Samidoun organizers will be participating in webinars taking place on Thursday, 23 April. We invite all to join these events and hope that friends and comrades can participate. We also recommend a number of other events of interest taking place online to build the struggle virtually in the coming days:
Organized by Revolutionaire Eenheid and featuring Mohammed Khatib of Samidoun!
Revolutionaire Eenheid invites you to join us for a webinar on the meaning of international solidarity. During this unfolding international crisis, international solidarity is more important than ever. But how can we effectively practice international solidarity? And how has international solidarity developed over the past decades?
We are happy to that we will be joined by Mohammed Khatib and Yasmin Ahmed, who are both committed internationalists. Mohammed is the European coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Yasmin is a member of Revolutionaire Eenheid and active in the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.
23 April: West Asia, COVID-19 and the people’s response
Organized by the International League of People’s Struggle
Samidoun’s Charlotte Kates will be joining the discussion.
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) presents the on-line series, INTER VIEWS, featuring members of the ILPS and allies from around the globe.
(Voir le français ci-dessous)
April 23, the ILPS will be hosting the second installment of INTER VIEWS via Zoom and YouTube Live. The session will focus on the current situation in West Asia (Middle East), the COVID-19 pandemic, and the people’s response.
The teach-in features RAZAN ZUAYTER, Co-Chairperson of the People’s Coalition for Food Sovereignty, founder of Arab for the Protection of Nature and member of the International Coordinating Committee of the League. Panelists include Barchir Nakhal, Red Oak Youth Group, Lebanon, and Charlotte Kates, Samidoun (Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network). There will be a Q&A.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is an endorser of the below statement along with many groups and organizations in Palestine and around the world:
As we mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day this year, Palestinian prisoners and detainees face the additional threat of a coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak in Israeli prisons and detention centers. While governments around the world are being called on to release prisoners and those detained in violation of international law, the Israeli occupying authorities have taken no steps to release Palestinian prisoners and detainees or to adequately mitigate and prevent a COVID-19 outbreak in prisons. Instead, mass arbitrary detentions and arrests, a staple of Israel’s prolonged military occupation and widespread and systematic human rights violations against the Palestinian people, have continued during the pandemic.[i]
This year, our organizations call for urgent action to ensure the release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees and to uphold their right to the highest attainable standard of health during COVID-19,[ii] particularly as many are minors, chronically ill, members of vulnerable groups, or held under administrative detention in contravention of international law. According to Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, there are currently 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, including 432 administrative detainees and 183 child prisoners in Israeli detention. The Israeli occupying authorities hold Palestinian administrative detainees indefinitely without charge or trial and have detained journalists, human rights defenders, and members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
While persons deprived of their liberty around the world are more likely to be vulnerable to a COVID-19 outbreak than the general population,[iii] COVID-19 presents a particularly acute and immediate danger to Palestinian prisoners and detainees, who already endure dire detention conditions, including systematic torture and ill-treatment, pervasive medical negligence, overcrowding, lack of proper ventilation and access to sanitary products, including sanitizers and disinfectants, poor nutrition, and, in certain cases, complete bans on family visits. These conditions make Israeli prisons dangerous breeding grounds for COVID-19 and compound the vulnerability of Palestinian prisoners and detainees, with hundreds currently detained suffering from chronic diseases that go untreated.[iv] Despite the pandemic, the Israeli occupying forces continue to routinely arrest Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and immediately place them in quarantine.[v]
In early March 2020, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) halted all family and legal visits for prisoners, claiming that this was a COVID-19 precaution. The Israeli occupying authorities have also postponed all trial proceedings in military courts and have stopped bringing Palestinians in pre-trial detention or interrogation to court, further deepening Israel’s violations of Palestinians’ rights to liberty and security of person and to a fair and speedy trial. Moreover, Israel has barred legal representatives from meeting with Palestinian prisoners. Since legal representatives have been allowed to speak with their clients only by phone, they have been unable to accurately assess the health condition of Palestinian detainees.
The IPS has also continued to refuse to install landline phones inside prisons as stipulated in the most recent hunger-strike negotiations,[vi] thereby further distancing Palestinian prisoners from their families and legal representatives during the pandemic. To date, the IPS has allowed phone calls for female and child detainees but continues to delay them and has not determined a clear schedule for these calls to take place, resulting in confusion for prisoners’ families and for the prisoners and detainees themselves. As of now, only a number of Palestinian women and child detainees who are at Damon prison have been allowed to contact their families during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Despite guidelines and calls issued by the World Health Organization (WHO),[vii] the Office of the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights,[viii] and UN human rights experts[ix] on the need to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in detention settings, conditions in Israeli prisons continue to deteriorate. Prisoners have reported that the IPS has imposed new restrictions on purchases from prison canteens that make it difficult for them to obtain necessary sanitary products and maintain proper hygiene. At the same time, IPS officers routinely search prisoners’ rooms and conduct counts of prisoners five times a day, while failing to consistently wear hazmat suits, protective gloves, and medical face masks. A number of Palestinian prisoners at Ofer prison have recently reported concerns over COVID-19 exposure amongst Israeli prison guards. On 1 April 2020, Nur Eddin Sarsour, a former Palestinian prisoner, tested positive for COVID-19 upon release from Israeli prison. Arrested on 18 March 2020, he was released on 31 March from Ofer prison and tested positive for COVID-19 the next day.[x]
Around the world, UN experts have called for the release of prisoners and detainees in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 25 March 2020, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, stated that “[n]ow, more than ever, governments should release every person detained without sufficient legal basis, including political prisoners and others detained simply for expressing critical or dissenting views.”[xi] On 30 March 2020, the UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture called on governments to take measures to protect individuals deprived of their liberty during the pandemic and to consider “reducing prison populations by implementing schemes of early, provisional or temporary release of low-risk offenders, reviewing all cases of pre-trial detention, [and] extending the use of bail for all but the most serious cases.”[xii] On 27 March 2020, the Israeli occupying authorities decided to release some 400 ‘non-violent’ Israeli common law prisoners who are serving lighter sentences and nearing the end of their time in prison,[xiii] selected on the basis of health condition and age.[xiv] Yet, the Israeli occupying authorities have not established the same release policy for Palestinian prisoners and administrative detainees.
On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, our organizations issue this urgent call for the immediate release of Palestinian prisoners and detainees from Israeli prisons, particularly those who are more susceptible to the pandemic, such as those who are chronically ill, in order to uphold their rights and to ensure their safety from a COVID-19 outbreak in Israeli prisons. Until such time as Palestinian prisoners and detainees are released, our organizations call on:
The IPS to:
Install landlines in all Israeli prisons and detention centers and to ensure the maintenance of contact with family and legal representatives for Palestinian prisoners and detainees through unmonitored phone or video calls;
Ensure adequate and independent access to medical care, hygiene facilities, and sanitary products for all prisoners and detainees;
Publicly guarantee that it will eliminate the use of solitary confinement, an internationally recognized form of torture, as a means of managing the spread of COVID-19 in prisons and detention facilities; and
Publicize all plans and policies to ensure the protection of all prisoners during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The International Committee of the Red Cross to continue to carry out visits to Israeli prisons and detention centers, to provide updates to families of Palestinian prisoners and detainees on detention conditions, to oversee and ensure the provision of the necessary healthcare for prisoners and detainees during the pandemic, and to call on IPS to adopt the relevant international guidelines for prevention of COVID-19 outbreak in Israeli prisons;
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) to call on Israel, the occupying power, to release Palestinian prisoners and detainees in line with the guidelines issued by WHO, OHCHR, and relevant UN human rights experts on preventing COVID-19 outbreak in prisons and in light of additional calls made to specific States in this regard;
Member States of the UN Human Rights Council to call on Israel, the occupying power, to take urgent action in line with the above-mentioned guidelines, in particular to release Palestinian prisoners and detainees and to uphold their rights, in particular to the highest attainable standard of health, during the public health emergency; and
Third States, including the diplomatic community, to call on Israel, the occupying power, to fulfil its obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law with regard to its treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees and to ensure their protection, particularly during COVID-19.
[ii]See, notably, Al-Haq, “Israeli Apartheid Undermines Palestinian Right to Health Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic,” 7 April 2020, available at: http://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16692.html.
[iv]See Al-Haq, “Addameer and Al-Haq Send Appeal to UN Special Procedures on the Situation of Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Prisons amidst Concerns over COVID-19 Exposure,” 2 April 2020, available at: http://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/16674.html.
This Friday, April 17, is Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, and abolitionists of NYC stand in solidarity with Palestinian freedom fighters caged by the Israeli occupation. As COVID-19 continues to spread inside carceral sites around the world, demands for safety and liberation are pouring out from behind the walls.
Though struggling to survive distinct political conditions, comrades in New York and Palestine are linked under a continuum of oppression. The NYPD and Israeli military enforcers have historically shared training and surveillance technologies. American companies like HP and Motorola sell enslavement management tools to U.S. and Israeli prison networks alike. Multiple forms of governmental and corporate power are complicit in this deadly exchange.
Where does today’s outbreak fit in? Simple: to authoritarian states already structured to rob, silence, and kill people deemed undesirable or undeserving, COVID-19 becomes not a problem but an extension and tool of punishment and deprivation. In this moment, we cannot expect that systems designed to punish, degrade, and exterminate will recognize institutionalized violence or the humanity of their captives. We cannot expect settler colonialism and white supremacy to cede power of their own volition.
MAKE YOUR CALLS!
Cases of COVID-19 in New York’s jails, prisons, and youth and immigrant detention centers have skyrocketed. These places are already designed to be vicious, unhealthy, overcrowded, and highly secretive. As any large-scale crisis would, COVID-19 has enabled modern-day slavers to reinforce their control over dominated bodies by exploiting the very conditions that make viral transmission possible.
1. Call MDC Brooklyn: Operator, 718-840-4200
This is the federal jail in Sunset Park where COVID-19 continues to spread among comrades and staff! Tell the operator:
“I am calling in support of the people who are caged at MDC Brooklyn, where there is a dangerous lack of ventilators, medical infrastructure and supplies, and personal protective equipment or soap for incarcerated people. The people you’ve incarcerated have already tested positive for COVID-19. What are you doing to ensure that incarcerated people have access to healthcare and hygiene supplies and that families are being updated as to the health status of their incarcerated family members inside?”
2. Call the Manhattan Detention Complex: Operator, 212-225-1341
This is the municipal jail from which our comrades have smuggled out important demands for harm reduction! Tell the operator:
“I am calling in support of the people who are caged inside of the Tombs. The people under your control have already demanded that facility overseers immediately: 1) administer COVID-19 tests to all people inside the facility; 2) provide hygiene products and sanitizing of common objects, including phones; 3) give tablets to all incarcerated people so they can contact loved ones outside; 4) halt all invasive searches of bodies and belongings. What are you doing to ensure that these demands are met?”
3. Call the NYC Administration for Children’s Services: David A. Hansell, Commissioner, 212-341-0903
This is the city agency that manages Horizon Juvenile Center, the abusive Bronx facility in which children with coronavirus symptoms are being forcibly clustered! Tell Commissioner Hansell’s office:
“I am calling in support of the youth who are caged at Horizons and Crossroads and facing dangerous exposure to COVID-19 in unsafe and unhealthful conditions. It is beyond time to end youth incarceration in our city. I am calling to demand that you and the City Council make a plan to immediately release all people under 18 caged in NYC and return our young people to their families and communities.”
4. Call New York City Council:
These Councilmembers chair the committees that collaborate with NYC’s policing and carceral systems!
Deborah Rose, Chair of the Youth Services Committee, 718-556-7370 (district) and 212-788-6972 (legislative)
“I am calling to urge Councilmember Rose to use the powers of her committee chair to end youth incarceration in our city. I was horrified to learn that ACH is forcing children with COVID-19 symptoms to crowd into Horizons in the Bronx. The fact that our city is using a detention center to quarantine vulnerable youth is beyond disturbing. Is this outbreak convincing Councilmember Rose that we need a total dismantling of the way we are punishing under-resourced children? What is she doing to take action?”
Rory Lancman, Chair of the Committee on the Justice System, 718-217-4969 (district) and 212-788-6956 (legislative)
“I am calling to urge Councilmember Lancman to use the powers of his committee chair to end youth incarceration in our city and to speed up the release of as many people as possible from municipal jails. Councilmember Lancman has been outspoken about the problems with our current juvenile detention system and adult criminal legal system. Right now, children with COVID-19 symptoms are being forcibly crowded into Horizons in the Bronx. He must also be aware of the skyrocketing cases of COVID-19 on Rikers Island and in the Manhattan Detention Complex. What is Councilmember Lancman doing to get incarcerated people out of harm’s way? Can he start by calling for the release of as many people as possible, including anyone over the age of fifty, living with high-risk health conditions, inside due to parole violations, and/or serving a sentence of less than one year or within one year of their earliest release date?”
Keith Powers, Chair of the Criminal Justice Committee, 212-818-0580 (district) and 212-788-7393 (legislative)
“I am calling to urge Councilmember Powers to use the influence of his committee chair to speed up the release of as many people as possible from municipal jails. Councilmember Powers has been present for countless public conversations about the inherent dangers of the city’s carceral system. Now, cases of COVID-19 are skyrocketing across city jails. What is Councilmember Powers doing to protect incarcerated people? Can he start by calling for the release of as many people as possible, including anyone over the age of fifty, living with high-risk health conditions, inside due to parole violations, and/or serving a sentence of less than one year or within one year of their earliest release date?”
SHARE YOUR FINDINGS!
Right after your phone calls end, please fill out this form to tell IWOC NYC’s organizers how your calls went and what kinds of responses you received. Thank you for adding your voice to this fight and for raising the voices of our loved ones inside!
On Friday, 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will be joining with groups and activists around the world to tweet our collective, symbolic solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Follow @SamidounPP on Twitter for updates, news and more on the struggle of Palestinian prisoners and to follow the Twitterstorm!
As part of the “You are not alone, We are with you” campaign, the hashtag throughout the day will be #WeAreWithYou. This twitterstorm will be joined by activists from throughout occupied Palestine and around the world, and we urge you to join us! Tweet your links, message of solidarity or video about the Palestinian prisoners at any time during the day and add the hashtag, #WeAreWithYou.
Note: We will also be joining the online Twitterstorm from 2-4 pm Central time (9-11 pm Europe, 10 pm-midnight Palestine) on Friday, 17 April called by the US Palestinian Community Network, Addameer and others for #PalestinianPrisonersDay and #FreeOurPrisoners. Sample tweets for this campaign are available here: https://bit.ly/USPCNPrisonersDay2020 and here.
Join the EuroPalForum webinar (with Samidoun participation) for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day!
As the deadly covid-19 virus evidently threatens to exacerbate the situation in prisons to levels hitherto unseen, it is vital that awareness is raised as a matter of urgency.
It is in this context that EuroPal Forum brings you this online seminar, which seeks to raise awareness about the plight of Palestinian prisoners and the specific challenges they are facing during this global pandemic. To foster this seminar, EuroPal is bringing together those at the forefront of discourse and understanding on the condition of Palestinian prisoners for a 2-hour discussion on the dynamics of the situation in Israeli jails.
More important online events today:
Friday, 17 April: Participate in the Facebook Live featuring Sahar Francis of Addameer, organized by the US Palestinian Community Network at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 8 pm Europe, 9 pm Palestine at https://www.facebook.com/USPCN/
Friday, 17 April – In Prison there is no Social Distancing, from Rikers Island to Palestine. Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, including speakers Marc Lamont Hill, Bassem and Ahed Tamimi, Mariame Kaba, Aarab Barghouthi, Randa Wahbe, Dareen Tatour, Brad Parker, Azadeh Shahshahani, Lex Steppling. 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern/7 pm Europe/8 pm Palestine. Register here: https://secure.everyaction.com/bK2HzdtoI0WRvDkmfsRo7Q2
Friday, 17 April. Palestinian Prisoners’ Day with Ramzy Baroud, organized by the University of Leeds Palestine Solidarity Group. 11 am Pacific/2 pm Eastern/7 pm Britain/8 pm Europe/9 pm Palestine Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/224106195604998/
Friday, 17 April (In Spanish) Prisons: The pandemic behind walls and bars. Testimonies from Colombia, Palestine and the Basque Country (Euskal Herria). Organized by Paz Con Dignidad. 8:30 am Pacific/11:30 am Eastern/5:30 pm Europe/6:30 pm Palestine. Join on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/810549703
Friday, 17 April (In Arabic): Palestinian Prisoners – Resisting the occupation amid a global pandemic, with Dr. Khaled Odetallah. 9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern/6 pm Europe/7 pm Palestine, organized by the Right to Education Campaign with many other organizations, including Samidoun Palestine. Via Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/513623755977088/
Friday, 17 April: A Tale of A Palestinian Detainee. Facebook Live at the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. 6 am Pacific/9 am Eastern/3 pm Europe/4 pm Palestine. More info: https://www.facebook.com/Return.Eng/
Friday, 17 April: Hands Off Venezuela, the first of a series of webinars hosted by The Red Nation in partnership with the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) and the Center for Political Education. 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern/2 am Europe/3 am Palestine
Zoom registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_W1uTlqEFQn2qCAYIWhmIjQ
Sunday, 19 April: NY4Palestine will host a webinar on the case of Ubai Aboudi and child prisoners in occupied Palestine at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 8 pm Europe, 9 pm Palestine. Featuring Hind Shraydeh, Palestinian writer, married to Ubai Aboudi; MIT mathematician Dr. Haynes Miller and Hadeel Shatara of Samidoun Palestine. Register online to attend: http://bit.ly/ImprisonedPalestiniansWebinar
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its warmest greetings to Prof. Jose Maria Sison and the Filipino people for their solidarity with the Palestinian political prisoners and the Palestinian liberation struggle. In the video below, Joma Sison, Chairperson Emeritus of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) and Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines, expresses his solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners as part of the international week of action for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day from 10-17 April.
As Samidoun, we also reiterate our full support and solidarity to our comrades and friends in the Philippines by demanding the release of all 532 political prisoners in the country. Among them are 44 elders, 61 women, 118 sick prisoners, five children and 10 consultants for the National Democratic Front of the Philippines. Amid the global pandemic of COVID-19, the situation of these prisoners in the jails and detention camps run by the current U.S.-backed fascist government presents a serious threat to their lives.
Samidoun is a member of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle, along with many mass organizations and popular movements in the Philippines, who have been targeted for severe repression. Following the ILPS conference in Manila in 2015, Samidoun’s European coordinator Mohammed Khatib participated in the launch of the Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association, along with Leila Khaled.
Watch the video here:
Full text of the video by Prof. Jose Maria Sison:
Dear Comrades and Fellow Activists,
On my personal behalf as Chairperson Emeritus of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle and as Chief Political Consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and on behalf of the NDFP and the Filipino people, I wish to convey through the Samidoun warmest greetings of revolutionary solidarity to the Palestinian political prisoners and to the Palestinian people in their struggle for national and social liberation against US imperialism and Israeli Zionism.
We join you in celebrating the Palestinian Prisoners Day, in honoring all the Palestinian political prisoners together with all martyrs and heroes for their self-sacrificing and noble struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people, in condemning the violations of their democratic rights and fundamental freedoms and in demanding humane treatment for the political prisoners and their freedom from their unjust imprisonment.
The Filipino people and their revolutionary forces share a strong sense of solidarity with the Palestinian people and revolutionary forces because they are waging a common struggle against US imperialism and its reactionary puppets such as Israeli Zionism and the big comprador-landlord regime in the Philippines. We are all inspired by the sacrifices made by the political prisoners and all the martyrs and heroes in order to advance the struggle for national and social liberation.
We take this occasion to thank the Samidoun for expressing the solidarity of the Palestinian political prisoners with the Filipino political prisoners and of the Palestinian people with the Filipino people and for joining the campaign to demand the freedom of political prisoners in the Philippines. We have a special concern for the release of all the student political prisoners who have been arrested and imprisoned for exercising their democratic rights.
All political prisoners in the world, especially the sick and elderly and the social activists who have exercised their democratic rights in defense of the people, must be freed in the face of the extremely contagious and deadly COVID-19. It is unjust to continue imprisoning them and serving them to the jaws of death. The imperialists and their reactionary puppets can only prepare their doom in the long course of history as they refuse to respect the just cause of the oppressed people and heed the just demands for their freedom.
Long live the solidarity of the Palestinian and Filipino political prisoners!
Release all political prisoners at this time of the COVID-19 pandemic!
Long live the solidarity and common struggle of the Palestinian and Filipino peoples!
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes our comrades of ATIK, the Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe. In the video below, a spokesperson for ATIK expresses their solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners. At the same time, we express our strongest solidarity with the Turkish and Kurdish political prisoners in Turkish jails struggling for justice and freedom, as well as the political prisoners jailed in Europe in collaboration with the Turkish state.
We also express our solidarity with Müslüm Elma, who previously spent many years in Turkey jailed for his political views, where he was subjected to torture and undertook several long-term hunger strikes. Despite the fact that he received asylum in Germany due to the persecution he endured from the Turkish state, today he is jailed in Germany solely due to the political allegations against him by Turkish security services. Freedom for Müslüm Elma and all political prisoners! Long live international solidarity!
Watch the video here:
Transcript of the message from ATIK:
“In the week of actions for the Palestinian prisoners and all the other political prisoners worldwide, we, as ATIK – Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe – want to salute all the imprisoned activists and all their comrades, who fight for their freedom.
Our comrades have also been imprisoned after the operation of the police in 2015. The trials are still processing in Münich and the German state is still keeping our comrade Müslüm Elma in the prison. This process has been started with cooperation of the fascist Turkish state, which has hundreds of thousands political prisoners. We know that the so-called democracy in Europe ends where revolutionaries start to criticize them and struggle against their powers. Their laws and humanright declarations are nothing but misleading nonsense, as we are following it in the case of comrade Georges Abdallah, who had to be released years ago.
The Palestinian prisoners are facing even worse conditions, as torture and harassment, which are daily happening in the Turkish prisons as well. The prisons of the system, which are built to eliminate the struggle against the oppressors, is our common problem. That’s why the fight against this inhumane pressure and cruelty can and should be commonized as well. The walls of the prisons will be destroyed from inside and outside! And gathering the strength from outside is our duty, which is even more crucial in these days, since the health of our comrades are in danger as well with the pandemia crisis.
Once again, we want to send our comradely salute to all the political prisoners and the determined activists of Samidoun! Freedom for all political prisoners!”
On Friday, 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will be joining with groups and activists around the world to tweet our collective, symbolic solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Follow @SamidounPP on Twitter for updates, news and more on the struggle of Palestinian prisoners and to follow the Twitterstorm!
As part of the “You are not alone, We are with you” campaign, the hashtag throughout the day will be #WeAreWithYou. This twitterstorm will be joined by activists from throughout occupied Palestine and around the world, and we urge you to join us! Tweet your links, message of solidarity or video about the Palestinian prisoners at any time during the day and add the hashtag, #WeAreWithYou. You can share the graphics below to support the campaign and participate in the Twitterstorm on Friday. We will also be sharing more sample tweets and graphics in the coming days!
Note: We will also be joining the online Twitterstorm from 2-4 pm Central time (9-11 pm Europe, 10 pm-midnight Palestine) on Friday, 17 April called by the US Palestinian Community Network and others for #PalestinianPrisonersDay. Sample tweets for this campaign are available here: https://bit.ly/USPCNPrisonersDay2020
We also invite all to participate in the wide array of webinars and online events in the coming week in support of the Palestinian prisoners’ struggle. Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners – Freedom for Palestine!
Upcoming Online Events for Palestine and political prisoners:
Tuesday, 14 April: International Solidarity event for Grup Yorum, the imprisoned musical band in Turkey, in memory of Helin Bolek, who died after 288 days of hunger strike. 9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern/6 pm Europe/7 pm Palestine. Join the Facebook event for the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/669133520584071/
Tuesday, 14 April: The Palestinian Prisoners and International Law during the Corona Pandemic, organized by the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad. 8:00 am Pacific/11 am Eastern/4 pm Britain/5 pm Europe/6 pm Palestine
Follow for Facebook Live broadcast: https://www.facebook.com/PalesAbroad/
Wednesday, 15 April (in Arabic): Occupied Palestine ’48 – Reality and Current Challenges. Samidoun Palestine continues the discussion on the revolutionary Palestinian alternative. 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern/7 pm Europe/8 pm Palestine. Join the Facebook event for the link: https://www.facebook.com/events/s/1875129379460850/
Wednesday, 15 April: The International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the NLG International Committee will hold a webinar on economic sanctions and COVID-19, including among other speakers Raji Sourani of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. This will take place at 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern/7 pm Europe/8 pm Palestine. Register online here: https://bit.ly/SanctionsWarWebinar
Wednesday, 15 April. The Palestinian Youth Movement and National SJP are organizing Free Them All: From Palestine to the US, on prisoners’ struggle for freedom and aboltion amid COVID-19.. 4 pm Pacific/7 pm Eastern/12 pm Britain/1 am Europe/2 am Palestine
Register at: tinyurl.com/rsqqhbn
Thursday, 16 April: Support Palestinian Prisoners, webinar with Brad Parker and Randa Wahbe. 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern/6 pm Britain/7 pm Europe/8 pm Palestine. Organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign UK. Register here: https://bit.ly/2Ve9x9o
Thursday, 16 April. (In Spanish) How can people survive in confinement? Lessions from Gaza with Jaldia Abubakra and Nada Mughamis. 12 pm Pacific/3 pm Eastern/4 pm Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil/9 pm Europe/10 pm Palestine. Watch Facebook live at: https://facebook.com/bdscastellano/
Friday, 17 April: Participate in the Facebook Live featuring Sahar Francis of Addameer, organized by the US Palestinian Community Network at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 8 pm Europe, 9 pm Palestine at https://www.facebook.com/USPCN/
Friday, 17 April – In Prison there is no Social Distancing, from Rikers Island to Palestine. Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, including speakers Marc Lamont Hill, Bassem and Ahed Tamimi, Mariame Kaba, Aarab Barghouthi, Randa Wahbe, Dareen Tatour, Brad Parker, Azadeh Shahshahani, Lex Steppling. 10 am Pacific/1 pm Eastern/7 pm Europe/8 pm Palestine. Register here: https://secure.everyaction.com/bK2HzdtoI0WRvDkmfsRo7Q2
Friday, 17 April. Palestinian Prisoners’ Day with Ramzy Baroud, organized by the University of Leeds Palestine Solidarity Group. 11 am Pacific/2 pm Eastern/7 pm Britain/8 pm Europe/9 pm Palestine Join the Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/224106195604998/
Friday, 17 April (In Spanish) Prisons: The pandemic behind walls and bars. Testimonies from Colombia, Palestine and the Basque Country (Euskal Herria). Organized by Paz Con Dignidad. 8:30 am Pacific/11:30 am Eastern/5:30 pm Europe/6:30 pm Palestine. Join on Zoom: https://zoom.us/j/810549703
Friday, 17 April (In Arabic): Palestinian Prisoners – Resisting the occupation amid a global pandemic, with Dr. Khaled Odetallah. 9 am Pacific/12 pm Eastern/6 pm Europe/7 pm Palestine, organized by the Right to Education Campaign with many other organizations, including Samidoun Palestine. Via Facebook Live: https://www.facebook.com/events/513623755977088/
Friday, 17 April: A Tale of A Palestinian Detainee. Facebook Live at the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. 6 am Pacific/9 am Eastern/3 pm Europe/4 pm Palestine. More info: https://www.facebook.com/Return.Eng/
Friday, 17 April: Hands Off Venezuela, the first of a series of webinars hosted by The Red Nation in partnership with the Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC) and the Center for Political Education. 5 pm Pacific/8 pm Eastern/2 am Europe/3 am Palestine
Zoom registration link: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_W1uTlqEFQn2qCAYIWhmIjQ
Sunday, 19 April: NY4Palestine will host a webinar on the case of Ubai Aboudi and child prisoners in occupied Palestine at 11 am Pacific, 2 pm Eastern, 8 pm Europe, 9 pm Palestine. Featuring Hind Shraydeh, Palestinian writer, married to Ubai Aboudi; MIT mathematician Dr. Haynes Miller. Register online to attend: http://bit.ly/ImprisonedPalestiniansWebinar
We call for the freedom of thousands of political prisoners in Egypt, Palestinians imprisoned in Saudi Arabia and Sahrawi and Moroccan strugglers for justice jailed in the prisons of Morocco, and many more political prisoners in the Arab world held behind bars for seeking progressive and revolutionary change or for resisting Zionism and imperialism.
We also express our strongest solidarity to all of the political prisoners in Turkey, the Philippines, Colombia, India, the United States and Europe. The prisoners of the Black Liberation Movement continue to struggle for freedom, some with decades of lengthy imprisonment. We call for the immediate release of the members of Grup Yorum, the imprisoned Turkish lawyers and all of the Turkish and Kurdish prisoners jailed in Turkey. We also stand in solidarity with the Turkish and Kurdish organizers in Europe who are also facing political imprisonment and repression because they continue to struggle for their people and their rights.
The Duterte regime in the Philippines is intensifying its repression and political attacks rather than protecting the health of the people. In Colombia, there are 380 political prisoners and dozens of social activists have been killed in recent months. India is severely repressing and imprisoning Kashmiris alongside numerous intellectuals and activists jailed under the “sedition law.”
Of course, we also stand in full solidarity with the prisoners of Palestine around the world, including Georges Ibrahim Abdallah in French prisons and the Holy Land Five in the United States.
This graphic highlights just five of these thousands of strugglers worldwide. The struggle for the liberation of Palestine is a Palestinian, Arab and international struggle that involves the confrontation of not only the Israeli state but also the reactionary regimes and imperialist powers that keep these fighters for justice behind bars. Freedom for all political prisoners!
On this image:
Musa Asoglu, a Turkish revolutionary detained in Germany since 2 December 2016. Accused to be a leader of the DHKP-C (Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front), his indictment is essentially based on his political activities. These include organizing a symposium against isolation in several European countries, as well as various political investments in democratic spheres. For more information: https://www.musaasoglu.org/
Mumia Abu-Jamal, journalist and political activist, former member of the Black Panther Party, has spent the last 30 years of his life in prison, most of it in solitary confinement on Death Row in Pennsylvania. Organizations around the world have urged his immediate release as he continues to write and speak from behin bars. For more information: https://www.freemumia.com/
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese Arab Communist fighter for Palestine, has been jailed in France since 1984, despie being eligible for release since 1999. The United States and Israel have repeatedly intervened to prevent his release. For more information, please see: https://liberonsgeorges.samizdat.net/
Muslum Elma, born in Dersim, Turkey, in 1960 to a Kurdish and Alevi family, has been imprisoned since 2015 in Germany, accused of involvement in the Communist Party of Turkey Marxist / Leninist. As a revolutionary, he was jailed in Turkey for many years, subjected to extreme torture and participated in several long-term hunger strikes. Despite bing granted asylum in Germany due to repression in Turkey, today he is jailed due to Turkish security allegations. For more information: https://www.facebook.com/FreeMuslumElma/
Rey Casambre is a consultant of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) and the Executive Director of the Philippine Peace Center. He has been jailed since 2018 by the Duterte regime along with many other social leaders, trade unionists, indigenous organizers and others targeted for repression. Amid the COVID-19 crisis, his life is particularly at risk due to his advanced age and health conditions. For more information: https://www.facebook.com/FreeReyCasambre/
Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is a leader of the Palestinian revolutionary left and the Palestinian national liberation movement as a whole. Sa’adat’s case epitomizes the colonial nature of Israeli imprisonment that aims to target the legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people, and his boycott of the Zionist military courts reflects his principled commitment to reject colonization in all forms. His case also reflects the role of imperialist powers like the United States and Britain and the collusion of the Palestinian Authority and its “security coordination” regime in the oppression of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is releasing the following video to highlight Sa’adat’s case as part of the weeks of action for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day:
We urge all supporters of Palestine to support the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners. Every year, the January anniversary of his imprisonment by the Palestinian Authority – later violently abducted by Israeli occupation forces – is marked as an international day of action for his release. These international actions make it clear that, contrary to the goals of the Israeli regime, Sa’adat is neither isolated nor silenced, but a leader of the international left and liberation movements. Even from behind bars, Sa’adat himself continues to advance an internationalist commitment to struggle everywhere. Freedom for Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners; freedom for Palestine, from the river to the sea!
Ahmad Sa’adat is the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. One of nearly 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners, he has been sentenced to thirty years in Israeli prisons for a range of “security-related” political offenses. These charges include membership in a prohibited organization (the PFLP, of which Sa’adat is General Secretary), holding a post in a prohibited organization, and incitement, for a speech Sa’adat made following the Israeli assassination of his predecessor, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August 2001.
Sa’adat is a prisoner of conscience, targeted for imprisonment because of his political activity and in his capacity as a Palestinian leader. The systematic assassination, imprisonment and detention of Palestinian political leaders has long been a policy of the Israeli state, as reflected in the imprisonment of Sa’adat and the nearly 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners, targeted for their involvement in and commitment to the struggle for the liberation of their land and people.
Born in 1953, Sa’adat is the child of refugees expelled from their home in the village of Deir Tarif, near Ramleh, in 1948. A math teacher by training, he is married to Abla Sa’adat, herself a noted activist, and is the father of four children. Abla Sa’adat was herself arrested and detained for four months, and prevented from leaving Palestine to speak about Palestinian rights at an international conference. He has been involved in the Palestinian national movement since 1967, when he became active in the student movement. Prior to his abduction from Jericho in 2006, he had been held at various times as a political prisoner in Israeli jails, for a total of ten years. Sa’adat was elected General Secretary of the PFLP in 2001, following the Israeli assassination of then-General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa in his office in Ramallah on August 27, 2001. In retaliation for the murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, on October 17, 2001, fighters from the PFLP’s armed wing assassinated Rehavam Ze’evi, the notoriously far-right, racist Tourism Minister in Ariel Sharon’s Israeli government, in the Hyatt hotel in Jerusalem.
On January 15, 2002, Sa’adat attended a meeting with PA security chief Tawfiq Tirawi under false pretenses, from which he was abducted and taken to the Muqata’a compound in Ramallah, then-Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s headquarters. In a deal involving Israel, Britain and the U.S., Sa’adat was then held in a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho for over four years under the oversight of U.S. and British guards along with Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Hamdi Qur’an, Basil al-Asmar and Fouad Shobaki. The director of the US/British “supervision” of the prisoners at Jericho Prison formerly ran the infamous Maze Detention Center for Britain in the occupied North of Ireland, where Irish republican prisoners were held.
Sa’adat and his fellow prisoners were not subject to any real Palestinian sovereignty, but rather to the conditions and demands of the United States and Great Britain, in which the PA was fully complicit.. Sa’adat and his comrades were held under difficult conditions in Jericho prison, often secluded from one another and not allowed to communicate, denied access to newspapers, books, recreation and family and other visits. Water and electricity in their cells have been turned off, and numerous other punitive measures were implemented against them by the British and U.S. guards “monitoring” the prison. In response, Sa’adat and his comrades engaged in two hunger strikes, demanding an end to inhumane treatment and their immediate release.
In January 2006, he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on the Abu Ali Mustafa slate. On March 14, 2006, the Israeli military stormed that prison at Jericho, killing two Palestinian guards, abducting Sa’adat and five fellow prisoners and taking them to Israeli military prisons. For the entire period of Sa’adat’s imprisonment in the PA jails, he had been convicted of no crime; his sentencing- in an illegitimate military court of occupation, on December 25, 2008 – came nearly seven years into his detention, after a trial that began after five years of PA/US/British, then Israeli, imprisonment.
This trial was, of course, a military trial, as are the trials of nearly all Palestinian political prisoners. These trials are based on military law, including military regulations that may be issued at any time by the Israeli military commander over the area. This military rule under occupation dates from the era of the British occupation of Palestine, in which these “emergency” military rules were adopted in order to suppress the Palestinian national movement for independence and self-determination. These military laws continue today for the same purpose – to continue a military occupation and suppress the indigenous people of Palestine’s struggle for liberation and self-determination. Such military trials generally fail to uphold international standards for fair trials. At a more basic level, they are an illegitimate manifestation of an illegitimate system – trials that, by their very nature, can never be fair or legitimate.
Sa’adat is the child of 1948 refugees who, with six million others in Palestine, in the camps outside Palestine and in exile around the world, are denied their right to return to their homes, lands and properties and denied their right to organize, struggle and act to obtain their freedom, their return and their liberation.
JERICHO ASSAULT AND ABDUCTION
On March 14, 2006, the Israeli army laid siege for twelve hours to the Palestinian Authority prison at Jericho holding six political prisoners. Israeli bulldozers and tanks attacked the prison while the Israeli military issued threats of assassination against the prisoners. This military assault caused the death of two Palestinians, the injury of twenty-three more, and the abduction of Ahmad Sa’adat and five other political prisoners from Jericho to Zionist prisons.
For over four years, these men had been held in the Palestinian Authority prison at Jericho, under U.S. and British guard. Immediately prior to the Israeli assault on the prison, these U.S. and British guards abandoned their posts, clearing the way for the military attack. The U.S. State Department blamed Palestinians for the siege, stating that the democratically-elected Palestinian Legislative Council leadership had indicated its willingness to release these illegally-held political prisoners. Said Sa’adat in a letter to the Palestinian people after his abduction, “The Quartet [US, EU, Russia and UN] provide a cover for occupation. What happened in Jericho Prison has made the British and US governments an integral part of the conflict and forever buried any illusions in their neutrality.”
Since his abduction – a blatant violation of Palestinian sovereignty – Sa’adat’s trial was repeatedly postponed and delayed. Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz admitted shortly following the abduction that there was insufficient evidence to indict Sa’adat in the assassination of extreme racist Israeli minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001, an act of retaliation for the August 2001 Israeli murder of PFLP General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa. Instead, Sa’adat was indicted on a wide array of political charges in a hearing on March 28, 2006 at Ofer Military Base in Ramallah.
Sa’adat consistently and repeatedly refused to recognize the legitimacy of the illegitimate court; his lawyers petitioned for the charges to be dropped, as they are clearly politically motivated and the court itself is illegitimate. His trial was repeatedly postponed, from May 2006, to September 2006, to January 2007, to May 2007, and finally to July/August 2008. With each hearing, Sa’adat’s courageous refusal to recognize in any way the illegitimate court – refusing to stand for the military judges, issuing statements exposing this mockery of justice, and refusing to deal with the military courts or interrogators – stood in clear contrast to the system of occupation and oppression represented by the military courts, exposing its bankruptcy and illegitimacy.
On December 25, 2008, Sa’adat was sentenced to 30 years in the Israeli occupation prisons. His lengthy sentence, produced by an Israeli military court, was intended as a mechanism for imprisoning the resistance and the commitment of the Palestinian people to seek freedom, justice, liberation and self-determination. This is the highest sentence delivered in the occupation courts for a political charge.
Since that time, he has continued his leadership of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement behind bars. He was held in isolation for nearly three years, and was repeatedly denied family visits. Several major Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes, including the September-October 2011 hunger strike and the April-May 2012 hunger strike, placed an end to isolation as a central demand, including an end to the isolation of Sa’adat. Sa’adat was finally released from isolation and returned to the general prison population in late May 2012, following the agreement to end the prisoners’ hunger strike. During the strike, Sa’adat was hospitalized due to the severe physical stress of consuming only salt and water.
Sa’adat’s statement before sentencing (25 December 2008)
To start, I do not stand to defend myself in front of your court. I have already confirmed that I do not recognize the legitimacy of this court as it is an extension of the illegal occupation under international law, and as well as the legitimacy of our people’s right to resist occupation, and that this court is based on the British emergency laws of 1945 about which one of one of the leaders of the Zionist Labor Party said after their approval, It is one of the worst of the Nazi laws. He added, “It is true that the Nazi crimes committed did not reach the degree of crime of this legislation.”
So I stand to defend my people and their legitimate right to national independence and self-determination and return. These rights are guaranteed by international law and humanitarian law and the resolutions of the United Nations, as well as the most recent recommendations of the Hague Tribunal on the wall.
I defend the right of our people to peace and stability not only in this region, but also in the whole world. Security and stability can never be achieved in Palestine or in the region and the world as long as there is a policy based on the logic of the occupation and imposition of things on people, whether by force through military invasion or occupation, as in Palestine.
I stand before this court again today, as a mechanism for the suppression of our people and a tool of oppression, that is unable to end the resistance and is an example of the inability of the occupation and its policies imposed on the peoples to do so. If you review the files of the prisoners of the Zionist occupation of Palestine, you will find that many of the prisoners are held a second time or a third time, because this mechanism has failed to deter our people or our activists fighting for our rights.
This, like many other examples of the failure of the occupation and its tools to suppress of our people and abolish our resistance, and these courts, will remain as long as the occupation exists and will also remain in the resistance of our people.
The existing policy of the occupation and the logic of imposing by force will not bring security to Israel or other countries engaged in occupation. The main route to achieve security, stability and peace in the region is to end the occupation and the implementation of the resolutions of international legitimacy for the Palestinian cause, to provide a climate in which a democratic, peaceful and humane solution to the Palestinian crisis and the Arab-Zionist conflict is established from the roots is the only way to end violence and bloodshed.
Finally, I have already stressed in my previous statements from the so-called indictment, to the trial that has been formulated, and now reiterate the same position after your court concluded, that this is one-sided and farcical way to achieve its resolution under a mere image of a “court.” The convictions were known in advance, and pre-determined by the terms of the political and security mechanism, which is made “legitimate” by the court.
The essence of my position is that I am proud of the Palestinian people and their political and national resistance and their just struggle to achieve their national rights and also I am proud of the trust given me by the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, by electing me as Secretary-General, and I’m sorry that I have not yet been able to fully perform my duties, first: because of the detention of the Palestinian Authority and the loss of my freedoms to work for more than four years, and second because of this abduction, in which more than one party – the U.S., Britain and the Palestinian Authority – were complicit; and notwithstanding anything that could hamper you or force you, you cannot stop the struggle, along with my people, in whatever space of movement.
