he has been convicted of nothing and that the charges in no way relate to his fitness to practise medicine or his treatment of his patients.

Issam is being targeted as a Palestinian in an attempt to justify the MI5 infiltration of public political parties and to smear both the Palestinian and Irish struggles through entrapment and misrepresentation. The presumption of innocence is being cast aside for political gamesmanship. We urge the immediate release of Dr. Issam Hijjawi Bassalat and all political prisoners, including the Saoradh 9, detained in British jails.

Video: Channel 4 Report on MI5 Entrapment and Infiltration

Video Webinar on Dr. Issam Hijjawi Bassalat and the Saoradh 9

Statement from Scotland Against Criminalizing Communities:

Operation Arbacia – One Year On

18 August 2021

Today marks the first anniversary of the launch of the PSNI/MI5/Garda operation (which also had a little help from Police Scotland) dubbed “Operation Arbacia”. Over the following few days it resulted in the arrest of our friend Dr Issam Hijjawi Bassalat and nine members of the Saoradh party on charges related to their entrapment by a British informer and MI5 spy, Dennis McFadden.

Issam is a Scottish Palestinian activist. There is no real case against him. Saoradh describes the arrest of its members as an attack on the party. It’s likely to be years before Issam and the Saoradh Nine come to trial. Their continued pre-trial detention amounts to internment by remand. It should be a cause of international outrage.

#FreeIssamHijjawi #FreeTheSaoradh9

Statement from Saoradh:

The Saoradh Nine – One Year Later

Today [August 18th] marks one whole year since the start of “Operation Arbacia”, a joint MI5 and Garda operation which witnessed nine Saoradh members, and a Palestinian activist, taken away from their families, communities and subsequently interned.

The MI5-directed operation was carried out on the sole word of a British informer and MI5 spy, Dennis McFadden, who worked undercover with the purpose of disrupting the legitimate political business of the Revolutionary Republican Party, Saoradh.

Telling the media that they were targeting the IRA, the Crown Forces and Free State Forces raided family homes and party offices across Ireland for days in the clear attempt to deter Saoradh from carrying out the grassroots-based activism for which it is renowned in working class communities across the country.

The nine Saoradh party members along with our comrade, Issam Hijjawi, were all arrested as part of the sinister operation and remain in MI5-directed torture camps Maghaberry and Hydebank to this day.

We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that they haven’t stopped us and they never will no matter how much they try.

To our 10 comrades, and their families, we pledge our full support as we continue to expose the British imperialist agenda that incarcerates them using internment by remand – ironically 50 years this month since it was reintroduced by the colonial oppressor.

“They tried to bury us — they didn’t know we were seeds”.

#FreeTheSaoradh9

27 August, Toulouse: Palestine Stand – End the siege on Gaza!

Friday, 27 August
11 am to 1 pm
Metro Bagatelle
Toulouse, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/847297752583231/

On Friday, 27 August, from 11 am to 1 pm, Collectif Palestine Vaincra will organize a Palestine Stand at the Bagatelle Metro station in Toulouse. Since 2007, the Israeli occupation has imposed an illegal siege on the Gaza Strip with the complicity of the Egyptian regime and Western powers. Since then, the humanitarian situation has been devastating for the 2 million Palestinians who live in a veritable open-air prison. At the same time, the Israeli occupation military is stepping up its attacks in an attempt to break down the courageous resistance confronting colonial barbarity. On 21 August, it shot and wounded 41 Palestinians attending a popular demonstration. Despite everything, Gaza remains standing and resisting the occupation. Let us stand with Gaza and demand the immediate end to the siege on Gaza!

The program will include an information stand, flyer distribution, solidarity photos, petitions, etc.

This event has been registered at the prefecture and respects required health measures (masks, sanitizer, etc.)

Ramallah court extends detention of eight detainees on hunger strike; Samidoun statement on PA repression

Families of their political detainees demand their freedom

UPDATE: 24 August – Lawyers for Justice confirmed that all of the detainees have been released, including Sheikh Khader Adnan. Freedom for all political detainees!

On Sunday, 22 August, the 23 Palestinian political detainees seized yesterday by Palestinian Authority security forces in an attempt to prevent a demonstration demanding justice for Nizar Banat and an end to PA “security cooperation” with Israel were brought before the Ramallah Magistrate’s Court. All of the detainees had launched hunger strikes upon their arrest, demanding their immediate release.

Among their number are many prominent organizers, intellectuals and former prisoners held in Israeli jails. While the court ordered the release of 13 detainees, eight more were ordered detained for an additional 48 hours: former prisoner Ubai Aboudi (Executive Director of the Bisan Centre for Research and Development), Omar Assaf, Ghassan al-Saadi, Jihad Abdo, Amir Salameh, Mohammed Abdo, Yousef al-Sharqawi and Hamza Zubeidat. All have declared that their hunger strikes will continue until their release. Hind Shraydeh, Ubai Aboudi’s wife, said that he and his fellow detainees had remained silent under interrogation, noting that their arrest and interrogation were illegal

Lawyers for Justice noted that among those released are former political prisoners Maher al-Akhras and Imad Barghouthi, Zaha Maadi, Kawthar Ebwainy, Ibrahim Abu Hijleh, Salem Qutaish, Yousef Omar, Yousef Abukhdair and Abdel-Hadi Abu Shamsieh.

Meanwhile, outside the Magistrate’s Court, Khader Adnan, the former long-term hunger striker who won his freedom from administrative detention in Israeli prisons on multiple occasions, was seized by PA security forces as he protested the detention of the organizers of the protest. In an interview with Quds News, Randa, Adnan’s wife, said that he was seized suddenly by a security vehicle that came to the scene and pulled him away. He has since announced that he is also on hunger strike until he is released.

A wide array of Palestinian organizations, political parties, legal organizations and institutions condemned the arrests. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad Movement, the Palestinian NGO Network, the Independent Commission of Human Rights, Al-Haq, the Bisan Centre for Research and Development, and many other parties issued statements denouncing the arrests as blatant violations of freedoms of expression, especially targeting former prisoners, and endangering Palestinian social cohesion in confronting the occupation.

Samidoun Network in occupied Palestine issued a statement in response to the arrests:

We, in the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, stand against the oppression and abuse practiced by the Palestinian Authority, which, approximately two months ago assassinated the martyr and Nizar Banat, and has escalated all practices of violence and aggression against our people over the previous period, although these practices are not new for the Authority. However, the emphasis on the use of excessive violence and smear campaigns against our Palestinian people and their revolutionary forces are increasing, which indicates the rule of the “security fist” policy and the domination of policies of control, and the pervasiveness of repression and intimidation against freedom of expression and assembly, expressing the people’s right to self-determination and confrontation of the occupation.

We see in these policies nothing but an insistence on betraying the decisions and commitments of the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation, protecting the ruling class that plunders the resources of our people on a daily basis, insisting on the continuation of the policy of security coordination, the policy of the “revolving door” of imprisonment, and the surrender of the strugglers of the Palestinian people to the occupation, while it continues to usurp our land and attack our liberation project, not to mention denying the rights of Palestinian refugees to return and subjugating Palestinian lives to the global imperialist powers.

Today, while Jenin sets an example of sacrifice and affirms our absolute right to struggle and resist, and while Gaza stands firm confronting the occupation and providing lessons in struggle and steadfastness, this Authority has arrested 23 Palestinians as they organized a sit-in condemning the killing of the martyr Nizar Banat. The Authority’s security forces pursued them in the streets of occupied Ramallah, preventing them from gathering in a new step of suppressing any defense of our people’s right to life. Accordingly, we affirm:

1. There must be accountability for the murderers of the martyr Nizar Banat, from the security forces and the decision-makers in the Authority;

2. Our people today are able to protect themselves, and these structures established by the Authority are obsolete bodies that undermine the will of our people and their struggle for freedom.

3. The dissolution of the Authority and the monopolistic leadership forces and an end to the corruption of this political junta that undermines our people’s right to life and right to national liberation throughout all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

4. We affirm that any infringement on freedom of expression will only be met with more confrontation in defense of the freedoms that constitute a fundamental basis for our people’s liberation struggle.

5. Immediate freedom for all detainees and an end to the malicious accusations of “inciting sectarian strife,” “illegal gathering,” and “insults to officials,” emphasizing that the true authorities of the Palestinian people are the martyrs, prisoners and fighters who have given their lives and sacrificed to defend Palestine.

6. End the ongoing political arrests, repression, abuses, and attempts to spread intrigues and division among our people.

7. We stand behind our valiant resistance and affirm that the real leadership of our people are the prisoners detained in the jails of the Zionist enemy and the heroic resistance strugglers everywhere who carry the burden of the road of liberation and dignity.

Immediate freedom for all political detainees!

Glory to the martyrs and justice for Nizar Banat

Samidoun Network

PA security forces attack demonstrators for justice for Nizar Banat, arrest activists and former prisoners

Once again, Palestinian organizers, political leaders and former prisoners have been assaulted and detained by Palestinian Authority security forces as they demanded justice for Nizar Banat, assassinated by PA security forces almost two months ago, on 24 June 2021. A protest scheduled for this evening, Saturday, 21 August to demand accountability for those who killed and directed Banat’s killing and demand an end to the Palestinian Authority’s security coordination with the Israeli occupation was blocked by PA security forces, who assaulted demonstrators and detained at least 23 people, including:

  • Maher al-Akhras, former political prisoner and long-term hunger striker who won his freedom from Israeli jails after over 100 days of strike
  • Imad al-Barghouthi, Palestinian professor and astrophysicist, former political prisoner jailed by Israel without charge or trial
  • Ubai Aboudi, Executive Director of the Bisan Center for Research and Development, former political prisoner jailed by the Israeli occupation
  • Jihad Abdo
  • Ibrahim Abu Hijleh
  • Yousef al-Sharqawi
  • Bassem Qawasmeh
  • Obaida Qawasmeh
  • Kawthar Ebwainy
  • Hamza Zbeidat
  • Mu’in Barghouthi
  • Omar Assaf
  • Musa Abu Sharar
  • Salem Quteish
  • Abdel-Hadi Abu Shamsiah
  • Yousef Amer Abu Mamdouh
  • Duha Muaddi
  • Ali Abu Diab
  • Ghassan al-Saadi

Maher al-Akhras was particularly severely wounded by the beating of PA security forces and was transferred to the hospital, reported Lawyers for Justice, which is working to represent all of the detainees and secure their freedom. However, Palestinian Authority security forces are continuing to arrest Palestinian activists, following participants in the demonstration through the streets.

This follows a series of attacks, arrests and violent repressive actions targeting Palestinian protesters by the PA, including the dozens of arrests at previous protests demanding justice for Nizar Banat.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of all of these political detainees. Samidoun Network in Occupied Palestine is working to collect information about the detainees and demand their release.

Like the assassination of Nizar Banat, these arrests and attacks reflect a conscious policy of the Israeli occupation and the Oslo Palestinian Authority affiliated with it. The latter is carrying out its specific function to protect the existence of the occupation and its control over the Palestinian people in the West Bank. Acting as agents of the occupation, the PA is practicing all forms of oppression and terror, including political arrests, violent raids and assassinations, against the Palestinian people in order to serve the Zionist colonial project and to protect the privileges of the small sliver of the beneficiaries of the Palestinian Authority – the Oslo class affiliated with the Zionist regime.

The “security coordination” framework binding the PA to the Israeli occupation, overseen and implemented by the United States, Canada and the European Union (all engaged in training, funding and oversight of Palestinian Authority security forces), is designed to employ Palestinian agencies to carry out the mission of Zionist colonialism – chasing, repressing, imprisoning and targeting the Palestinian resistance as well as many Palestinians — organizers, writers, intellectuals, student activists — who present an alternative vision for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea, without the collaborationist entity of the Palestinian Authority. The Oslo project is backed by Zionism, imperialism and reactionary regimes – and it must and will fall on the road to the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

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