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.
On Tuesday, 14th April 2020 an ONLINE EVENT by the Grup Yorum Solidarity Committee on international level will take place 6.00 pm. (CEST) for the demands and lives of Mustafa Kocak and Grup Yorum guitarists Ibrahim Gökcek.
We will commemorate Grup Yorum singer Helin Bölek, who was immortalised in her resistance on the 288th day of death fast.
The ongoing repression, crimes of the government in Turkey against the whole opposition and especially against prisoners didn’t stop during the “corona crisis”, rather the AKP government tries to take advantage of the silence and restrictions towards the masses.
The resistance has reached a very critical state, as the death of the musician Helin Bölek showed to us.
We shall be many thousands people participating in this event and also showing our direct reaction, shouting from one mouth the demands of the resisters! We can really manage to break through the wall of ignorance and silence! Let’s be ONE POWER on 14th April, Let’s BREAK THE SILENCE!”
Participants are:
Activists of the international solidarity campaign, musicians from different countries, Grup Yorum, People’s Lawyers from Turkey defending Mustafa Kocak..
The program includes live music, solidarity videos, messages, statements, call for action and Hashtag for Mustafa and Grup Yorum….
Online Link will be shared Monday!
What are they fighting for?
MUSTAFA KOCAK is ready to give his life in the struggle against injustice and corruption of the jurisdiction. He wants a fair trial and the end of policy of traitors and police informants. Because in Turkey, already around 300 persons, who are involved in the democratic struggle against the fascist rule of the state, were put in jail only because of the false statements of a person called Berk Ercan. He offered himself to the police in order to escape repression and served police to get rid of political dissidents. The police tortured many people to make statements against other. Mustafa denied and was tortured for weeks. He was punished by this politics for crimes he didn’t commit.
But he resisted and continues to protect his human dignity.
Mustafa suffers incredible pain, can’t sleep, can’t walk and even stand up anymore, has bruises all over the body from forced intervention and torture. And all he says is: “The pain is very strong, I can’t sleep due to the pain. My whole body is burning.. Yes the pain is very big, its unbearable, but nobody shall suffer this pain again in connection with justice.. I’m ready for this pain. I sustain, so the pain won’t remain until tomorrow”!
Grup Yorum
The music group exists since 1985 and already published 23 albums. The AKP regime wants to completely destroy opposition and all revolutonary potential which can mobilise the masses. Of course, Grup Yorum is the biggest and most popular group, who can bring 1 million people or more to the concerts. And their motto is socialism, independence, freedom, solidarity and unity among the people.
The songs of Grup Yorum unite people of all colors and beliefs, its not deviding but uniting. This is, what the state in Turkey fears.
Since a few years all concerts and cultural activies are banned, members of the group are arrested. Their cultural center was raided and completely destroyed with all instruments several times within 2 years.
There are still 5 members of the group in prison, also with statements of police informants. The group started a hunger strike to fight this repression and finally 2 members began with death fast.
Just to sing their songs freely, to get freedom and justice, Helin Bölek was hungry for 288 days and she was immortalised due to the fascist politics of the state. Ibrahim has reached the 300th day of his death fast.
MUSTAFA KOCAK AND IBRAHIM GÖKCEK MUST LIVE!
WE CAN DO IT TOGETHER!
LONG LIVE INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY!
HELIN BÖLEK IS IMMORTAL!
Samidoun Network in occupied Palestine, working in collaboration with Asra Voice, the Voice of the Prisoners radio network, organized a broadcast of messages of solidarity to Palestinian prisoner Ibrahim Hamed. His mother, Zainab Hamed, from the town of Silwad east of Ramallah, occupied Palestine, died on 2 April 2020, after being separated from her son for 15 years.
Samidoun collected audio messages with words of strength, support and condolences to Ibrahim Hamed, noting that he received the news of his mother’s death inside Israeli occupation prisons and was unable to be with her or even attend her funeral, kept behind bars. Even her family were denied a traditional funeral due to the global COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic.
Many individuals and organizations sent messages of solidarity. Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of Samidoun, sent a message, noting that Ibrahim Hamed and 5,000 Palestinian prisoners are kept from their families even at the most devastating moments due to Israeli imprisonment and that their lives face an even greater risk now due to COVID-19, which has already entered the prisons through infected jailers interrogators. Khaled Barakat, international coordinator of the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and Palestinian writer, emphasized that the popular and progressive movements of the world stand with the steadfast Palestinian prisoners and the prisoners’ movement behind Israeli bars.
Leila, an Algerian member of Collectif Palestine Vaincra in Toulouse, France – a member organization of the Samidoun Network – spoke on behalf of the collective, expressing condolences on the loss of Hamed’s mother. She noted that the struggle of the Palestinian prisoners also includes that of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, jailed for over 35 years in French prisons and ending with a call for a liberated Palestine.
The organizers invited participants to send their messages with a call: “Let us break through the walls of Nafha Prison with our voices and messages and support the strength and steadfastness of the prisoners.” The audio was broadcast over FM radio – where it can be heard on radios inside Israeli prisons – on Saturday morning, 11 April. The audio was also aired live on Facebook on the page of Samidoun Network in Occupied Palestine and Asra Voice radio.
Palestinian students are not only learning and expanding their knowledge as the next generation of Palestinians struggling for liberation – they are on the front lines of struggle against colonial imprisonment. There are approximately 250 Palestinian students held in Israeli jails, including approximately 80 from Bir Zeit University alone. Over the years, thousands of Palestinian university students have been targeted for arrest and persecution. Palestinian universities have been frequently raided by Israeli occupation forces; student organizations’ offices have been ransacked, their belongings confiscated and destroyed.
This new video highlights the situation of Palestinian student prisoners:
Student leaders have even been kidnapped in broad daylight on university campuses by disguised Israeli forces, called “mustaribeen,” and their homes have been invaded by occupation soldiers in violent night raids. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its strongest solidarity with imprisoned Palestinian students and urges all people of conscience to amplify the call for their immediate release.
The imprisonment of Palestinian students reflects only one part of the ongoing denial of Palestinians’ right to education by Israeli colonization. For example, Palestinian child prisoners often lose a full year of school and more due to the poor, insufficient or nonexistent education they receive behind bars. There are currently 200 Palestinian children in Israeli detention and over 700 are arrested and brought before military courts every year. Dozens of Palestinian schools are targeted for demolition due to a “lack of building permits” – because they are refused by the occupation – while Palestinian students in occupied Palestine ’48 are taught a curriculum that fundamentally denies their history and identity.
Palestinian universities have been forcibly converted into military areas as occupation forces take over and confiscate property for checkpoints, attacks on students or even military training. At the same time, propagandists for Israeli colonialism wage media attacks on Palestinian universities and education, attempting to defund and block international partnerships; even international professors hired by Palestinian universities are regularly denied entry to Palestine to teach their students. This cannot be delinked from the ongoing attempts to eradicate Palestinian culture, knowledge and history, from the bombing of the Palestine Research Center in Beirut in 1983 to the assassination of Palestinian writers, poets and scholars inside and outside Palestine – or, for that matter, from the ongoing attempts to defame, criminalize and suppress Palestinian and solidarity activism on campuses around the world, outside occupied Palestine.
Today, Palestinian students inside occupied Palestine are most frequently accused of “‘membership in’ and ‘provision of services to an unlawful association’ as defined by the 1945 (Defense) Emergency Regulations and the 1948 Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance, which were both incorporated into Israel’s domestic laws,” as noted by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Both were initially orders from the British colonial mandate over Palestine.
All major Palestinian political parties and many other social and political organizations have been declared “illegal organizations” by the Israeli military. As Addameer notes:
“Palestinian student unions have not escaped Israel’s efforts to criminalize every aspect of Palestinian civil, political and cultural life and many have also been declared illegal. In the event that a student union is not explicitly declared unlawful by a decision of the Israeli military commander or a government official exercising his or her authority under Regulation 84 of the 1945 Emergency Regulations, a Palestinian student union member may be arrested on the grounds of membership in an organization having broadly defined ‘ties’ with an unlawful organization. The nature of those ties is never of interest to the prosecution and hardly ever examined by the military judge. In consequence, attending a rally of an ‘unlawful association’ or an association ‘with ties’ to an ‘unlawful association’, putting up posters of such an association, writing, producing, printing and distributing publications related to the declared ‘unlawful association’ are all activities that are considered to ‘endanger the security of the state of Israel’, and are prosecuted as crimes under the banner of ‘hostile and terrorist activities’. In some cases, students were indicted with charges as unreasonable and far-fetched as ‘dancing Dabke’, a traditional Palestinian folkloric dance, at an event organized by a student union ‘with ties to an unlawful organization’, or attending a film screening at an ‘illegal rally’.
In this video, Samidoun’s international coordinator speaks at Israeli Apartheid Week in Cagliari, Sardinia, about the situation of imprisoned Palestinian students:
It must also be noted here that the Palestinian Authority has repeatedly arrested and detained Palestinian students as political detainees, usually for their involvement in campus student activism. This detention reflects not only political repression on the part of the PA but also, fundamentally, its “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation, especially as many of the students arrested by the PA have previously been arrested by Israeli occupation forces – or are later seized by Zionist troops after their release from PA detention.
Palestinian student life is rich in its political diversity and expression. Every year, student council elections spark a vast amount of debate and political competition between all trends of the Palestinian movement as reflected among university students. This vibrant expression of a democratic political culture is routinely subjected to violent suppression by the Israeli occupation; the student election period is often marked by a sharp rise in raids and arrests at university campuses. The last several student council presidents elected in Bir Zeit University, such as Omar Kiswani and Yehya Rabie, have been seized by occupation forces and imprisoned for holding their positions.
Today, Shatha Hassan, the president of Bir Zeit’s Student Council Conference, is imprisoned without charge or trial under Israeli “administrative detention,” and her detention has already been renewed without presenting any evidence or allegations against her.
Nevertheless, Palestinian students – including many from the popular classes and the refugee camps – continue to play a leading role in the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. They continue to organize and develop their student activism despite the incessant threat of Israeli attacks, imprisonment or even extrajudicial execution. Despite the fact that they could miss their graduation day or see a substantial delay or interruption to their academic careers and future professional life, they continue to struggle for a revolutionary, liberated Palestinian future. The student movement is also central to the campaigns inside Palestine for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, marching, organizing and campaigning to free their imprisoned sisters and brothers.
Here are just a few of the cases of imprisoned Palestinian students and youth today:
Shatha Hassan
Shatha Hassan, the president of the Student Council Conference at Bir Zeit University, was seized from her home in the Ain Misbah neighborhood of Ramallah on 12 December 2019, when armed occupation forces invaded her residence. She was shortly thereafter ordered to administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. She is one of three woman and roughly 500 Palestinians in total – out of 5,000 Palestinian prisoners – who are currently jailed under this type of arbitrary detention, which can be indefinitely renewed by Israeli military order. Palestinians have spent years in administrative detention without ever being charged. The Committee of Concerned Scientists issued a letter urging her release.
Mays Abu Ghosh
Palestinian imprisoned student Mays Abu Ghosh supports freedom for Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
Mays Abu Ghosh, a journalism student at Bir Zeit University and a student activist, was seized by occupation forces in a violent raid on 29 August 2019, when the armed soldiers removed the door of her family home and invaded it, ransacking her and her family’s belongings, blindfolding and cuffing her and then taking her to an occupation military camp near Qalandiya checkpoint.
While she was held there, the soldiers dragged her violently as she was handcuffed and blindfolded while cursing at her and screaming in her face. She was interrogated for over 30 days and subjected to severe torture and abuse. She is charged in the Israeli military courts – which convict over 99% of Palestinian detainees – with involvement in student activities on the Bir Zeit University campus.
Samah Jaradat
Samah Jaradat. Photo: Samidoun Palestine
Samah Jaradat was arrested by Israeli occupation forces three days after her graduation from Bir Zeit University with a bachelor’s degree in sociology. She was looking forward to continuing her higher education and dreams of becoming a professor at Bir Zeit herself. On 7 September 2019, she was seized from her family home and subjected to 22 days of harsh interrogation inside the Moskobiyeh detention center. A student activist and a close friend of Mays Abu Ghosh, Samah was strip-searched, held in isolation and deprived of sleep in an attempt to force her to confess. She was prohibited to see a lawyer for over 22 days and was questioned repeatedly about her student activism at the university after her interrogators failed to obtain a confession about anything else.
Israr Ma’arouf
Israr Ma’arouf, 21, is a third-year law student at Bir Zeit University who was seized by occupation forces on 24 August 2019 and almost immediately ordered to four months in administrative detention. Shortly thereafter, on 7 September, they transferred him again to the Moskobiyeh interrogation center where he was subjected to torture and severe abuse during 70 days of interrogation. Israr was deliberately and systematically deprived of sleep, interrogated most of the day and then interrupted with loud music. He was threatened with the arrest of his family and forced into stress positions during his interrogation, forcing him to fall to the ground. He fainted several times while under interrogation due to the extreme pain he was in and was forced to use a wheelchair for several days during his interrogation because he was unable to walk due to his injuries from torture.
Tareq Matar
Tareq Matar, a student and youth leader, was planning to pursue his academic career further; he had been accepted to a Ph.D. program at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. Instead, however, he was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 2 October 2019 and subjected to severe torture. A healthy, active young man, Tareq was pushed into Israeli military court in a wheelchair. This is the fifth time Tareq was arrested and imprisoned by occupation forces; he has been jailed multiple times without charge or trial under administrative detention. After he was seized in 2019, he was interrogated and tortured for over 30 days at the Moskobiyeh detention center, forced into stress positions such as “back-bending” that caused severe damage to his back and denied access to the toilet. His facial hair was pulled out from its roots by an Israeli interrogator. He was ordered to six months in administrative detention without charge or trial.
Ameer Hazboun, a fourth-year engineering student at Bir Zeit University, was seized by soldiers in his dormitory on 10 September 2019 as they invaded his room at 1:00 a.m. He was brutally kicked beaten by the soldiers with their guns while being transported to the Moskobiyeh interrogation center. He arrived at the center with bruises all over his body and informed the prison doctor that he has a platinum plate in his left hand for a previous injury. He was interrogated for weeks on end for 22 hours a day. Due to severe sleep deprivation, he would sometimes fall asleep during interrogation and was shaken awake by the interrogators. He was forced into multiple stress positions, including being forced to stand on his toes with his hands cuffed overhead to the wall, placing severe stress on his feet, arms and injured hand. He was eventually charged with being a member of the Qutub, the Democratic Student Progressive Pole at Bir Zeit – and “aiding an illegal organization” by distributing student election campaign flyers.
These are only six of the hundreds of cases of Palestinian students seized, tortured and imprisoned by the Israeli occupation – in addition to dozens more targeted for political detention under the Palestinian Authority’s “security coordination” with Israel. As the Right to Education campaign stated, “At a time when the entire world is suffering as a result of the outbreak of the pandemic, and governments are issuing regulations to save their people, the Israeli occupying forces continue their crimes against Palestinian prisoners, and our students, in particular.”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Shatha Hassan, Mays Abu Ghosh, Samah Jaradat, Israr Ma’arouf, Ameer Hazboun, Tareq Matar, all student prisoners and all 5.000 Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian students are on the front line of the struggle to defend Palestinian rights and the Palestinian people and to fight for the liberation of Palestine. They are the future generation of the Palestinian revolution – both inside and outside Palestine, and they are targeted for arrest and imprisonment for their anti-colonial knowledge and active struggle, including their work to free Palestinian prisoners.
In the run up to Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, we call upon all supporters of Palestine to join us for a week of action starting on 10 April to free all Palestinian prisoners. As COVID-19 threatens prisoners around the world, we have to intensify the struggle for their liberation. Click here for our call to action and suggested actions.
We are also republishing the following article by the Voice of Palestinian Students, which was initially published in the ILPS Youth Commission Newsletter in February 2020. Samidoun is a member organization of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle:
Currently, there are 300 Palestinian student prisoners in “Israeli” jails. In recent months, the Zionist Occupation waged a vicious arrest campaign against a number of university students, in an attempt to constrain the rising role of the Student Movement at the university, both as a platform for national and political action and as one of our few remaining barricades in the struggle against the occupation.
We, as Palestinian students across the globe, say in a unanimous voice, that we reject completely the policies of arrest, oppression and terrorism that are exercised by the occupying forces against our students wherever they are located. We further affirm that these attacks will only strengthen the student movement and increase its firmness in the face of zionist colonialism in all forms and methods. Therefore, we call all student bodies and councils, as well as all youth groups, in all of their respective locations, to increase and intensify the level of their work, and to rally public opinion around the case of Palestinian students under arrest, as a response to the repression and increasing constraints the student movement has had to recently face.
We hereby recall some of the names of the Palestinian students who were arrested in the past few months:
Nizar Khames
Qusai Hendi
Mays Hanatsha
Hadi Tarsha
Nasim Barghouthi
Mohammad Zahran
Mais Abu Ghoush
Yazan Maghamis
Rebhi Karaja
Ahmed Kharouf
Amir Hazboun
Hasan Abu Al-Hasan
Nitham Imteir
Samah Jaradat
Rami Karaja
Omar Yousef
Israr Ma’rouf
Qusai Iyad
Yousef Al-Shayeb
Hamza Abu Qare’
Abd Al-latif Subeh
Osama Fakhory
Omar AlKhader
Yahia Rabee
Mohammed Al’arouri
Mohammed Obeid
Moath ‘Abed
Bara’ ‘Asi
No’man Hamed
Tawfiq Abu Arqoub
Amir Adnan
Bilal Hamed
Mohammed Nakhla
Laith Ladawdeh
Ihsan Al-Imwasi
Khaled Omar
Qassam Hussein
Oweis Al’ouri
Mohammed Al’ouri
Malik ‘Ayesh
Qassam Awad
Yahia Alawi
Mo’tassem Zaloum
Zacharia Al-Zubeidi
Security agencies of the Palestinian Authority have also arrested a number of students under political detention, including the following:
Hamza Hamdan – Birzeit University
Mohammed Naser – Birzeit University
Mohammed Ramadan – Annajah National University
Mo’ayad Halayqa – Annajah National University
Mothana Al-Qawasmi – Hebron Univeristy
Hussein Abu Shanab – Khuduri Univeristy
Mo’men Mazza – Khuduri University — Detained since 8 months and conducted a hunger strike
End political detention against students!
Hands off Palestinian students!
Freedom to all prisoners in all detention facilities!
The atrocious arrests of students and members of the Birzeit University student movement on an ongoing basis have not and will not discourage the will of our student movement. We reaffirm and reassure that students of Palestine will remain the messengers of the revolution wherever they are, despite the whips of repression and terrorism! Our way and our struggle require sacrifice. Either we sacrifice today with all our time and effort to raise our cause higher and struggle, or we give up and surrender. There is no word in our dictionary for surrender.
For the last six months I have been thinking a lot about my friend Tareq Matar, who was arrested by Israeli occupation forces in November 2019 and subjected to severe torture. When he entered the Israeli military court for the first time, he was pushed in in a wheelchair. I was shocked, “Tareq in a wheelchair!?” Tareq is one of the strongest people that I know, both mentally and physically. So how could he have ended up in a wheelchair? And what can I do to ensure his freedom?
Friendship
Tareq and I met several times in Palestine, when I was on a solidarity delegation with Dutch and American students. Tareq welcomed us with open arms and his big smile. He made us feel at home and asked us about the struggles in our home countries. At the same time he explained the history and contemporary situation of the Palestinian liberation movement. He wanted to connect these struggles and unify our efforts to confront colonialism and Zionism internationally.
Even though we were already active in the Palestinian solidarity movement back home, Tareq elevated our understanding of the Palestinian struggle and emphasized that the best form of solidarity is to fight colonialist and oppressive forces in our home countries.
Why he was targeted
Tareq loves to talk about politics and even more he loves practicing his politics. And this is where we get back to his imprisonment. The Israeli occupation always targets Palestinians who resist Israeli colonization and occupation. As a youth leader and organizer, Tareq poses a so-called “security threat” to Israel. Is that not the world turned upside-down?
This is a colonizing force which imprisons, tortures and kills thousands of Palestinians every year, a force which steals Palestinian land, demolishes homes and denies refugees their Right to Return. It is clearly Israeli colonization and occupation which poses a security threat! And this security threat is the greatest for those people, like Tareq Matar, who resist colonization and occupation.
After his arrest in November 2019, Tareq was brought to Moskobiyeh interrogation center where he was held for approximately 30 days. During his interrogation, he was tortured by the Shin Bet’s method of the “banana position” or “back-bending,” allegedly made illegal since 1999 to use against Palestinian prisoners. As a result, he suffered intense pain in his back and joints, made worse by the brutal beatings he suffered at the hands of six security officers. From the moment of his arrest and torture until now, he has been banned from seeing his family members or his lawyers.
Student prisoners and COVID-19
Tareq is not the only Palestinian student imprisoned by the occupation. Currently, more than eighty students of Birzeit University are held behind bars, among them Mays Abu Ghosh. And most of them are being tortured. As Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association noted in December 2019, Israeli torture against Palestinian prisoners “included, but were not limited to harsh beating, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, stress positions, the denial of basic hygiene needs, sexual harassment, threatening and intensive psychological torture including the use of family members and/or other detainees.”
The current COVID-19 pandemic poses a new threat to Palestinian prisoners, especially as they lack necessary personal protection equipment. The Right to Education campaign stated that “At a time when the entire world is suffering as a result of the outbreak of the pandemic, and governments are issuing regulations to save their people, the Israeli occupying forces continue their crimes against Palestinian prisoners, and our students, in particular.”
It has to be mentioned that Palestinian prisoners have been infected with the Coronavirus by an Israeli interrogator. On top of that, Israeli occupation forces have barred Palestinian prisoners from purchasing at least 140 different items at the “canteen” or prison store, including cleaning and sanitation supplies, and prohibited family and legal visits to the prisoners. They have continued to put Palestinians ate severe risk by continuing interrogations, maintaining dirty and overcrowded conditions and pursuing transfers.
Back to Tareq, who is right now being held in one of these dirty and overcrowded Israeli occupation prisons. When Tareq was arrested in November last year, he was preparing to pursue his academic career with a Ph.D program at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. He is being detained under administrative detention, without charge or trial and based on secret evidence.
This is the fifth time Tareq is imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces. When he was imprisoned under administrative detention in 2017 for one and a half years, his students at school waited for him and wrote letters to him. Tareq always saw in their eyes the hope of a better future and a good life for the people of the world. Tareq had a special relationship with his students, full of dialogue and love.
I want to call upon everyone reading this to demand the immediate release of Tareq Matar and all Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian people have the right to resist. And the more Israel uses mass imprisonment, administrative detention and torture, the more resistance it will encounter along the way.
I want to end with the words of a Dutch-Palestinian youth who participated in our solidarity delegation:
Often you meet people that stand for something. That something can be anything and is strongly present in this person’s presence. When I met Tareq, I immediately knew he wasn’t an ordinary guy who had an opinion and that’s it. He exudes leadership and involves people in the thing that he stands for. That something is power, justice and equality. He knows his purpose and he will fight for it until his last breath. Personally, I do not know him well. We talked briefly in the house where he took us in. But one thing is for sure: The day I met Tareq I realized something. Leadership is not learned. Leadership thrives within. Tareq proves that.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Tareq Matar, all student prisoners and all 5.000 Palestinian prisoners. In the run up to Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, we call upon all supporters of Palestine to join us for a week of action starting on 10 April to free all Palestinian prisoners. As COVID-19 threatens prisoners around the world, we have to intensify the struggle for their liberation. Click here for our call to action and suggested actions.
Organized by NY4Palestine Coalition (Samidoun is a member organization of this coalition along with Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition; Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine, Students for Justice in Palestine, American Muslims for Palestine – NJ and the Muslim American Society (MAS)- NY)
Mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day by joining the NY4Palestine coalition for an interactive webinar on Palestinian political prisoners, with a focus on the 180 children imprisoned by Israel, as well as Ubai Aboudi, a Palestinian-American researcher detained in Israeli jails.
