Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network reiterates our strongest solidarity with Muslim Abuumar, the Palestinian scholar who was deported from Brazil with his family despite holding a valid visa to visit his brother, who has lived in Brazil for many years. This case is particularly concerning because it involves the interference of the U.S. Embassy, and reportedly the U.S. State Department, in Brazilian policing and immigration systems.
The Palestinian resistance organizations are neither criminalized nor labeled as “terrorists” in Brazil, and yet the U.S. has, once again, sought to apply its domestic repressive legislation and “terror list” on the international scene. Of course, the U.S. is also providing billions of dollars in funding to the Zionist regime currently carrying out a genocide in Gaza, and has always served as the long-term imperialist sponsor of the Zionist colonial project in Palestine. We condemn in the strongest terms this U.S. interference in Brazilian and Palestinian affairs and urge Brazil to reverse this decision and immediately welcome back Muslim Abuumar and his family, as well as to cut all diplomatic, military and trade ties with the Zionist regime.
*Press Statement on the Unfortunate Decision of the Brazilian Federal Police to Ban Me from Entering the Country*
I have just arrived at my home in Kuala Lumpur after an unsuccessful family trip, to visit my brother in Brazil, that was unfortunately hindered by Zionist intervention, clearly due to my academic activities in support of the Palestinian struggle.
This arduous journey included an unjust decision by the Federal Police to prevent my entry into Brazil issued upon the orders of an imperialist foreign country that actively sponsors the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. Upon my arrival at Guarulhos International Airport in Sao Paulo on Friday (June 21, 2024) evening, several police officers approached me at the entrance of the airport and took me, together with my family, for interrogation. The questions centered on my political views and academic activities in support of the Palestinian cause. I was questioned about speaking at international academic conferences on Palestine, my participation in international forums organized by international think-tanks, and my views on the ongoing war in Gaza. I was very clear in stating that as an academic, and as a Palestinian, I believe Israel is an apartheid regime that is committing a genocide in Gaza and should be brought to justice, and that this goes in line with international law and the position of the Brazilian government itself.
After the interrogation session, in which no lawyer nor translator were provided, the security officials at the airport informed me of the Federal Police’s decision to prevent me and my family from entering the country and to immediately deport us abroad.
I rejected the deportation order and asked for clarifications on the reason of the ban, especially since I have a valid multiple-entry visa, and I have visited the country previously without any problems. Furthermore, I have never broken any Brazilian laws, and I know well that the Brazilian government does not view Palestinian resistance as a terrorism. By then it was very clear the orders have come from outside the country, from a foreign imperialist power that has a long dark history of meddling in other countries’ affairs.
Over the next 48 hours, with the help of esteemed Palestinian activists, especially the head of the Brazil Palestine Institute, Dr. Ahmed Shehada, I fought a legal battle against the unjust police decision. Meanwhile, several Brazilian parliamentarians and activists fought a tough political and media battle against the influential Zionist lobby in Brazil. This war of narratives is still on.
The 48-hour-period included our forced detention inside the airport hotel, and the issuance of a hastily prepared judicial order confirming the police’s ban and immediate deportation outside the country. The police had submitted a set of fabricated allegations of supporting terrorism, due to my academic activity in support of the Palestinian cause and my clear position in support of Palestinian rights and denouncing the terrorist Zionist occupation of Palestine.
Unfortunately, my defense lawyer was not given enough time to refute these baseless accusations and allegations, which simply violate the Brazilian Constitution itself, which stipulates that Brazil respects international law, and the Brazilian law which does not view Palestinian resistance as terrorism.
For me and the Brazilian activists who support Palestinian rights, the battle is not over yet, and we will continue the legal pursuit to nullify this unjust decision and demand apology and compensation. I am absolutely certain that justice will prevail in the end.
*This timeline of Meta censorship is not exhaustive or comprehensive because Meta does not consistently indicate to Samidoun when our posted content and accounts are restricted, removed, or banned.
Wednesday, April 10th: Samidoun Göteborg and Samidoun Paris Banlieue accounts suspended; Samidoun Network’s account had posts taken down and account features limited (shadow-banned: “account can’t be shown to non-followers”), Samidoun NY/NJ account shadow-banned (“account can’t be shown to non-followers”) and posts taken down, Samidoun Brussels had posts taken down; Within a few days of this Samidoun Seattle and Samidoun Toronto had posts taken down too, the latter without notification.
Monday, April 29th: Samidoun Network international account is suspended and shortly after posting about this suspension, the Samidoun NY/NJ account is also suspended indefinitely and cannot create new accounts, attempts have resulted in immediate suspensions even though content is not posted yet.
Monday, June 3rd: Samidoun Netherland’s Instagram account is banned.
Tuesday, June 4th: Samidoun Paris has three separate posts taken down citing that they are about “dangerous individuals and organizations”. Each post was about a different figure of the Palestinian Resistance Khalida Jarrar, Ahmad Sa’adat, and Khader Adnan.
Wednesday, June 5th: Victory to the Intifada, a Britain-based Samidoun affiliate and campaign established in 2000, had their account restricted based on allegations of violating Instagram community standards. No evidence was provided. On this same day, Samidoun Toronto’s Instagram page had content removed citing “dangerous individuals and organizations.” The posts removed included photographs of Hamas’ text “Our Narrative”.
Monday, June 10th: Samidoun Toronto has yet another post removed citing their Community Guidelines’ on “dangerous individuals and organizations.”
Saturday, June 15th: Samidoun Albuquerque’s Instagram account is suspended.
Friday, June 21st: Samidoun Manchester’s Instagram account is suspended.
META CENSORSHIP OF SAMIDOUN NETWORK
In yet another cowardly attempt to suppress the global Palestinian solidarity movement, Meta indefinitely suspended Samidoun Network’s primary Instagram account at 28,000 followers. This suspension comes just weeks after Samidoun chapters across the world began facing similar censorship against their accounts. Meta continues to limit our reach by removing our posts without warning, banning us from features like collaborative posting and live-streaming, restricting who can follow our accounts, and algorithmically suppressing who can see our posts.
Meta’s targeting of Samidoun Network does not operate in isolation. It is the culmination of their continued censorship of anything that challenges the Zionist occupation it protects. (For example, the very large Instagram account of Within Our Lifetime was previously targeted and WOL has been unable to use the platform for months, despite organizing many massive demonstrations in New York City.) Meta’s material interest in protecting Zionist settler-colonialism and imperialist genocide sharply contradicts Samidoun’s global solidarity with Palestinian prisoners and the Resistance. As our solidarity escalates, Meta’s censorship desperately intensifies.
Beginning in April, shadow-banning, post and story removal, account restrictions, and suspensions on Instagram became commonplace for Samidoun chapters globally. Meta limited more and more of our accounts in their online reach and presence, particularly chapters with a large and active follower base, with their censorship practices culminating in the indefinite suspension of our international account. Evidently, local chapter accounts were targeted ahead of our primary international account in a strategic attempt at preventing and suppressing followers of local chapters from finding any new international accounts that would re-emerge. Immediately before the suspension of our international account, Samidoun Network’s account engagement increased exponentially after posting an English translation of the statement of solidarity from the Student Frameworks Secretariat – Gaza addressed to the student intifada of the imperial core. It is Samidoun’s championing of the Palestinian Resistance and their leaders that Meta often cites as the reasoning behind removing our content. Therefore, for us to platform a direct message from students blocs of the united Resistance to students of the West, the latter primarily using social media as a tool for mobilization at encampments, Meta naturally saw this as a threat to their own interests.
Meta’s targeted censorship of Samidoun comes as no surprise considering their relentless silencing of organizations and individuals who dare to stand up against the Zionist project it propagates and protects. Meta not only targets those who denounce Zionism on their platform, but is itself an active participant in the Zionist settler-colonial project. In 2015, the Zionist occupation established a cyber unit in an attempt to globally repress any and all anti-Zionist voices. The cyber unit attempts to accomplish this through collaboration with Meta and other media corporations. The cyber unit manually sends takedown requests to Meta, and Meta largely complies. In 2019, Meta complied with 90% of the occupation’s 20,000 requests to censor anti-Zionist voices. Shortly after Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Meta once again complied with 90% of the occupation’s over 2,000 requests.
Meta’s participation in Zionist settler-colonialism also manifests in their internal hiring practices. The tech corporation frequently hires former members of the occupation government into high-level positions. This includes Meta’s hiring of Emi Palmor, former advisor to Benjamin Netanyahu, to Meta’s so-called independent oversight board, which Mark Zuckerberg calls “Meta’s supreme court”. The independent oversight board’s role is to dictate what content is suppressed and removed on Meta’s platforms. Meta also hires a significant number of former agents from the IOF’s clandestine intelligence gathering unit known as Unit 8200.
This mirrors other forms of repression that we face as an international organization, such as the recent banning of Samidoun in Germany. We are a prime target for Meta due to our unapologetic stance in support of Palestinian prisoners and the noble Palestinian Resistance, who will bring Palestine victory and freedom.
On Monday, June 3rd, the Zionist entity’s Content Review section of their Cybercrime Department in the Israeli State Attorney’s Office contacted Samidoun Network’s website provider to attempt to have our website taken down. The email states that this is a “content removal request regarding the website https://samidoun.net/ which is using your services.” It continues to cite Israeli and German law that refers to Samidoun as a “terrorist organization” and states that the content of the website violates the Israeli Counter-Terrorism Act (2016). Specific phrases and content that are flagged as problematic are “calls to escalate the global ‘intifada’, calls to release convicted terrorists, condolences for the death of Hamas’s (terror organization) leader- Saleh Al-Arouri, calls the advocates to lead a siege on the White House and more.”
We are not the first organization to be a target of Meta’s censorship and will not be the last. We refuse to be silenced. This is a stark reminder that to be attacked by the enemy is not a bad thing, but a good thing. As we continue to be suppressed, we will only grow louder in our demands for freedom of all Palestinian prisoners and for a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea. We invite you, comrades, to join us on Telegram where we will continue to resist Meta censorship.
On Monday, 24 June 2024, Palestinian prisoner, captive freedom advocate, leftist, feminist and scholar Khalida Jarrar was ordered to another 6 months behind Zionist bars without charge or trial under “administrative detention” — one day before her previous detention order was set to expire.
There are currently well over 3,500 Palestinians held in administrative detention out of nearly 10,000 captives held by the Zionist regime, most of which are being subjected to extreme torture, abuse and starvation — and who, yet, continue to resist and lead for the liberation of Palestine.
Jarrar was seized from her home in the morning hours of 26 December 2023 as part of mass arrests by Zionist forces in the West Bank of occupied Palestine during the genocide in Gaza.
She is currently a scholar and researcher at the Muwatin Institute at Birzeit University. In fact, she was scheduled to appear on 27 December at a panel convened by Jadaliyya on imprisonment in the time of genocide; she was seized from her home only one day before.
Jarrar, a historical leftist political leader with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been imprisoned on multiple occasions by the occupation regime, including in 2015, when her administrative detention without charge or trial drew global protests before she was then transferred to the occupation military courts. She is a lifelong advocate for the liberation of political prisoners and was targeted specifically for her statements and advocacy for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners.
In 2019, she was once again seized by the occupation regime. While she was imprisoned, her daughter Suha tragically passed away. She was denied the right to see Suha’s body and attend her funeral before she was released again in 2021. During both of her times of imprisonment, she established independent educational programs to teach the imprisoned minor girls the high school education they were denied as well as the adult women prisoners their rights under international law.
She discusses her imprisonment in the book, Our Vision for Liberation, by Ramzy Baroud and Ilan Pappe; her piece is published at the Palestine Chronicle.
While the Zionist regime has been waging a full-fledged genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, they have seized thousands of prisoners and subjected them to horrific conditions. Palestinians from Gaza in particular have been brutally and routinely tortured and abused by occupation forces — for example at the Sde Teiman concentration camp, where the extreme stories of torture and abuse reported by released Palestinian civilians have included forced amputations, sexual assault, starvation and other severe abuse. This is both a continuation of the attack on the Palestinian people as well as a mechanism to inflate the number of prisoners in order to manipulate the results of a prisoner exchange with the Palestinian resistance. They are holding Palestinians like Khalida Jarrar hostage
Freedom for Khalida Jarrar and all Palestinians in zionist, imperialist and reactionary jails!
Samidoun Brazil and the international Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network express our strongest solidarity with Muslim Abuumar and his family, a Palestinian family deported from Sao Paulo airport to Malaysia on Sunday, June 23. We denounce the family’s deportation and warn that it serves as a dangerous example of the undermining of Brazil’s national sovereignty and self-determination, alongside the rights of the Palestinian people, by the Zionist regime and the United States, which have targeted Muslim Abuumar because he publicly advocates for the Palestinian people, their rights and their liberation.
We further express our full agreement with and endorsement of the statement below by IBRASPAL, the Brazil-Palestine Institute. We are very concerned that, as reported by journalists, “Judge Milenna da Cunha said in her ruling…that Brazilian federal police received an alert from the US embassy that ‘a Hamas operative, Muslim Abuumar’ would be arriving in Brazil on Friday from Kuala Lumpur…The judge’s decision approving the deportation cited Abuumar’s social media postings of him meeting in Doha with Ismail Haniyeh, a chief political leader of Hamas.” Rather than exercising Brazilian law, under which Hamas (and all Palestinian resistance organizations) are not considered “terrorists,” the Brazilian Federal Police immediately sought to implement this directive from the United States, the key funder, backer and full partner in the ongoing US-Zionist genocide in Gaza.
We express our further concern regarding the recent reports of Brazilian Federal Police meeting with CONIB, a Zionist lobby organization that claims to represent the Brazilian Jewish community yet focuses its attention on promoting the Zionist regime, defending its genocidal attacks on Gaza and seeking to criminalize the movement in support of Palestine. CONIB has sought to criminalize Brazilian Jewish journalist Breno Altman for speaking out for Palestine, among numerous other interventions designed to protect the Zionist regime from criticism.
US and Zionist “terrorist lists” and “designations” should have no operative power or legal authority in Brazil, a Latin American nation in a continent that has repeatedly suffered from US intervention and imperialist domination. The deportation of Muslim Abuumar only comes in service of the ongoing Zionist genocide in Gaza, of which the Brazilian government has expressed its condemnation on multiple occasions. We further emphasize that Palestinian resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people, who require the support of Brazil and all nations and peoples of conscience, particularly at this urgent moment. We urge the government of Brazil to rectify this situation, remove the ban on Muslim Abuumar, welcome him back to the country, reject US and Israeli interference in the lives, travel and free movement of Palestinians and Brazilians; and immediately cut off its arms trade and diplomatic relations with the Zionist regime.
Statement by IBRASPAL follows:
CLARIFICATION NOTE ON THE PALESTINIAN CITIZEN ARRESTED BY BRAZILIAN FEDERAL POLICE AT THE BEHEST OF MOSSAD AND FBI
On Friday, June 21, the Brazilian Federal Police detained Palestinian citizen Muslim M. A Abuumar at Guarulhos International Airport in São Paulo. He was accompanied by his wife, who is seven months pregnant, a six-year-old son and his 69-year-old mother-in-law. On June 13, he obtained a visa to stay in Brazil for 90 days. His family, who are Malaysian citizens, did not need a visa.
The Palestinian was detained on an absurd pretext. According to the Federal Police, he is on the FBI’s list of suspected members of “terrorist groups” – the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC).
The Federal Police said that Abuumar wanted his son to be born in Brazil in order to obtain citizenship and thus allow the family to immigrate to the country, something completely legal. Coincidentally, this argument is often used against immigrants in the US. On the basis of this “investigation”, Muslim would be summarily deported.
Faced with a lawsuit filed by IBRASPAL (Brazil-Palestine Institute) and other Palestinian advocacy organizations, federal judge Milenna Marjorie Fonseca da Cunha prevented Muslim’s extradition until there was a “better understanding of the facts” and gave the Federal Police 24 hours to provide more information.
The Federal Police act at the service of foreign governments
The case is absurd in every sense. Firstly, and most importantly, because the Federal Police is acting to enforce US government orders in Brazil. The TSC list has no support in Brazilian law. By using it as a criterion to prevent a Palestinian citizen from entering Brazil, the PF is acting as a branch of the FBI.
Secondly, because under Brazilian law, Palestinian resistance organizations are not considered terrorists. The same applies to the UN and the overwhelming majority of countries in the world. Only a small minority of countries consider the Palestinian resistance to be terrorists and these are the same countries that support the genocide that has been taking place in Gaza for more than eight months.
Thirdly, the Federal Police is accusing Muslim of being part of a terrorist organization without conducting any kind of investigation. In other words, it would be taking into account not only US law, but also the US investigation itself. It is thus, once again, placing itself as a real front for the FBI’s actions in Brazil.
Fourthly, the United States of America has no authority whatsoever to claim that no one in the world is a terrorist. They are the main allies of the Zionist regime in the genocide taking place in the Gaza Strip. They provide the bombs, vehicles, economic and political support. It would be impossible for the Zionist regime to promote the genocide in Gaza without the support it receives from the US. And this is just one of the terrorist monstrosities carried out by the US government.
Brazil is a sovereign country and a friend of Palestine. IBRASPAL, through this note, which is also signed by other organizations, asks the government to act immediately to end this US interference in the country and to guarantee the rights of Muslim Abuumar, a victim of political persecution simply for being Palestinian.
Brasilia, June 23, 2024.
Dr. Ahmed Shehada
President of the Brazil-Palestine Institute – IBRASPAL
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network extends its highest salutes to the martyr Nizar Banat, assassinated three years ago today, a stalwart fighter against corruption and for the liberation of Palestine who worked tirelessly to end “security coordination” between Palestinian Authority security forces and the Zionist regime.
Nizar Banat always struggled to protect the Palestinian people through liberation from Zionism and imperialism, and reactionary Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority, created in order to serve the Zionist regime. He stood firmly for the people and the Resistance forces in Palestine and throughout the region.
The assassination of Nizar Banat reflected a conscious policy of the Zionist occupation and the Oslo Palestinian Authority affiliated with it, carrying out specific function to protect the existence of the occupation and its control over the Palestinian people in the West Bank.
Serving as an agent of the occupation, the PA practices all forms of oppression, including political arrests, violent raids and assassinations, in order to benefit the Zionist colonial project and to protect the privileges of the small sliver of the Oslo sector and upper Palestinian capitalists benefiting from the status quo.
The assassination of Nizar Banat cannot be considered apart from the assassination policy against Palestinian leaders and fighters carried out continuously over the decades by the Zionist occupation regime, from Ghassan Kanafani to Fathi Shiqaqi to Saleh Arouri.
The “security coordination” framework, overseen by the United States, Canada and the European Union (all engaged in training, funding & oversight of Palestinian Authority security forces), is designed to employ Palestinian agencies to carry out the mission of Zionist colonialism. That is, imprisoning and targeting the Palestinian resistance and Palestinian organizers, writers, intellectuals, student activists who remain committed to the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea, without the collaborationist entity of the Palestinian Authority.
The purpose of these Palestinian Authority security forces and the “security coordination” project under which they carry weapons is to prevent the Palestinian people and their liberation movement from effectively resisting and overthrowing the Zionist regime.
It acts in full service of the interests of Zionism and imperialism, while bearing a Palestinian flag emblem on each agent’s badge, while the resistance forces from Palestine to Yemen to Lebanon, to Iraq, Syria, Iran and beyond, resist the genocide in Gaza and fight for full liberation of Palestine from Zionism and of the entire Arab and Muslim region from imperialism.
Three years ago today, PA security forces – trained according to the standards created by U.S. officials, such as Gen. Keith Dayton – invaded Banat’s home in Dura, al-Khalil at 3:30 am, exploding the door off of the hinges, mimicking almost exactly the terror of the daily Zionist night raids in Palestinian homes across occupied Palestine. They beat Nizar, and then reported him dead. To date, there has been no justice or accountability for the assassination of the martyr Nizar Banat.
Thousands of Palestinians marched in the streets in outrage at the assassination of Banat, demanding not only justice and accountability for those responsible for the killing but also the downfall of Mahmoud Abbas, bringing down the PA regime and its collaboration with Zionism, and the entire Oslo project on which it is based.
Indeed, the Palestinian people and the resistance have repeatedly demanded an end to security coordination since the beginning of its implementation, while PA President Mahmoud Abbas has declared it to be “sacred.”
The entire Oslo process has been devastating for the Palestinian people: Thousands of Palestinian lives have been stolen on the path of Oslo, while the political frameworks of the Palestinian struggle have been distorted, hijacked and compromised. While Palestinians inside occupied Palestine ’48 continue to affirm their identity and existence and organize for liberation, the official Palestinian leadership of the P.A. instead “recognized Israel”, the Zionist settler colonial project on 78% of Palestine.
The historic, heroic Al-Aqsa Flood and the past nine months of resistance to genocide have underlined the deep unity of the Palestinian people throughout occupied Palestine from the river to the sea and everywhere in exile and diaspora, & their commitment to resistance until liberation. These are two things that the Oslo project was meant to destroy and undermine, yet has failed utterly to do so. Instead, the resistance is stronger than it has ever been, despite the horrific genocidal US-Zionist war crimes that have taken over 40,000 martyrs.
The assassination of Nizar Banat brings echoes of many previous cases of PA security forces’ brutality and complicity with Zionist crimes – from the Zionist assassination of Basil al-Araj shortly after al-Araj and five of his comrades were imprisoned and tortured in PA jails …to the killing of Omar Nayef Zayed, found dead outside the PA Embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria, where he had taken refuge after Israeli occupation authorities attempted to seek his extradition, decades after he had escaped from colonial prisons.
Perhaps most infamously, the PA imprisoned Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the PFLP alongside his comrades Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar and Hamdi Qur’an in the PA’s Jericho prison, under U.S. and British guard, for four years from 2002-2006 before they were kidnapped from Jericho prison by Zionist forces, who besieged the prison days before Ismail Haniyeh was to be sworn in as Prime Minister of the PA, after the resistance campaigns associated with Hamas won the PLC elections and vowed to liberate the prisoners of security coordination.
Now, all of them are held in Zionist jails, subject to torture, abuse and medical neglect. It is not only in these high-profile cases but in the daily practice of PA security coordination that Palestinian Authority political detention serves a “revolving door” with Zionist imprisonment for many Palestinian resisters and youth leaders. Indeed, Nizar Banat himself was held as a PA political prisoner on multiple occasions. Today, as the Resistance fights with all its might against the genocide, the PA continues to imprison and pursue heroes of the resistance.
Nizar Banat’s blood is on the hands of the PA – and therefore it is on the hands of the Zionist regime, the United States, Canada, the European Union and all parties involved in creating, sustaining and propping up the “security coordination” framework. “Security coordination” with the Zionist entity benefits only the occupier and colonizer at the expense of the Palestinian people. The PA and its bosses must be held accountable for its ongoing betrayal of the Palestinian people and its collaboration with Zionist colonialism.
To honour Nizar is to boycott, isolate and resist Zionist occupation. It is to stand with all the regional forces of Resistance as they heroically confront the genocide and expose all of the contradictions of the Zionist regime.
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. Nizar Banat lives, Palestine lives! Glory to the martyrs!
We recommend following Resistance News Network on Telegram for a number of reports, articles, analyses and videos about the life and struggle of Nizar Banat. Subscribe here: https://t.me/PalestineResist
Including below just a few brief clips of the martyr Nizar Banat’s videos (with English translation from RNN):
This morning, YouTube suddenly struck and deleted the entire Samidoun Network channel and its years of content, and simultaneously struck and deleted the channel of our international coordinator Charlotte Kates.
This came despite the fact that Charlotte’s channel had never had a strike, and Samidoun’s only one warning after mass reporting (and had videos pulled down for similar baseless reasons on a one-by-one basis). This is clearly intended to silence voices speaking about Palestine.
A lot of our content is available here on Odysee, and we are working to get material up elsewhere and more comprehensively: https://odysee.com/@samidounnetwork:d
Once again we note the bias and clear alignment of Big Tech firms with Zionism and imperialism, which comes as no surprise.
We also note that three weeks ago, the Zionist regime itself wrote to our web host in an attempt to get our website taken down, labeling it a “cybercrime,” and we assume this same notification was done to Google with these YouTube accounts by the same parties.
The Zionist regime is actively seeking to ban and silence the content of people confronting its genocide against the Palestinian people, to prevent people around the world from communicating, and of course, at the heart of this effort, to block the communication lines of the Palestinian people, and especially the prisoners and the resistance movement that is daily confronting its genocidal assault.
As with all such attacks, we view them as primarily an attack on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. The Zionist regime wants to keep over 10,000 Palestinian detainees hostage under torture, subjected to vile abuse and medical mistreatment. The videos and footage of Palestinian prisoners being released — both from the military prison system and the concentration camp at Sde Teiman, where extreme abuse and torture has become an international scandal — speak for themselves.
It wants to isolate the Palestinian prisoners and detainees, the captives of freedom, from the Palestinian people, the Resistance they lead, and the world. It wants to torture the civilians kidnapped from Gaza in silence. Our entire broad movement will never allow that isolation.
The Resistance — and the Palestinian people as a whole — have made it clear that that the prisoners are precious and will never be left behind; instead, they are a compass pointing the way to liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. On an international level, we must do all we can in support: This is why they want to silence Samidoun, and we emphasize that they will not succeed.
At the initiative of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and the Alkarama Palestinian Women’s Mobilization, an international petition was issued today, signed by hundreds of parties, organizations, and popular movements, bearing the title “We stand with Yemen confronting U.S. and British aggression.”
Jaldia Abubakra, a member of the executive committee of the Masar Badil, said, “This petition was signed by hundreds of parties, popular and revolutionary forces, liberation movements, and trade unions around the world to express their support for the brave Yemeni position, and their commitment to stand alongside the Yemeni people confronting siege and aggression.” .
Abubakra said, “The Yemeni people are fighting a just battle in support of Gaza, and the Yemeni armed forces were able to impose a naval blockade on the Zionist entity. The Yemeni people are contributing to the struggle by putting their strength, blood, and security on the line, and they continue to go out to the squares and streets to strongly express their noble and principled position in unprecedented popular marches.”
The international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Charlotte Kates, said that “the petition expresses an international popular support for the Yemeni position in support of the steadfastness and struggle of the Palestinian people confronting the war of extermination waged by the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
Kates said that “the war of siege and aggression against Yemen has been waged by the United States, Britain, and the Zionist regime for years, with the participation of regimes such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and others, and they are the same forces that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since October 7.”
It is worth noting that about 250 organizations and parties signed the international petition.
We stand with Yemen confronting U.S. and British aggression
We, the undersigned parties, organizations and associations, condemn the U.S.-British aggression and attacks on the struggling people of Yemen, we express our support for the principled Yemeni position towards the Palestinian cause rights, and we declare our solidarity with the Yemeni people in the historic battle that they are waging to end the genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, to stop Zionist war crimes and to break the siege. We also stand behind the heroic Yemeni armed forces and their legitimate, natural right to respond to aggression as they implement the demands of the Yemeni people and the directives and decisions of the revolutionary leadership in Sana’a.
The people of Yemen, who have remained committed to their firm and advanced revolutionary position, continue to confront all forms of siege and aggression at the hands of the U.S. and British colonial forces and their agents in the region. They will not be intimidated by the recent U.S.-British massacre on May 31, 2024, which caused dozens of martyrs and casualties. The people of Yemen continue to express their position with unparalleled strength and courage, especially on Fridays, through the massive and solemn public demonstrations in “Sabaeen Square” in the center of the capital, Sana’a, and in various governorates, squares, and streets of the country.
The heroic Yemeni position, which has been embodied in word and deed in confronting war and aggression over the past ten years, and in supporting the Palestinian people for more than eight months, constitutes the true and necessary response against the Zionist-U.S. war of annihilation against the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip. It also embodies an effective revolutionary model in true solidarity with the Palestinian people. This exceptional stance has become a source of pride and inspiration for all peoples and movements for justice and liberation in the world, proving the strength of free peoples and their ability to change the equations of conflict and shift the balance of power as they confront imperialism, Zionism and their agents in the world.
Glory to the martyrs and speedy recovery to the wounded
The criminal camp of U.S.-British-Zionist aggression and and their agents in the region will be defeated
Victory for the Palestinian and Yemeni peoples and for the resistance camp in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq
Long live international solidarity
Actions4Palestine
Al Quds Toronto
Al-Awda PRRC
Aliança RECOs – desde o Sul Global
Alianza latinoamericana por Palestina contra el Apartheid
Alkarama (Movimiento de Mujeres Palestinas)
All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
ALM Counselling
Al-Quds Project
AlYudur
Amanecer
Amsterdam for BDS
Anakbayan BC
Anti Imperialist Action Ireland
Anti-Imperialist Alliance
AnU KLAVE’EM collective
Apogee Journal
Arab Left Forum
Assocacion Salvadoreña Palestina
Athens Against Apartheid
Authors For Social Justice.
Autonomous Indonesia Contingent for Liberation
BDS Greece Kifissia Initiative for Solidarity with Palestine
BDS Tokyo
BDS Vancouver/Coast Salish Territories
Best of the Alps
Black Alliance for Peace – Solidarity Network
Bronx Anti-War Coalition
Brooklyn for Peace
Bruxelles Panthères
Canada Palestine Association
Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights
Canadian Arab Federation
Canadian BDS Coalition and International BDS Allies
Canadian Islamic Congress
Canadian Lebanese Academic Forum (CLAF)
Casa Baltimore Limay
CC4P
Central New York Revolutionary Student Union
Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies
Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos “Segundo Montes Mozo S.J.” (CSMM)
Century of the Child
Children’s Awareness Series
Citoyens du Québec
Club de la Cultura Árabe
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
Coalition of South Asian Women Against Violence
COASAP
Code Pink River Valley
CODEPINK (South Florida Chapter)
Colectivo de Comunicación ContrahegemoniaWeb
Collectif 69 de soutien au peuple palestinien l
Comisión Ética contra la Tortura Chile
Comité belge de soutien au peuple palestinien
Comite Solidaridad Pueblo Palestino
Committee Against War
Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran (CASI)
Communist Party of Lancashire UK
Cops Off Campus Ontario (COCO)
Crescent Justice Collective
CSM interactiv
Cubamistad
CUNYforPalestine
CWP artists’ collective
Diaspora Pa’lante Collective
DSA International Committee
Early Childhood Development Intercultural Partnerships
Earth Neighborhood Productions
EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party-Greece)
Elders for Justice in Palestine
Falastini Advocates for Liberation
Famílias da Resistência
Fellowship of Mercy
Feministisk Initiativ, Sweden
Femmes Against Empire
former ambassador for The Netherlands in Yemen, Johannes Wijenberg
Free Gaza Movement
Free Palestine BC
Free Palestine Canada
Free Palestine Melbourne
Free Palestine Movement
Free Palestine Tri-Cities BC
Freedom from War Coalition
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Freie Linke Zukunft
Frente Antiimperialista Internacionalista
Friends of the Filipino People In Struggle – CST
From the River to the Sea Project
Front Mahasiswa Nasional (FMN)
Garuda Keadilan
Gaza Centre for Human Rights
Gender Justice LA
German Communist Party
Good Shepherd Collecctive
Gorilla Radio
Grandmothers against War
Greater Toronto 4 BDS
Grupo Libelulas
Grupo Obrero de Formación Marxista
GST Consulting Ltd
GTA4Palestine
Handsoffvenezuela.nl
Housing and Land Rights Network – Habitat International Coalition
Humanity Organization
Indiana Center for Middle East Peace
Instituto Brasil-Palestina IBRASPAL
International Action Center
International Peace Network
ISL-RCIT
Jaćhai World
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak
JB Consulting
Jewish Anti-Zionist Collective Toronto (JAZCto)
Jewish Network for Palestine
Jordan Canada Association
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
Justice Alliance
Justice For All Canada
Justice For Palestine
Knights of the Golden Rule
Kona 4 Palestine
Lotus Co-operative Homes
Low and High Power Group
Lutherans forJustice in the Holy Land
Maine Natural Guard
Mani Rosse Antirazziste
Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada
Masar Badil – Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
Massy Arts Society
Massy Books
May Lui Consulting
Media Decompression Collective
Media Review Network (MRN)
Methuselah Designs
Michiana Friends of Palestine
Mississippi Rising Coalition
Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO)
Montreal4Palestine
Mouvement Citoyen Palestine
Movimento Mulheres pela PAZ na Palestina
Museo Fadwa Tuqan
Muslim Business Council
Muslims On Long Island
Nacion Andaluza
National Jericho Movement
Nederlands Palestina Komitee
Neighbors for Peace
Netzwerk Freiheit für alle politische Gefangenen, Hamburg
Newmarket Aurora 4 Palestine
Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition
NorCal Sabeel
North American Resistance Committee (NARC)
North Bay Rapid Response Network, a part of the North Bay Organizing Project (NBOP)
Ocean Surf Sounds
Ohio Peace Council
Oilsandstruth.org
One State Assembly
Ongd AFRICANDO
Ontario Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA)
Orinoco Tribune
Palestina Askatu!
Palestina Solidariteit
Palestine Action US
Palestine Democratic Forum
Palestine Liberation Centre
Palestine Solidarity Campaign Committee
Palestine Solidarity Working Group
Palestine-Global Mental Health Network
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)
Palestinian Justice Alliance
Palestinian People Association in Uppsala
Palestinians in Coast Salish Territory
Papineau4Palestine
Parable of the Sower Intentional Community Cooperative
Parallelo Palestina
Party of Communists USA
Pax Christi Maine
Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Peacekeeping Collective
People for Humanity
People for Justice and Peace
Peterborough Pollinators
Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association
Portland Revolutionary Student Union
Principles Not Parties
Public Intellectuals for Social and Spare Change
Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism!
A Raise Augusta
Red de Mujeres Verdes Equo Cantabria
Regina Peace Council
Resistance News Network
Revolutionaire Eenheid
Revolutionary Communist Group
Rhapsodi Digital Art
River Valley Branch Code Pink
Robin Rae Photography
Rockland for Palestine
Roots
Samidoun Albuquerque
Samidoun Brasil
Samidoun Göteborg
Samidoun Manchester
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Samidoun Stockholm
Samidoun Toronto
Santa Monica Residents Cross-City
Scarborough Rouge Park for Palestine
Scottish Republican Socialist Movement
SELFOP
Seven Star Sports
Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste
SpeakOut Poetry
Stand with Palestine Halifax
Standing With Yemen
Stirling SPSC
Stop the War Machine
Students for Yemen CP
Sunshine Coast for Palestine
Surandantes Comunicacion Comunitaria
Suzanne Barr Food
Syria Support Movement
TESC Divest
The James Black Gallery Association
The Mensch Group
The Pearl Nutrition
Toronto Forum on Cuba
Trawunche Madrid (Coordinación de Apoyo al Pueblo Mapuche)
United Educators of San Francisco
UO Students for the Liberation of Palestine
USA-Palestine Mental Health Network
Utrecht BIJ1
Venceremos, Partido de Trabajadrxs
Veterans for Peace
Veterans For Peace #161
Victoria Friends of Cuba
Voluntarios por Palestina
Vrede Met Venezuela NL (Hands Off Venezuela The Netherlands)
An appeal issued by the Palestinian student movement in the Gaza Strip
To the global student movement to stop the genocidal war
It is time for revolutionary escalation of the global student intifada for Palestine
We write this call from our student movement in the Gaza Strip, from the heart of occupied Palestine, from under the brutal Zionist bombing, explosions, and the clutches of the monstrous nightmare of death that lurks around us in every corner, house, and street. We raise it from prison cells, from beneath the destruction, and from inside the rubble, to send it to our fellow students, our comrades, brothers and sisters, in all the universities, schools and institutes of the world everywhere, and we address the global student movement that was launched in order to stop the genocidal war that is being engineered and financed by the governments of the United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and others, this courageous student movement that was born in the universities as an integral part of our struggle, that expresses the conscience of students and peoples who yearn for justice and freedom.
We in the Gaza Strip look at you with pride and honour, as you are a revolutionary fighting vanguard, and a natural and integral part of our Palestinian liberation movement. You have come in a resounding, honest and clear response against the Israeli massacres and those who finance them, confronting the companies of the Zionist war of genocide and ethnic cleansing that have claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinian students of all ages, including hundreds of struggling Palestinian student cadres, wounded and imprisoned, in addition to our great loss in the martyrdom of our professors and teachers, and the destruction of our universities, institutes and schools.
Today, we call on you, from the midst of massacres and siege, to a new revolutionary phase of comprehensive escalation, and to raise the pace and ceiling of your struggle and your honorable stances, quantitatively and qualitatively, against the institutions, corporations, and governments that participate in the slaughter of our children, our students, and our people in Rafah, Jabalia, Khan Younis, and the entire Gaza Strip, and against the settler gangs, armies of Zionist killers, and so on that commit their crimes in camps, cities and villages in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
We call on you to besiege the White House in Washington, and to surround the palaces, headquarters and ministries of Western colonial governments and Zionist embassies, and the buildings and offices of the corporations that finance the Zionist entity and arm its criminal army with all kinds of bombs and means of death and destruction. These criminal colonial symbols represent the forces that support “Israel” to kill us – with your tax money and the money spent at complicit corporations, to destroy our homes, our society, and our future. Therefore, we call on you to blockade them until the American Zionist aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip stops.
At the same time, we renew our call to the teaching, academic, and union bodies in universities, as well as cultural, academic, and scientific figures, to advocate for and support student movements until they achieve their goals.
Today we turn to high school students all over the world to participate widely in the struggles and activities of the university student movement, organizing demonstrations, sit-ins, and vigils, writing petitions and letters, and organizing educational days about the Palestinian struggle and the goals of the Palestinian people for liberation and return. Secondary schools constitute a strong fortress and a great support for university students everywhere.
Once again, we send special greetings to our brothers and sisters, the students of Palestine in the diaspora, and to our comrades and colleagues in Students for Justice in Palestine, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Palestine Action, and the academic boycott and divestment campaigns, and we salute everyone who participated and participates in student encampments at every university, college and school.
The duty and responsibility of Palestinian students in the Gaza Strip and all of occupied Palestine is steadfastness, commitment, resistance, unity, and alignment with the resistance and the people until the U.S. – Zionist aggression stops and the occupation is defeated and removed from our land — all our land, from the river to the sea.
Long live the struggle of Palestine’s students for return and liberation
Long live international solidarity
And together we will be victorious
Secretariat of Palestinian Student Frameworks – Gaza Strip
On the 24th anniversary of the Lebanese Resistance’s liberation of the south of Lebanon from 22 years of Zionist occupation, we are republishing our report on the liberation of Khiam prison, the infamous site of torture of Lebanese — and Palestinian — strugglers for liberation.
Khiam was liberated two days before the complete liberation of South Lebanon (excepting the Shebaa Farms), a liberation accomplished by the Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah. Today, on the Resistance and Liberation Day, the Lebanese Resistance is continuing to fight, for the liberation of the Shebaa Farms, the protection of Lebanon, and for the total liberation of Palestine. The heroic role of Hezbollah in the ongoing resistance to the Zionist genocide in Gaza has cleared the north of Palestine of its settlers and soldiers, insisting on an end to the genocide and demonstrating the unity of all fronts of resistance, stretching from Lebanon through Syria, Iraq, and Iran to Yemen, where the people, armed forces and AnsarAllah movement continue to shut down the supply lines of genocide on a daily basis.
On 24 May, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke, affirming once again as he addressed the occupier and its new threats against Lebanon: “Gaza surprised you, your elite forces collapsed, Hezbollah initiated the opening of the front, and Yemen also surprised you. We tell the enemy: Lebanon’s resistance surprised you on October 8, as did Yemen. When you bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Islamic Republic surprised you with its True Promise….The enemy should expect surprises from us; we study all your scenarios, and your deceptions do not fool us, nor do the pressures from your masters in the world work. This resistance will continue.”
As we write today, there remains a Lebanese prisoner of the struggle for Palestine jailed in France, whose freedom is more urgent than ever: Georges Abdallah, imprisoned for 40 years, and continuing his commitment to resistance, revolution and liberation.
On this Resistance and Liberation Day, as we commemorate the liberation of Khiam Prison, Lebanese and Palestinian resistance continue to fight together, resisting the genocide, for the liberation of Palestine. It is clear that the Resistance prioritizes the liberation of the prisoners, the 10,000 inside the jails of the Zionist occupier subjected to brutal torture, starvation, medical abuse, sexual violence and attacks of all kinds, and that, like Khiam prison, the Zionist prisons will be emptied of their captives and will remain only as memorials to the martyrs and as a salute to the steadfastness of the long line of the prisoners’ movement, resisting behind bars until liberation.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Victory to the Resistance!
**
25 May not only marks Resistance and Liberation Day, the anniversary of the liberation of South Lebanon from 22 years of Israeli occupation and oppression by the Lebanese Resistance, but also the liberation of Lebanese political prisoners from the infamous Khiam prison. On 23 May 2000, 144 Lebanese prisoners were liberated from Khiam, 2 days before the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces.
3,000 Lebanese stormed Khiam, the site of infamous torture of Lebanese resisters, breaking the locks with axes and crowbars. “Set up by the Israelis in 1985 on a hill in the village of Khiam in the South Lebanon Governorate, the Khiam prison was considered to be one of the most ruthless detention and interrogation centers in the Middle East. While the Israelis governed the prison, which included 67 cells and more than 20 solitary confinement cells, they used the South Lebanon Army (SLA), an Israeli proxy militia made up of Lebanese nationals, to execute their orders,” wrote Rana Harbi in Al-Akhbar.
Over 5,000 Lebanese, as well as Palestinians, Syrians, Algerians, and Kurds, including 500 women, were imprisoned in Khiam prison over the years. Lebanese who participated in all forms of resistance to the occupation and its proxy forces were tortured brutally inside the notorious prison. The prison after its liberation became a museum and symbol of the torture of the occupiers and the victory of the Lebanese people and their resistance, of their freedom obtained through struggle and years of resistance.
In 2006, when Israel attacked Lebanon, it bombed the Khiam site, leaving a pile of rubble at the site of the prison, as if attempting to destroy the memory of its torture, brutality – and its defeat – preserved by the Lebanese people. However, the memory and commitment to resistance of the former prisoners – many of whom continue to struggle and play leading roles in Lebanese movements and parties, including Hezbollah and the Lebanese Communist Party – and of the people, cannot be erased by the bombing of the prison site, just as they could not be erased by torture, solitary confinement, and years of imprisonment.
The liberation of Khiam prison was not merely symbolic; it was central to the liberation of South Lebanon, just as the liberation of Palestinian prisoners is central to the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. The Lebanese people and Resistance continue to struggle against Israeli occupation of the Shebaa Farms; and the Palestinian people and their Resistance continue to struggle for the liberation of Palestine – its land, its people and its prisoners after over 76 years of occupation. And the liberation of the prisoners is central to that struggle for the liberation of Palestine, as reaffirmed on 7 October 2023 and every minute of the ongoing resistance to genocide in the past eight months. The victory in South Lebanon and the liberation of Khiam remains an anniversary of liberation and a promise for future victories over torture, oppression and occupation.
The following testimonies of former prisoners held in Khiam prison were collected and published in Al-Akhbar by Rana Harbi in 2014:
Degol Abou Tass
In 1976, at the age of 16, I was arrested in a village in occupied Palestine for the first time. I told the Israelis that I trespassed by mistake. They knew I was lying but released me anyway. My parents packed my bags and forced me to leave the country. I found out later that I was the first Lebanese citizen to get arrested by the Israeli forces.
I came back to Rmeish [a village on the borders in South Lebanon] in the 1980s after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The civil war was still raging in Beirut but in the south different resistance movements, such as the Lebanese Communist Party, the Amal Movement, Syrian Social Nationalist Party and many other factions, united against the Israelis. A few months after my arrival, the SLA knocked on my parents door. I had to leave the country, again.
I was miserable. I couldn’t stay away for long. In the early 1990s I came back to Rmeish. All the armed groups were long gone. Hezbollah dominated the resistance scene. I tried to reconnect with old militia leaders but in vain.
One day, an old childhood friend pulled into my driveway. “Are you willing to fight with us?” he asked. I looked uncertain. “Us … Hezbollah,” he added. I climbed into his car and we drove away. In 1998, one of my neighbors ratted me out.
“A Christian with Hezbollah? Now thats something,” the Israeli officer interrogating me said. “How much are they paying you? We will pay double, no triple. What is your price? We can work something out,” he continued. I remained silent. “Okay then Jesus, welcome to Khiam prison.”
We were caged and treated like animals. Believe me, it wasn’t so much about the pain, but the humiliation.
On the morning of May 23, 2000, the guards were talking and walking outside, as usual. Suddenly, complete silence. You could hear a pin drop. We heard the daily UN airplane fly by so we knew it was 9:30 am. “Where did they go?” one prisoner asked. We had no idea.
“They are moving us to occupied Palestine,” yelled a prisoner in a cell right next to ours. I put my feet on the shoulders of two of my cellmates so that I can reach the small window right under the ceiling. “All of us?” I asked. “They will execute half and take half … this is what we heard,” replied another prisoner. Before I could even reply I heard a noise coming from a distance. I couldn’t see anything. The voices grew louder and louder.
“Looks like our parents are clashing with the SLA guards as usual,” one prisoner said. “I bet my mother is still trying to bring me food,” another exclaimed. And then we heard gunshots. People were screaming. More gunshots.
“They are shooting our parents!” said one frightened detainee. “No, the mass execution began. They will execute half of us remember!” replied another. Panic attacks. Anxiety. Fear.
I put my ear against the door. I heard ululations. I heard prayers. I heard women. I heard children. Suddenly, the door opening through which food was usually served broke wide open. “You are liberated, you are liberated!” I fell on my knees. I thought I was hallucinating. I put my fist out. Two men grabbed my fist. “Allah akbar, Allah akbar (God is the greatest) … you are liberated!” My cellmates were all kneeling on the floor in disbelief. The locks were getting smashed from the outside. I cried aloud and the door broke wide open. I don’t really remember what happened next.
I was the first prisoner to get caught on camera. My parents watched the liberation of Khiam on TV because Rmeish was still under occupation at the time. They didn’t recognize me though. My hair and beard were too long and well, I was screaming “Allah akbar!”
Fourteen years later, I’m living with my wife and children in Rmeish, and every morning I drink my coffee while looking over occupied Palestine.
Adnan al-Amin
In November 1990 I was picking up photos from a store in Marjeyoun, a city in south Lebanon, when I got arrested. I was 19 at the time.
They put a tight black cover over my head and made me strip naked. Suspended from my bound wrists from a metal pole, hot and cold water was thrown on me consecutively … hot cold hot cold until I was completely soaked. Then they attached electrodes to my chest and other particularly sensitive areas of my body and electrocuted me, repeatedly.
In the 70 day interrogation period, I was tortured three times per day. I used to lose consciousness and wake up to find myself stumbling blindly in a pitch-black, 1m by 80cm by 80cm solitary confinement room.
We were tied to window grills naked for days in painful positions, freezing water thrown at us in the cold winter nights. We were whipped, beaten, kicked in the head and the jaw, burned, electrocuted, had ear-shattering whistling in our ears, and deprived of food and sleep …it was hard, very hard.
I endured the pain. With time, I became numb. I survived it all without saying a word. I was winning, I thought.
One morning, they dragged me into the interrogation room. “You didn’t tell me your sister was this beautiful,” one of the SLA officers said. My whole world came crashing down. “Wait until you see his mother,” said another. Handcuffed, I threw myself on him from across the table. It costed me 14 hours in the “chicken cage,” a 90-cubic-centimeter enclosure used for extra-severe punishment.
The SLA used to bring in the wives, sisters and daughters of the prisoners and treat them in a vulgar manner like taking off their head scarves, groping them and threatening to rape them. For me, the mere thought was intolerable. “Your sister will pay you a visit tomorrow. You miss her don’t you?”
“I’m a Hezbollah fighter,” I confessed.
Up to 12 prisoners were crammed in a tiny room. We were buried alive. The cells were like coffins. Light and air hardly penetrated through the small, barred windows located near the ceiling. We could barely breathe. We used to relieve ourselves in a black bucket placed in the corner. The heavy odor of human sweat and wastes was intolerable. We showered every three or four weeks. Once a month, we were allowed into the “sun or light room” for 20 minutes only.
One night in 1991 I woke up to the deafening screams of a detainee being tortured in the yard. The louder he screamed, the harder he got whipped. His cries were unbearable, beyond anything I had ever heard before. “You are killing him, you animals,” one of my fellow cellmates shouted.
We started banging on the door of the cell, kicking it with our feet, yelling and asking them to stop. Other prisoners in other cells joined us, but the lashes kept falling and the cries continued. And then … silence. Youssef Ali Saad, father of eight, died under torture on that cold January night. One month later, Asaad Nemr Bazzi died because of medical neglect.
Do you know what the worst part was? Fellow Lebanese citizens did this to us. I almost died on the hands of a man named Hussein Faaour, my neighbor in Khiam. Abu Berhan, another torturer I remember was from Aitaroun. The SLA members were all Lebanese, mostly from the south. Family members, neighbors, childhood friends, classmates, teachers … Lebanese who decided to sell their land and people for cash.
Lebanese who are now living among us like nothing happened, as if they did nothing! It breaks my heart that our former tormentors have escaped punishment so easily.
Fourteen years later, I’m still waiting for justice.
Nazha Sharafeddine
In 1988, I was in Beirut purchasing medicine for my pharmacy in al-Taybeh (a village in South Lebanon) when the SLA forces, aware of my role in transferring arms to Hezbollah fighters, first came looking for me. They stormed into our house again a week later but my mother told them I was in Bint Jbeil. It was the truth but they didn’t believe her.
I remember opening the front gate that afternoon and seeing my mother waiting, weeping and trembling on the doorstep. “They took away your sister and your sister-in-law along with Hadi (her five-month-old baby.) My daughter, my grandson!” she cried. I put on my clothes and waited for the SLA on the front porch. My sister was 20-years-old at the time and I was 26. My mother begged me to run away, but I didn’t.
My mother collapsed on the ground next to the SLA vehicle. I sat in the backseat and they took me away.
Blindfolded I was shoved into the interrogation room. Boiling water was thrown on my face, and my fingers and ears were electrocuted. I didn’t say a word. This went on for a month.
“I heard Hadi is sick,” one of the Israeli officers told me one morning. He wasn’t lying. My sister in law got infected and breastfeeding her child was not an option anymore. Psychologically, I suffered greatly. I wished they would just beat me up instead. I struggled, but I remained silent. Two months later Hadi and his mother, along with my sister, got released. They were of no use to the Israelis anymore.
Women detainees, like men, were severely tortured. You see, gender equality is not always a good thing [she laughs]. Let me tell you how the torture stopped.
After spending 15 days in solitary confinement, I found out upon my return to the cell I shared with six other women that one of my fellow prisoners had an extremely disgusting skin rash. I examined her and as a pharmacist I knew that her rash was contagious. As planned, I got infected. Soon, my skin started changing and I looked like an acid attack victim.
Clearly disgusted by my deteriorating skin, the SLA guard dragged me by my hair into yet another torture session. The torturer, a woman, was waiting for me. With my hair still trapped between the guards fingers, he forced me down to my knees. Before the torturer’s fist reached my jaw, I told her that my skin condition was contagious. The guard instantly let go of my hair and they both took a step back. I tried to keep a straight face but I couldn’t hide my smile. Nobody laid a hand on me after that day.
Fourteen years later, I made peace with the past. My three years in Khiam were tough, but now I feel blessed. I really do.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network raises our voice to join those of the Palestinian, Arab and regional forces of the resistance in expressing condolences for and solidarity with the Iranian people and nation on the tragic passing of president Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and their companions in a helicopter crash on Sunday, 19 May 2024.
As our comrades in the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, said, “He also played a pioneering role in supporting all forces within the axis of resistance, including the Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Syrian, and Iraqi resistance institutions…We are confident that the Islamic Republic of Iran will transcend this enormous loss with its values, institutions and Constitution that will enable it to continue its humanist support of the oppressed and the struggling peoples for their freedom and true independence.”
Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, wrote, “We express our shared feelings of sorrow and pain with the brotherly Iranian people and our full solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran in this tragic incident and grave loss, which claimed the lives of a group of the finest Iranian leaders who had a remarkable journey in Iran’s renaissance and held honorable stances in supporting our Palestinian cause, backing our people’s legitimate struggle against the zionist entity, and their valued support for the Palestinian resistance. They made diligent efforts in solidarity and support in all forums and fields for our people in the steadfast Gaza Strip during the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, and their intense political and diplomatic efforts to stop the zionist aggression against our Palestinian people.”
The Government Media Office in Gaza wrote, “The incident is considered a significant loss for the Palestinian people, the Islamic nation, and the resistance, which the late Iranian president and, behind him, the leadership, government, and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran, have always supported.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement noted, “Their loss is also a great loss for the Palestinian people during these difficult times, as they played a prominent and clear role in supporting and backing the struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people, and in confronting the ongoing criminal zionist aggression.”
Hezbollah stated, “We have known…the martyred President closely for a long time; he was a big brother to us, a strong support, and a staunch defender of our causes and the causes of the nation, foremost among them Al-Quds and Palestine, and a protector of the resistance movements and their fighters in all the positions of responsibility he held… the dear martyred brother Dr. Hussein Amir Abdollahian…carried the flag in all political and diplomatic forums in the world and was a lover of resistance movements and dedicated to their support and advocacy.”
The AnsarAllah movement of Yemen said, “This is a loss not only for Iran, but also for the entire Islamic nation, Palestine and Gaza, which are waging a liberation battle and are in dire need of the presence of such a President who continued to defend the oppressed Palestinian people and their right to achieve their freedom and restore their land and rights.”
These statements were accompanied by those of fellow resistance forces in Palestine and throughout the region, all of which highlighted the role of Raisi, Amir-Abdollahian and the people and nation of Iran in consolidating the strong regional alliance of resistance which has been built over the past four decades, and in confronting the Zionist genocide and advancing the Palestinian resistance in the era of the Al-Aqsa Flood.
This resistance alliance, with the axis of resistance at the core, is collectively struggling for the liberation of Palestine, and the broader Arab-Iranian region from NATO-American-Zionist occupation, including the liberation of over 9,400 Palestinian prisoners held hostage by the Zionist regime. The Al-Aqsa Flood has, as one of its clear goals, the liberation of the prisoners alongside the breaking of the siege on Gaza, on the road to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, and regional and international support for the Palestinian resistance is critical to achieving that liberation.
Within that context, we salute Pres. Raisi’s commitment to confronting and shattering the sanctions regime that the U.S. and its allies seek to impose on Iran – as it does on all nations that reject their dictates and hegemony – through building strong regional and international alliances, deepening alliances with countries confronting imperialism in Latin America, especially Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, and joining the BRICS. “Thank you for your hospitality, revolutionary brothers [Nicolas] Maduro, [Daniel] Ortega and [Miguel] Díaz Canel. Latin America and its people are one of the poles that inspire the world in the search for independence and justice and will play an irreplaceable role in the triumph over imperialism,” Raisi said after one such visit to Latin America, saluting the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Cuban presidents.
This came hand in hand with a solid commitment to material as well as political and diplomatic support – a longtime, committed position of Iran – for the Palestinian resistance, to achieving a just peace and liberation for Yemen, and to confronting Zionism and imperialism everywhere in the region and internationally.
To all within the imperial core, it is particularly urgent to intensify campaigns to end sanctions, terror listings and criminalization of forces and nations that confront imperialism, and that the primary contradiction and our primary responsibility is to challenge the crimes of U.S. imperialism everywhere, as the resistance in the region is leading the world in doing today. It is clear that the people and nation of Iran will defeat all attempts by the Zionist regime and imperialist powers, led by the United States, to exploit this tragedy in order to undermine Iran’s sovereignty and self-determination, and will overcome this tragedy with its strong institutions, constitution and collective leadership, ensuring a smooth transition forward.
Imperialism and Zionism will be defeated, and the Arab and Iranian people – and the people of the world – will live free, in self-determination, independence and sovereignty, with the power and unity of the resistance.
Samidoun Brazil and the international Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network express our strongest solidarity with Muslim Abuumar and his family, a Palestinian family deported from Sao Paulo airport to Malaysia on Sunday, June 23. We denounce the family’s deportation and warn that it serves as a dangerous example of the undermining of Brazil’s national sovereignty and self-determination, alongside the rights of the Palestinian people, by the Zionist regime and the United States, which have targeted Muslim Abuumar because he publicly advocates for the Palestinian people, their rights and their liberation. 
