This morning, YouTube suddenly struck and deleted the entire Samidoun Network channel and its years of content, and simultaneously struck and deleted the channel of our international coordinator Charlotte Kates.
This came despite the fact that Charlotte’s channel had never had a strike, and Samidoun’s only one warning after mass reporting (and had videos pulled down for similar baseless reasons on a one-by-one basis). This is clearly intended to silence voices speaking about Palestine.
A lot of our content is available here on Odysee, and we are working to get material up elsewhere and more comprehensively: https://odysee.com/@samidounnetwork:d
Once again we note the bias and clear alignment of Big Tech firms with Zionism and imperialism, which comes as no surprise.
We also note that three weeks ago, the Zionist regime itself wrote to our web host in an attempt to get our website taken down, labeling it a “cybercrime,” and we assume this same notification was done to Google with these YouTube accounts by the same parties.
The Zionist regime is actively seeking to ban and silence the content of people confronting its genocide against the Palestinian people, to prevent people around the world from communicating, and of course, at the heart of this effort, to block the communication lines of the Palestinian people, and especially the prisoners and the resistance movement that is daily confronting its genocidal assault.
As with all such attacks, we view them as primarily an attack on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. The Zionist regime wants to keep over 10,000 Palestinian detainees hostage under torture, subjected to vile abuse and medical mistreatment. The videos and footage of Palestinian prisoners being released — both from the military prison system and the concentration camp at Sde Teiman, where extreme abuse and torture has become an international scandal — speak for themselves.
It wants to isolate the Palestinian prisoners and detainees, the captives of freedom, from the Palestinian people, the Resistance they lead, and the world. It wants to torture the civilians kidnapped from Gaza in silence. Our entire broad movement will never allow that isolation.
The Resistance — and the Palestinian people as a whole — have made it clear that that the prisoners are precious and will never be left behind; instead, they are a compass pointing the way to liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. On an international level, we must do all we can in support: This is why they want to silence Samidoun, and we emphasize that they will not succeed.
At the initiative of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and the Alkarama Palestinian Women’s Mobilization, an international petition was issued today, signed by hundreds of parties, organizations, and popular movements, bearing the title “We stand with Yemen confronting U.S. and British aggression.”
Jaldia Abubakra, a member of the executive committee of the Masar Badil, said, “This petition was signed by hundreds of parties, popular and revolutionary forces, liberation movements, and trade unions around the world to express their support for the brave Yemeni position, and their commitment to stand alongside the Yemeni people confronting siege and aggression.” .
Abubakra said, “The Yemeni people are fighting a just battle in support of Gaza, and the Yemeni armed forces were able to impose a naval blockade on the Zionist entity. The Yemeni people are contributing to the struggle by putting their strength, blood, and security on the line, and they continue to go out to the squares and streets to strongly express their noble and principled position in unprecedented popular marches.”
The international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Charlotte Kates, said that “the petition expresses an international popular support for the Yemeni position in support of the steadfastness and struggle of the Palestinian people confronting the war of extermination waged by the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”
Kates said that “the war of siege and aggression against Yemen has been waged by the United States, Britain, and the Zionist regime for years, with the participation of regimes such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and others, and they are the same forces that have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since October 7.”
It is worth noting that about 250 organizations and parties signed the international petition.
We stand with Yemen confronting U.S. and British aggression
We, the undersigned parties, organizations and associations, condemn the U.S.-British aggression and attacks on the struggling people of Yemen, we express our support for the principled Yemeni position towards the Palestinian cause rights, and we declare our solidarity with the Yemeni people in the historic battle that they are waging to end the genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, to stop Zionist war crimes and to break the siege. We also stand behind the heroic Yemeni armed forces and their legitimate, natural right to respond to aggression as they implement the demands of the Yemeni people and the directives and decisions of the revolutionary leadership in Sana’a.
The people of Yemen, who have remained committed to their firm and advanced revolutionary position, continue to confront all forms of siege and aggression at the hands of the U.S. and British colonial forces and their agents in the region. They will not be intimidated by the recent U.S.-British massacre on May 31, 2024, which caused dozens of martyrs and casualties. The people of Yemen continue to express their position with unparalleled strength and courage, especially on Fridays, through the massive and solemn public demonstrations in “Sabaeen Square” in the center of the capital, Sana’a, and in various governorates, squares, and streets of the country.
The heroic Yemeni position, which has been embodied in word and deed in confronting war and aggression over the past ten years, and in supporting the Palestinian people for more than eight months, constitutes the true and necessary response against the Zionist-U.S. war of annihilation against the Palestinian people in the besieged Gaza Strip. It also embodies an effective revolutionary model in true solidarity with the Palestinian people. This exceptional stance has become a source of pride and inspiration for all peoples and movements for justice and liberation in the world, proving the strength of free peoples and their ability to change the equations of conflict and shift the balance of power as they confront imperialism, Zionism and their agents in the world.
Glory to the martyrs and speedy recovery to the wounded
The criminal camp of U.S.-British-Zionist aggression and and their agents in the region will be defeated
Victory for the Palestinian and Yemeni peoples and for the resistance camp in Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq
Long live international solidarity
Actions4Palestine
Al Quds Toronto
Al-Awda PRRC
Aliança RECOs – desde o Sul Global
Alianza latinoamericana por Palestina contra el Apartheid
Alkarama (Movimiento de Mujeres Palestinas)
All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)
ALM Counselling
Al-Quds Project
AlYudur
Amanecer
Amsterdam for BDS
Anakbayan BC
Anti Imperialist Action Ireland
Anti-Imperialist Alliance
AnU KLAVE’EM collective
Apogee Journal
Arab Left Forum
Assocacion Salvadoreña Palestina
Athens Against Apartheid
Authors For Social Justice.
Autonomous Indonesia Contingent for Liberation
BDS Greece Kifissia Initiative for Solidarity with Palestine
BDS Tokyo
BDS Vancouver/Coast Salish Territories
Best of the Alps
Black Alliance for Peace – Solidarity Network
Bronx Anti-War Coalition
Brooklyn for Peace
Bruxelles Panthères
Canada Palestine Association
Canada-Philippines Solidarity for Human Rights
Canadian Arab Federation
Canadian BDS Coalition and International BDS Allies
Canadian Islamic Congress
Canadian Lebanese Academic Forum (CLAF)
Casa Baltimore Limay
CC4P
Central New York Revolutionary Student Union
Centre for Counter Hegemonic Studies
Centro de Documentación en Derechos Humanos “Segundo Montes Mozo S.J.” (CSMM)
Century of the Child
Children’s Awareness Series
Citoyens du Québec
Club de la Cultura Árabe
Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid
Coalition of South Asian Women Against Violence
COASAP
Code Pink River Valley
CODEPINK (South Florida Chapter)
Colectivo de Comunicación ContrahegemoniaWeb
Collectif 69 de soutien au peuple palestinien l
Comisión Ética contra la Tortura Chile
Comité belge de soutien au peuple palestinien
Comite Solidaridad Pueblo Palestino
Committee Against War
Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran (CASI)
Communist Party of Lancashire UK
Cops Off Campus Ontario (COCO)
Crescent Justice Collective
CSM interactiv
Cubamistad
CUNYforPalestine
CWP artists’ collective
Diaspora Pa’lante Collective
DSA International Committee
Early Childhood Development Intercultural Partnerships
Earth Neighborhood Productions
EEK (Workers Revolutionary Party-Greece)
Elders for Justice in Palestine
Falastini Advocates for Liberation
Famílias da Resistência
Fellowship of Mercy
Feministisk Initiativ, Sweden
Femmes Against Empire
former ambassador for The Netherlands in Yemen, Johannes Wijenberg
Free Gaza Movement
Free Palestine BC
Free Palestine Canada
Free Palestine Melbourne
Free Palestine Movement
Free Palestine Tri-Cities BC
Freedom from War Coalition
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Freie Linke Zukunft
Frente Antiimperialista Internacionalista
Friends of the Filipino People In Struggle – CST
From the River to the Sea Project
Front Mahasiswa Nasional (FMN)
Garuda Keadilan
Gaza Centre for Human Rights
Gender Justice LA
German Communist Party
Good Shepherd Collecctive
Gorilla Radio
Grandmothers against War
Greater Toronto 4 BDS
Grupo Libelulas
Grupo Obrero de Formación Marxista
GST Consulting Ltd
GTA4Palestine
Handsoffvenezuela.nl
Housing and Land Rights Network – Habitat International Coalition
Humanity Organization
Indiana Center for Middle East Peace
Instituto Brasil-Palestina IBRASPAL
International Action Center
International Peace Network
ISL-RCIT
Jaćhai World
Jailhouse Lawyers Speak
JB Consulting
Jewish Anti-Zionist Collective Toronto (JAZCto)
Jewish Network for Palestine
Jordan Canada Association
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
Justice Alliance
Justice For All Canada
Justice For Palestine
Knights of the Golden Rule
Kona 4 Palestine
Lotus Co-operative Homes
Low and High Power Group
Lutherans forJustice in the Holy Land
Maine Natural Guard
Mani Rosse Antirazziste
Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada
Masar Badil – Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement
Massy Arts Society
Massy Books
May Lui Consulting
Media Decompression Collective
Media Review Network (MRN)
Methuselah Designs
Michiana Friends of Palestine
Mississippi Rising Coalition
Mobilization Against War & Occupation (MAWO)
Montreal4Palestine
Mouvement Citoyen Palestine
Movimento Mulheres pela PAZ na Palestina
Museo Fadwa Tuqan
Muslim Business Council
Muslims On Long Island
Nacion Andaluza
National Jericho Movement
Nederlands Palestina Komitee
Neighbors for Peace
Netzwerk Freiheit für alle politische Gefangenen, Hamburg
Newmarket Aurora 4 Palestine
Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition
NorCal Sabeel
North American Resistance Committee (NARC)
North Bay Rapid Response Network, a part of the North Bay Organizing Project (NBOP)
Ocean Surf Sounds
Ohio Peace Council
Oilsandstruth.org
One State Assembly
Ongd AFRICANDO
Ontario Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA)
Orinoco Tribune
Palestina Askatu!
Palestina Solidariteit
Palestine Action US
Palestine Democratic Forum
Palestine Liberation Centre
Palestine Solidarity Campaign Committee
Palestine Solidarity Working Group
Palestine-Global Mental Health Network
Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU)
Palestinian Justice Alliance
Palestinian People Association in Uppsala
Palestinians in Coast Salish Territory
Papineau4Palestine
Parable of the Sower Intentional Community Cooperative
Parallelo Palestina
Party of Communists USA
Pax Christi Maine
Peace in Kurdistan Campaign
Peacekeeping Collective
People for Humanity
People for Justice and Peace
Peterborough Pollinators
Philippines-Palestine Friendship Association
Portland Revolutionary Student Union
Principles Not Parties
Public Intellectuals for Social and Spare Change
Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism!
A Raise Augusta
Red de Mujeres Verdes Equo Cantabria
Regina Peace Council
Resistance News Network
Revolutionaire Eenheid
Revolutionary Communist Group
Rhapsodi Digital Art
River Valley Branch Code Pink
Robin Rae Photography
Rockland for Palestine
Roots
Samidoun Albuquerque
Samidoun Brasil
Samidoun Göteborg
Samidoun Manchester
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Samidoun Stockholm
Samidoun Toronto
Santa Monica Residents Cross-City
Scarborough Rouge Park for Palestine
Scottish Republican Socialist Movement
SELFOP
Seven Star Sports
Socialist Action / Ligue pour l’Action socialiste
SpeakOut Poetry
Stand with Palestine Halifax
Standing With Yemen
Stirling SPSC
Stop the War Machine
Students for Yemen CP
Sunshine Coast for Palestine
Surandantes Comunicacion Comunitaria
Suzanne Barr Food
Syria Support Movement
TESC Divest
The James Black Gallery Association
The Mensch Group
The Pearl Nutrition
Toronto Forum on Cuba
Trawunche Madrid (Coordinación de Apoyo al Pueblo Mapuche)
United Educators of San Francisco
UO Students for the Liberation of Palestine
USA-Palestine Mental Health Network
Utrecht BIJ1
Venceremos, Partido de Trabajadrxs
Veterans for Peace
Veterans For Peace #161
Victoria Friends of Cuba
Voluntarios por Palestina
Vrede Met Venezuela NL (Hands Off Venezuela The Netherlands)
An appeal issued by the Palestinian student movement in the Gaza Strip
To the global student movement to stop the genocidal war
It is time for revolutionary escalation of the global student intifada for Palestine
We write this call from our student movement in the Gaza Strip, from the heart of occupied Palestine, from under the brutal Zionist bombing, explosions, and the clutches of the monstrous nightmare of death that lurks around us in every corner, house, and street. We raise it from prison cells, from beneath the destruction, and from inside the rubble, to send it to our fellow students, our comrades, brothers and sisters, in all the universities, schools and institutes of the world everywhere, and we address the global student movement that was launched in order to stop the genocidal war that is being engineered and financed by the governments of the United States, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Australia and others, this courageous student movement that was born in the universities as an integral part of our struggle, that expresses the conscience of students and peoples who yearn for justice and freedom.
We in the Gaza Strip look at you with pride and honour, as you are a revolutionary fighting vanguard, and a natural and integral part of our Palestinian liberation movement. You have come in a resounding, honest and clear response against the Israeli massacres and those who finance them, confronting the companies of the Zionist war of genocide and ethnic cleansing that have claimed the lives of thousands of Palestinian students of all ages, including hundreds of struggling Palestinian student cadres, wounded and imprisoned, in addition to our great loss in the martyrdom of our professors and teachers, and the destruction of our universities, institutes and schools.
Today, we call on you, from the midst of massacres and siege, to a new revolutionary phase of comprehensive escalation, and to raise the pace and ceiling of your struggle and your honorable stances, quantitatively and qualitatively, against the institutions, corporations, and governments that participate in the slaughter of our children, our students, and our people in Rafah, Jabalia, Khan Younis, and the entire Gaza Strip, and against the settler gangs, armies of Zionist killers, and so on that commit their crimes in camps, cities and villages in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
We call on you to besiege the White House in Washington, and to surround the palaces, headquarters and ministries of Western colonial governments and Zionist embassies, and the buildings and offices of the corporations that finance the Zionist entity and arm its criminal army with all kinds of bombs and means of death and destruction. These criminal colonial symbols represent the forces that support “Israel” to kill us – with your tax money and the money spent at complicit corporations, to destroy our homes, our society, and our future. Therefore, we call on you to blockade them until the American Zionist aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip stops.
At the same time, we renew our call to the teaching, academic, and union bodies in universities, as well as cultural, academic, and scientific figures, to advocate for and support student movements until they achieve their goals.
Today we turn to high school students all over the world to participate widely in the struggles and activities of the university student movement, organizing demonstrations, sit-ins, and vigils, writing petitions and letters, and organizing educational days about the Palestinian struggle and the goals of the Palestinian people for liberation and return. Secondary schools constitute a strong fortress and a great support for university students everywhere.
Once again, we send special greetings to our brothers and sisters, the students of Palestine in the diaspora, and to our comrades and colleagues in Students for Justice in Palestine, the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Palestine Action, and the academic boycott and divestment campaigns, and we salute everyone who participated and participates in student encampments at every university, college and school.
The duty and responsibility of Palestinian students in the Gaza Strip and all of occupied Palestine is steadfastness, commitment, resistance, unity, and alignment with the resistance and the people until the U.S. – Zionist aggression stops and the occupation is defeated and removed from our land — all our land, from the river to the sea.
Long live the struggle of Palestine’s students for return and liberation
Long live international solidarity
And together we will be victorious
Secretariat of Palestinian Student Frameworks – Gaza Strip
On the 24th anniversary of the Lebanese Resistance’s liberation of the south of Lebanon from 22 years of Zionist occupation, we are republishing our report on the liberation of Khiam prison, the infamous site of torture of Lebanese — and Palestinian — strugglers for liberation.
Khiam was liberated two days before the complete liberation of South Lebanon (excepting the Shebaa Farms), a liberation accomplished by the Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah. Today, on the Resistance and Liberation Day, the Lebanese Resistance is continuing to fight, for the liberation of the Shebaa Farms, the protection of Lebanon, and for the total liberation of Palestine. The heroic role of Hezbollah in the ongoing resistance to the Zionist genocide in Gaza has cleared the north of Palestine of its settlers and soldiers, insisting on an end to the genocide and demonstrating the unity of all fronts of resistance, stretching from Lebanon through Syria, Iraq, and Iran to Yemen, where the people, armed forces and AnsarAllah movement continue to shut down the supply lines of genocide on a daily basis.
On 24 May, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah spoke, affirming once again as he addressed the occupier and its new threats against Lebanon: “Gaza surprised you, your elite forces collapsed, Hezbollah initiated the opening of the front, and Yemen also surprised you. We tell the enemy: Lebanon’s resistance surprised you on October 8, as did Yemen. When you bombed the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Islamic Republic surprised you with its True Promise….The enemy should expect surprises from us; we study all your scenarios, and your deceptions do not fool us, nor do the pressures from your masters in the world work. This resistance will continue.”
As we write today, there remains a Lebanese prisoner of the struggle for Palestine jailed in France, whose freedom is more urgent than ever: Georges Abdallah, imprisoned for 40 years, and continuing his commitment to resistance, revolution and liberation.
On this Resistance and Liberation Day, as we commemorate the liberation of Khiam Prison, Lebanese and Palestinian resistance continue to fight together, resisting the genocide, for the liberation of Palestine. It is clear that the Resistance prioritizes the liberation of the prisoners, the 10,000 inside the jails of the Zionist occupier subjected to brutal torture, starvation, medical abuse, sexual violence and attacks of all kinds, and that, like Khiam prison, the Zionist prisons will be emptied of their captives and will remain only as memorials to the martyrs and as a salute to the steadfastness of the long line of the prisoners’ movement, resisting behind bars until liberation.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! Victory to the Resistance!
**
25 May not only marks Resistance and Liberation Day, the anniversary of the liberation of South Lebanon from 22 years of Israeli occupation and oppression by the Lebanese Resistance, but also the liberation of Lebanese political prisoners from the infamous Khiam prison. On 23 May 2000, 144 Lebanese prisoners were liberated from Khiam, 2 days before the complete withdrawal of the occupation forces.
3,000 Lebanese stormed Khiam, the site of infamous torture of Lebanese resisters, breaking the locks with axes and crowbars. “Set up by the Israelis in 1985 on a hill in the village of Khiam in the South Lebanon Governorate, the Khiam prison was considered to be one of the most ruthless detention and interrogation centers in the Middle East. While the Israelis governed the prison, which included 67 cells and more than 20 solitary confinement cells, they used the South Lebanon Army (SLA), an Israeli proxy militia made up of Lebanese nationals, to execute their orders,” wrote Rana Harbi in Al-Akhbar.
Over 5,000 Lebanese, as well as Palestinians, Syrians, Algerians, and Kurds, including 500 women, were imprisoned in Khiam prison over the years. Lebanese who participated in all forms of resistance to the occupation and its proxy forces were tortured brutally inside the notorious prison. The prison after its liberation became a museum and symbol of the torture of the occupiers and the victory of the Lebanese people and their resistance, of their freedom obtained through struggle and years of resistance.
In 2006, when Israel attacked Lebanon, it bombed the Khiam site, leaving a pile of rubble at the site of the prison, as if attempting to destroy the memory of its torture, brutality – and its defeat – preserved by the Lebanese people. However, the memory and commitment to resistance of the former prisoners – many of whom continue to struggle and play leading roles in Lebanese movements and parties, including Hezbollah and the Lebanese Communist Party – and of the people, cannot be erased by the bombing of the prison site, just as they could not be erased by torture, solitary confinement, and years of imprisonment.
The liberation of Khiam prison was not merely symbolic; it was central to the liberation of South Lebanon, just as the liberation of Palestinian prisoners is central to the struggle for the liberation of Palestine. The Lebanese people and Resistance continue to struggle against Israeli occupation of the Shebaa Farms; and the Palestinian people and their Resistance continue to struggle for the liberation of Palestine – its land, its people and its prisoners after over 76 years of occupation. And the liberation of the prisoners is central to that struggle for the liberation of Palestine, as reaffirmed on 7 October 2023 and every minute of the ongoing resistance to genocide in the past eight months. The victory in South Lebanon and the liberation of Khiam remains an anniversary of liberation and a promise for future victories over torture, oppression and occupation.
The following testimonies of former prisoners held in Khiam prison were collected and published in Al-Akhbar by Rana Harbi in 2014:
Degol Abou Tass
In 1976, at the age of 16, I was arrested in a village in occupied Palestine for the first time. I told the Israelis that I trespassed by mistake. They knew I was lying but released me anyway. My parents packed my bags and forced me to leave the country. I found out later that I was the first Lebanese citizen to get arrested by the Israeli forces.
I came back to Rmeish [a village on the borders in South Lebanon] in the 1980s after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The civil war was still raging in Beirut but in the south different resistance movements, such as the Lebanese Communist Party, the Amal Movement, Syrian Social Nationalist Party and many other factions, united against the Israelis. A few months after my arrival, the SLA knocked on my parents door. I had to leave the country, again.
I was miserable. I couldn’t stay away for long. In the early 1990s I came back to Rmeish. All the armed groups were long gone. Hezbollah dominated the resistance scene. I tried to reconnect with old militia leaders but in vain.
One day, an old childhood friend pulled into my driveway. “Are you willing to fight with us?” he asked. I looked uncertain. “Us … Hezbollah,” he added. I climbed into his car and we drove away. In 1998, one of my neighbors ratted me out.
“A Christian with Hezbollah? Now thats something,” the Israeli officer interrogating me said. “How much are they paying you? We will pay double, no triple. What is your price? We can work something out,” he continued. I remained silent. “Okay then Jesus, welcome to Khiam prison.”
We were caged and treated like animals. Believe me, it wasn’t so much about the pain, but the humiliation.
On the morning of May 23, 2000, the guards were talking and walking outside, as usual. Suddenly, complete silence. You could hear a pin drop. We heard the daily UN airplane fly by so we knew it was 9:30 am. “Where did they go?” one prisoner asked. We had no idea.
“They are moving us to occupied Palestine,” yelled a prisoner in a cell right next to ours. I put my feet on the shoulders of two of my cellmates so that I can reach the small window right under the ceiling. “All of us?” I asked. “They will execute half and take half … this is what we heard,” replied another prisoner. Before I could even reply I heard a noise coming from a distance. I couldn’t see anything. The voices grew louder and louder.
“Looks like our parents are clashing with the SLA guards as usual,” one prisoner said. “I bet my mother is still trying to bring me food,” another exclaimed. And then we heard gunshots. People were screaming. More gunshots.
“They are shooting our parents!” said one frightened detainee. “No, the mass execution began. They will execute half of us remember!” replied another. Panic attacks. Anxiety. Fear.
I put my ear against the door. I heard ululations. I heard prayers. I heard women. I heard children. Suddenly, the door opening through which food was usually served broke wide open. “You are liberated, you are liberated!” I fell on my knees. I thought I was hallucinating. I put my fist out. Two men grabbed my fist. “Allah akbar, Allah akbar (God is the greatest) … you are liberated!” My cellmates were all kneeling on the floor in disbelief. The locks were getting smashed from the outside. I cried aloud and the door broke wide open. I don’t really remember what happened next.
I was the first prisoner to get caught on camera. My parents watched the liberation of Khiam on TV because Rmeish was still under occupation at the time. They didn’t recognize me though. My hair and beard were too long and well, I was screaming “Allah akbar!”
Fourteen years later, I’m living with my wife and children in Rmeish, and every morning I drink my coffee while looking over occupied Palestine.
Adnan al-Amin
In November 1990 I was picking up photos from a store in Marjeyoun, a city in south Lebanon, when I got arrested. I was 19 at the time.
They put a tight black cover over my head and made me strip naked. Suspended from my bound wrists from a metal pole, hot and cold water was thrown on me consecutively … hot cold hot cold until I was completely soaked. Then they attached electrodes to my chest and other particularly sensitive areas of my body and electrocuted me, repeatedly.
In the 70 day interrogation period, I was tortured three times per day. I used to lose consciousness and wake up to find myself stumbling blindly in a pitch-black, 1m by 80cm by 80cm solitary confinement room.
We were tied to window grills naked for days in painful positions, freezing water thrown at us in the cold winter nights. We were whipped, beaten, kicked in the head and the jaw, burned, electrocuted, had ear-shattering whistling in our ears, and deprived of food and sleep …it was hard, very hard.
I endured the pain. With time, I became numb. I survived it all without saying a word. I was winning, I thought.
One morning, they dragged me into the interrogation room. “You didn’t tell me your sister was this beautiful,” one of the SLA officers said. My whole world came crashing down. “Wait until you see his mother,” said another. Handcuffed, I threw myself on him from across the table. It costed me 14 hours in the “chicken cage,” a 90-cubic-centimeter enclosure used for extra-severe punishment.
The SLA used to bring in the wives, sisters and daughters of the prisoners and treat them in a vulgar manner like taking off their head scarves, groping them and threatening to rape them. For me, the mere thought was intolerable. “Your sister will pay you a visit tomorrow. You miss her don’t you?”
“I’m a Hezbollah fighter,” I confessed.
Up to 12 prisoners were crammed in a tiny room. We were buried alive. The cells were like coffins. Light and air hardly penetrated through the small, barred windows located near the ceiling. We could barely breathe. We used to relieve ourselves in a black bucket placed in the corner. The heavy odor of human sweat and wastes was intolerable. We showered every three or four weeks. Once a month, we were allowed into the “sun or light room” for 20 minutes only.
One night in 1991 I woke up to the deafening screams of a detainee being tortured in the yard. The louder he screamed, the harder he got whipped. His cries were unbearable, beyond anything I had ever heard before. “You are killing him, you animals,” one of my fellow cellmates shouted.
We started banging on the door of the cell, kicking it with our feet, yelling and asking them to stop. Other prisoners in other cells joined us, but the lashes kept falling and the cries continued. And then … silence. Youssef Ali Saad, father of eight, died under torture on that cold January night. One month later, Asaad Nemr Bazzi died because of medical neglect.
Do you know what the worst part was? Fellow Lebanese citizens did this to us. I almost died on the hands of a man named Hussein Faaour, my neighbor in Khiam. Abu Berhan, another torturer I remember was from Aitaroun. The SLA members were all Lebanese, mostly from the south. Family members, neighbors, childhood friends, classmates, teachers … Lebanese who decided to sell their land and people for cash.
Lebanese who are now living among us like nothing happened, as if they did nothing! It breaks my heart that our former tormentors have escaped punishment so easily.
Fourteen years later, I’m still waiting for justice.
Nazha Sharafeddine
In 1988, I was in Beirut purchasing medicine for my pharmacy in al-Taybeh (a village in South Lebanon) when the SLA forces, aware of my role in transferring arms to Hezbollah fighters, first came looking for me. They stormed into our house again a week later but my mother told them I was in Bint Jbeil. It was the truth but they didn’t believe her.
I remember opening the front gate that afternoon and seeing my mother waiting, weeping and trembling on the doorstep. “They took away your sister and your sister-in-law along with Hadi (her five-month-old baby.) My daughter, my grandson!” she cried. I put on my clothes and waited for the SLA on the front porch. My sister was 20-years-old at the time and I was 26. My mother begged me to run away, but I didn’t.
My mother collapsed on the ground next to the SLA vehicle. I sat in the backseat and they took me away.
Blindfolded I was shoved into the interrogation room. Boiling water was thrown on my face, and my fingers and ears were electrocuted. I didn’t say a word. This went on for a month.
“I heard Hadi is sick,” one of the Israeli officers told me one morning. He wasn’t lying. My sister in law got infected and breastfeeding her child was not an option anymore. Psychologically, I suffered greatly. I wished they would just beat me up instead. I struggled, but I remained silent. Two months later Hadi and his mother, along with my sister, got released. They were of no use to the Israelis anymore.
Women detainees, like men, were severely tortured. You see, gender equality is not always a good thing [she laughs]. Let me tell you how the torture stopped.
After spending 15 days in solitary confinement, I found out upon my return to the cell I shared with six other women that one of my fellow prisoners had an extremely disgusting skin rash. I examined her and as a pharmacist I knew that her rash was contagious. As planned, I got infected. Soon, my skin started changing and I looked like an acid attack victim.
Clearly disgusted by my deteriorating skin, the SLA guard dragged me by my hair into yet another torture session. The torturer, a woman, was waiting for me. With my hair still trapped between the guards fingers, he forced me down to my knees. Before the torturer’s fist reached my jaw, I told her that my skin condition was contagious. The guard instantly let go of my hair and they both took a step back. I tried to keep a straight face but I couldn’t hide my smile. Nobody laid a hand on me after that day.
Fourteen years later, I made peace with the past. My three years in Khiam were tough, but now I feel blessed. I really do.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network raises our voice to join those of the Palestinian, Arab and regional forces of the resistance in expressing condolences for and solidarity with the Iranian people and nation on the tragic passing of president Ebrahim Raisi, foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and their companions in a helicopter crash on Sunday, 19 May 2024.
As our comrades in the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, said, “He also played a pioneering role in supporting all forces within the axis of resistance, including the Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Syrian, and Iraqi resistance institutions…We are confident that the Islamic Republic of Iran will transcend this enormous loss with its values, institutions and Constitution that will enable it to continue its humanist support of the oppressed and the struggling peoples for their freedom and true independence.”
Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, wrote, “We express our shared feelings of sorrow and pain with the brotherly Iranian people and our full solidarity with the Islamic Republic of Iran in this tragic incident and grave loss, which claimed the lives of a group of the finest Iranian leaders who had a remarkable journey in Iran’s renaissance and held honorable stances in supporting our Palestinian cause, backing our people’s legitimate struggle against the zionist entity, and their valued support for the Palestinian resistance. They made diligent efforts in solidarity and support in all forums and fields for our people in the steadfast Gaza Strip during the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, and their intense political and diplomatic efforts to stop the zionist aggression against our Palestinian people.”
The Government Media Office in Gaza wrote, “The incident is considered a significant loss for the Palestinian people, the Islamic nation, and the resistance, which the late Iranian president and, behind him, the leadership, government, and people of the Islamic Republic of Iran, have always supported.”
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement noted, “Their loss is also a great loss for the Palestinian people during these difficult times, as they played a prominent and clear role in supporting and backing the struggle and resistance of the Palestinian people, and in confronting the ongoing criminal zionist aggression.”
Hezbollah stated, “We have known…the martyred President closely for a long time; he was a big brother to us, a strong support, and a staunch defender of our causes and the causes of the nation, foremost among them Al-Quds and Palestine, and a protector of the resistance movements and their fighters in all the positions of responsibility he held… the dear martyred brother Dr. Hussein Amir Abdollahian…carried the flag in all political and diplomatic forums in the world and was a lover of resistance movements and dedicated to their support and advocacy.”
The AnsarAllah movement of Yemen said, “This is a loss not only for Iran, but also for the entire Islamic nation, Palestine and Gaza, which are waging a liberation battle and are in dire need of the presence of such a President who continued to defend the oppressed Palestinian people and their right to achieve their freedom and restore their land and rights.”
These statements were accompanied by those of fellow resistance forces in Palestine and throughout the region, all of which highlighted the role of Raisi, Amir-Abdollahian and the people and nation of Iran in consolidating the strong regional alliance of resistance which has been built over the past four decades, and in confronting the Zionist genocide and advancing the Palestinian resistance in the era of the Al-Aqsa Flood.
This resistance alliance, with the axis of resistance at the core, is collectively struggling for the liberation of Palestine, and the broader Arab-Iranian region from NATO-American-Zionist occupation, including the liberation of over 9,400 Palestinian prisoners held hostage by the Zionist regime. The Al-Aqsa Flood has, as one of its clear goals, the liberation of the prisoners alongside the breaking of the siege on Gaza, on the road to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, and regional and international support for the Palestinian resistance is critical to achieving that liberation.
Within that context, we salute Pres. Raisi’s commitment to confronting and shattering the sanctions regime that the U.S. and its allies seek to impose on Iran – as it does on all nations that reject their dictates and hegemony – through building strong regional and international alliances, deepening alliances with countries confronting imperialism in Latin America, especially Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, and joining the BRICS. “Thank you for your hospitality, revolutionary brothers [Nicolas] Maduro, [Daniel] Ortega and [Miguel] Díaz Canel. Latin America and its people are one of the poles that inspire the world in the search for independence and justice and will play an irreplaceable role in the triumph over imperialism,” Raisi said after one such visit to Latin America, saluting the Venezuelan, Nicaraguan and Cuban presidents.
This came hand in hand with a solid commitment to material as well as political and diplomatic support – a longtime, committed position of Iran – for the Palestinian resistance, to achieving a just peace and liberation for Yemen, and to confronting Zionism and imperialism everywhere in the region and internationally.
To all within the imperial core, it is particularly urgent to intensify campaigns to end sanctions, terror listings and criminalization of forces and nations that confront imperialism, and that the primary contradiction and our primary responsibility is to challenge the crimes of U.S. imperialism everywhere, as the resistance in the region is leading the world in doing today. It is clear that the people and nation of Iran will defeat all attempts by the Zionist regime and imperialist powers, led by the United States, to exploit this tragedy in order to undermine Iran’s sovereignty and self-determination, and will overcome this tragedy with its strong institutions, constitution and collective leadership, ensuring a smooth transition forward.
Imperialism and Zionism will be defeated, and the Arab and Iranian people – and the people of the world – will live free, in self-determination, independence and sovereignty, with the power and unity of the resistance.
For years, the Palestinian people, at all levels of organization and struggle, have been demanding that the leaders of the Zionist regime are held accountable in international courts, including and especially the International Criminal Court, for their ongoing genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestine. Today, on 20 May 2024, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan announced his intention to seek arrest warrants against not only the Zionist war criminals Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, but also against the Palestinian resistance leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh.
Let us be clear: There is no equation to be made between the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people and its leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, and the illegitimate Zionist colonizer. The attempt to equate victim and perpetrator is a fundamental injustice, not the pursuit of long-denied justice.
It is certainly true that the Palestinian resistance recognized this risk, especially given the powerful political interests involved and the track record of the ICC in prosecuting Africans and now, enemies of the imperialist West. In 2014, when the Palestinian Authority acceded to the Rome Statute, and again in 2024, the Palestinian resistance leadership, particularly Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, has stated its openness to international investigations and its willingness to face the ICC if there is an attempt to meaningfully pursue justice against the occupiers and genocidaires of Palestine and their imperialist backers and accomplices.
However, the fact that the resistance is, as always, willing to sacrifice for Palestine, to be subjected to injustice so that their people may see freedom, does not make Khan’s actions any more just, acceptable or fair, nor does it make them legally valid.
Khan’s repeated references to the “rights” of Zionist colonizers, while failing to address Palestinian rights, as well as his legally invalid reference to the so-called “right of ‘Israel’ to defend itself,” when an occupier and colonizer has no right to defend itself against the people it is occupying and colonizing, highlight the ongoing bias of the ICC Prosecutor and his embrace of an imperialist framework for the operations of the Court. He made no mention of the right of the Palestinian people to resist and to liberate themselves through armed struggle, despite its broad support in international law.
It is, in fact, only because of the Resistance, because of the willingness of the resistance fighters, surrounded and nurtured by its popular cradle, that these arrest warrants for the Zionist war criminals are even being proposed and considered. It is the bravery, creativity and revolutionary steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their Resistance, including and particularly through the armed struggle, that has reset the balance of power to the extent that the crimes of the occupier can no longer be greeted with pure impunity.
Every legal achievement has been brought about not by the objective power or application of law, but by the shifting of reality brought about by the Palestinian armed struggle, accompanied by the regional and global forces of Resistance, especially the Lebanese resistance, the Yemeni armed forces, people, government and AnsarAllah movement, stretching through Iraq, Syria and Iran. It also speaks to the growing international popular cradle of the resistance, from student encampments to mass demonstrations to direct actions at arms manufacturers, that are making it clear that business as usual inside the imperial core is impossible so long as the genocide continues.
It is clear that 7 October changed the world. While Khan seeks to pretend that history began on 7 October and ignore the lengthy history of colonialism, ongoing Nakba and ongoing genocide since 1948, the Palestinian resistance made clear on 7 October that the horizon of true decolonization was opened in Palestine, that it was possible not only to imagine but to achieve a Palestine liberated from Zionism and a region liberated from imperialism.
The choice to seek warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, while not against Benny Gantz, Gadi Eisenkot, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Isaac Herzog, Herzi Halevi and other war criminals, also indicates its bias toward appeasing the political leadership of imperialist powers. Of course, Netanyahu and Gallant are genocidal war criminals whose direction of the current genocide in Palestine cannot be overstated. They have the blood of over 40,000 Palestinians on their hands in just the past seven months alone.
However, the omissions seem to seek to clear the road for a Gantz (or other similarly affiliated) prime ministership of the Zionist regime. The fact that various imperialist powers, and even a significant sector of the Zionist security establishment, think that Netanyahu is not good for the future of the Zionist and imperialist project is not a secret; they believe that other figures are far more trustworthy to secure their prime colonial project in the region. They believe that Netanyahu is securing his own political future and protection from prosecution at the expense of the future of the Zionist project in the region, and this has been one of the major causes of the growing unrest and internal disarray within the “Israeli” regime.
The application for arrest warrants indicates that imperialist powers, including the United States and the European Union, are very worried about the future of the Zionist colony in the region and recognize that it is on the road to its defeat, removal and dissolution.
It must be noted that these imperialist powers, especially the United States, which has threatened a war if its leaders are indicted, refuse to be held accountable before the ICC, a fate they have traditionally deemed acceptable only for the targets of imperialism, especially Africans. The Zionist colonial project in Palestine has always been genocidal. Its existence is a war crime and a crime against humanity. The ICC prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants do not even begin to touch the magnitude of its crimes in Palestine.
These omissions are particularly egregious given that the ICC’s limited mandate in Palestine extends back to 2014, yet no crimes before 7 October 2023 are considered in Khan’s decision to seek these arrest warrants. This comes alongside the decision to charge three Palestinian leaders (of the legitimate resistance) as opposed to two Zionist officials (of the illegitimate settler colony and imperialist outpost), and to proffer eight charges against Palestinians, vs. seven against Zionists; and to fail to seek any charges under Article 6 of the Rome Statute, which covers genocide, against the Zionist war criminals.
It is particularly outrageous that while Khan seeks to charge Palestinian resistance leaders with “torture,” he has failed to seek any such charges against the Zionist regime, which is currently imprisoning and torturing over 9,400 Palestinian prisoners. Sixteen Palestinian prisoners’ martyrdom has been documented since 7 October 2023, while at least 27 Palestinians have been martyred in the concentration and torture camps for Palestinian civilians kidnapped from Gaza at Sde Teiman. Palestinian and international sources – and even Zionist whistleblowers – have repeatedly documented and exposed the horrific conditions, medical abuse, brutal torture, forced amputations and starvation being used against Palestinian detainees in both these concentration camps and the Zionist prison system. The photos of Palestinian detainees released after months in prison – such as those of Omar Assaf and Imad Barghouti – underline the level of mistreatment and torture that has become standard in the Zionist jails.
As a counter to the failure to seek to indict Gantz, his fellow members of the “war cabinet” and IOF chief Halevi – let alone all of the Zionist officials responsible for the crimes against humanity and genocide in Palestine since 2014, let alone 1948 — we see the indictment of Ismail Haniyeh, as a political leader of the Palestinian resistance. The pursuit of an indictment against Haniyeh appears to be an attempt to undermine Palestinian presence in current ceasefire negotiations and to add another level of pressure to the Palestinian resistance to accept permanent Zionist and imperialist occupation in Gaza.
It also makes clear that the indictments of Zionist war criminals are selective, while Palestinian resistance leadership is to be targeted in total. We have all confidence in the resistance’s willingness to sacrifice, ability to defend itself brilliantly in court and to win decisively in any fair trial.
The choice of charges against the resistance leaders (exceeding by one those against the Zionists in all cases), invoking numerous debunked and propagandistic Zionist claims, including “rape” and “extermination,” while failing to pursue charges of genocide and apartheid against the Zionist war criminals, further underlines this bias.
We all look forward to seeing Netanyahu and Gallant in the dock and appreciate this clear crack in the armor of impunity for the Zionist regime. We know that it is they who constantly travel around the world to receive billions of dollars in support from their imperial sponsors. At the same time, it is also clear that ICC Prosecutor is not acting as a truly neutral party and is instead carrying out the directives of imperialist powers who would not accept any charges against the Zionist leadership without a “both sides” clause targeting the already criminalized and repressed Palestinian resistance. The equation of the indigenous resistance with the illegitimate colonizer is part of the minimization of genocide rather than its prosecution.
It is further clear that the ICC is not an institution into which we can place trust, as evidenced by its own history and failures to hold accountable any of those responsible for the horrific attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan, Libya and Syria; the starving of Venezuela through sanctions and blockades, the extraction of wealth in Africa, the attempted mass starvation and genocide in Yemen, the ongoing destabilization and destruction of Haiti.
The ICC has served for too long as a weapon of colonialism rather than a tribunal of justice. We trust the revolutionary justice of the victorious Palestinian people. There can be no equation of colonizer and colonized, of the executioner and the victim.
Glory and victory to the Palestinian resistance, to the Lebanese and Yemeni resistance, to all of the forces of resistance in the region and the world.
Imperialism and Zionism will be defeated, and from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
From May 20th to 27th, 2024, join Samidoun Network’s international call to liberate the three remaining imprisoned members of the Holy Land 5, Palestinian prisoners in the U.S.!
16 years ago, on May 27th, 2008, Mufid Abdulqader, Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammed El-Mezain, were sentenced to federal prison after a wrongful conviction on false charges of material support for terrorism. Their so-called crime was providing charity, in the form of food and medical care, to Palestinian orphans and widows in Gaza and the West Bank of occupied Palestine.
The Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim-led charity in the United States. It was headquartered in Richardson, Texas, and was founded and run by Palestinian-Americans based out of Texas. The work of the Holy Land Foundation included relief for Palestinian orphans, widows, and the families of martyred Palestinians in Palestine. During the racist, Islamophobic and imperialist “War on Terror,” the Holy Land Foundation was targeted by the Bush administration and was forced to cease operations in December of 2001. This attack led to the conviction and imprisonment of the five Palestinian leaders of the organization: Mufid Abdulqader, Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammed El-Mezain. The HLF5 were ultimately convicted 16 years ago, in an illegitimate trial that drew on secret evidence and an anonymous expert witness who could not be cross-examined.
While Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammed el-Mezain have been released, to this day, 3 of them, Mufid Abdulqader, Ghassan Elashi, and Shukri Abu Baker, are still in prison. Mufid Abdulqader is set to be released in January 2025, but Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abubaker are still serving 65-year sentences.
The HLF5 were accused and convicted on false charges of “providing material support to a terrorist organization” despite having never been even accused of providing funding to the armed resistance forces resisting Zionist occupation and colonization. All of their financial records were legitimate and above board, and the Holy Land Foundation was donating funds to the same organizations that the Red Cross and USAID (United States Agency for International Development) provide funding to. Despite this, the U.S. government managed to convict the HLF5 based on illegitimate “evidence” brought in by an anonymous Israeli intelligence agent.
The accusation and conviction of the HLF5 was a clear attempt by the United States government to prevent Palestinians in the U.S. from providing Palestinians in their occupied homeland resources that they needed to resist displacement from their homes and remain steadfast in the face of violent zionist occupation and without the strings attached to similar aid from the U.S., the European Union, or other “donor states” that will only donate based on political concessions that favor U.S. and zionist interests.
During this week of action, we affirm that the actions of the Holy Land Foundation and the HLF5 were not only legal – but beautiful and noble. They provided critical support to the Palestinian people, support that they need to continue their steadfastness in the face of 76 years of displacement and genocide at the hands of zionism and U.S. imperialism. We defend the Holy Land 5 as we defend all political prisoners – from prisoners of the Black Liberation Movement to Palestinian prisoners in occupied Palestine. Join us from May 20th to May 27th as we say: FREE THE HOLY LAND 5! FREE ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!
Take Action!
Bring posters, info sheets, and calls to #FreetheHLF5 to your demonstration, encampment, or any event calling for the liberation of Palestine!
Post campaign materials on social media, using the hashtag #FreetheHLF5
Organize your own event, film screening, or rally to defend the Holy Land 5 and all political prisoners
Ghassan Elashi was born in Gaza City, and lived there until age 14. He and his family then moved to Cairo, Egypt, where he eventually got his Bachelor’s degree in accounting from Ain Shams University in 1975. He lived in Saudi Arabia and London for a couple of years before finally migrating to the United States in 1978. He lived in Ohio for several months and then moved to Florida, where he got his Master’s degree in accounting from the University of Miami in 1981. Soon afterwards, Mr. Elashi began working in a company that created the world’s first Arabic computer. In 1985, Mr. Elashi married Majida and moved to Culver City, Calif. near Los Angeles. They lived there for about seven years before moving to Richardson, Texas near Dallas in 1992. There, he worked at a family-owned computer business and served as a chairman and volunteer for the HLF. Mr. Elashi and Majida have six children: Noor, Huda, Asma, Mohammad, Osama and Omar. “I do not apologize for feeding orphans and needy families. I know what the government’s goal was, it was to make an example of me. But they failed, because I felt a love from my community that I couldn’t imagine,” he said.
Shukri Abu Baker, of Palestinian and Brazilian heritage, was born in Brazil in 1959. At age 6, he and his family moved to Silwad, Palestine, where they lived for a couple of years. In 1967, the family left to Kuwait and lived there for about a decade. Mr. Abu-Baker migrated to the United States in 1980, where he got his Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Orlando College. During that time, he also helped launch the first mosque in central Florida. After marrying Wejdan in 1982, Mr. Abu-Baker moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. There, he worked as an office manager for the Muslim Arab Youth Association. In 1990, they relocated to Culver City, California, near Los Angeles where he and a few friends opened the Holy Land Foundation. Then in 1992, the family moved to Dallas and the HLF moved with them. He and Wejdan have four American-born daughters: Zaira, Sanabel, Nida and Shurook. You can read Shukri’s Notes from Prison on his blog: https://notesfromshukri.wordpress.com/
Mufid Abdelqader was born in Silwad, Palestine in 1959, and lived much of his young adult life in Kuwait. In 1980, he migrated to the United States to receive a college education. He lived in Irving, Texas for a few months before moving to two Oklahoma cities, first Claremore, then Stillwater. To fund his tuition at Oklahoma State University, Mr. Abdelqader briefly worked as a dishwasher at an Italian Restaurant and a cashier at Wendys. He received his Bachelor’s of Science degree in Civil Engineering in 1984. In 1985, he married Diane. He received his Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 1994. The family lived in Oklahoma City for several years before finally moving to Richardson, Texas in 1996. He and Diane have three daughters. Since 1996, Mr. Abdelqader worked for the city of Dallas as a Senior Project Manager in the public works and transportation departments. Mufid is a singer, served as a volunteer counselor in his community, and volunteered for the HLF.
The Holy Land 5 Case
The Holy Land Foundation was repeatedly targeted by Zionist organizations in a series of reports and investigations because of its effective work in providing support to occupied Palestine. The HLF was a large charity that raised millions of dollars for impoverished people in occupied Palestine, providing much-needed support and blunting the effects of the occupation on the Palestinian people. Leaders of the Foundation were placed under surveillance by the FBI since 1993 while notorious Islamophobic, racist and Zionist commentators like Steven Emerson repeatedly attacked the Foundation.
The situation of the Foundation was made more precarious in the post-Oslo era, with the adoption of first financial sanctions and then criminal law creating a list of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations,” a list that was explicitly created in order to criminalize and repress opposition to the “Middle East peace process,” which was in reality a process for the liquidation of the Palestinian cause. While the Elashi brothers’ business, INFOCOM, was raided by the FBI on allegations of selling computer technology to people in Libya, Syria and occupied Palestine, in early September 2001, the post-September 11 climate of intensified racism and “War on Terror” propaganda further propelled the attack on the Holy Land Foundation. Using the extremely broad powers of the Treasury Department, the HLF’s funds were frozen, offices raided, and it was declared a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” organization.
It was in 2004 that the homes of the Holy Land Foundation Five — Ghassan Elashi, Shukri Abu Baker, Mufid Abdelqader, Mohammed el-Mezain and Abdulrahman Odeh — were raided and the men arrested and not until 2007 that their trial began. Despite the admission of anonymous testimony from Israeli intelligence agents in court — who could not be properly subject to cross-examination by the defense — the first trial ended in a mistrial, with initially all 12 jurors voting for acquittal and then one changing his mind at the last minute.
As Within Our Lifetime notes, “One of the jurors noted that the case seemed ‘strung together with macaroni noodles. There was so little evidence.’ The jury issued not-guilty verdicts on nearly every one of the 197 charges until one of the jurors suddenly changed their mind and claimed they never agreed to those verdicts. Later, evidence came out to suggest that this juror was improperly influenced by those who sought to see the HLF5 imprisoned.”
While the HLF5, their families, and supporters for justice in Palestine celebrated, the government refused to accept defeat and once again brought the HLF5 before the court in Dallas, again exhibiting sensationalist, unproven and unrelated testimony from Israeli occupation intelligence agents. Noor Elashi, the daughter of Ghassan Elashi, said, “It was the only time in the history of the United States that a witness inside a courtroom was allowed to remain anonymous, so the defense couldn’t cross-examine him.” There was one prior similar incident, however — the case of Abdelhaleem Ashqar and Mohammed Saleh in Chicago, Palestinians charged on more dubious “terror” allegations, once again facing occupation agents in court granted a veil of anonymity. The Holy Land Foundation Five’s family members’ political affiliations were cited as a form of even more dubious “evidence” against them.
In the end, the HLF5 were convicted and granted extraordinarily long sentences. “Shukri Abu Baker and Ghassan Elashi were given 65-year sentences each. Abdulrahman Odeh, Mohammed El-Mezain, and Mufid Abdulqader were sentenced to 15 to 20 years each. Two of Ghassan Elashi’s brothers, Bayan and Basman Elashi, were tried and convicted seperately of charges stemming from InfoCom and the Holy Land Foundation. The brothers were arrested in 2002, spent two years in solitary confinement, and went to trial in 2004. They each received 84-month sentences, and were released from prison in 2009 before being deported to Gaza.”
Abdulrahman Odeh and Mohammed el-Mezain were finally released in 2020 and 2022. When El-Mezain was released, he was detained by ICE — US immigration agent — and then deported to Turkey. Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi and Mufid Abdelqader remain behind bars — while Abdelqader is scheduled for release in 2025, Elashi and Abu Baker are sentenced to 45 more years in US prisons. They earlier spent many years behind bars, including a number of years in ultra-repressive, maximum security “Communications Management Units.” All of their legal appeals have so far been exhausted, which is why it is so critical to engage in the political and popular struggle for their liberation.
The struggle to free the Holy Land 5 is part and parcel of the struggle for the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestine. As we march and organize to confront U.S. imperialism in occupied Palestine and the Arab region and U.S. responsibility for Zionist genocide in Gaza, we also call for the liberation of these Palestinian political prisoners in U.S. jails.
Write The Holy Land 5
Writing to prisoners is an important part of showing solidarity and building morale. Whether you are writing to Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, Georges Abdallah in France, or the Holy Land 5 and other political prisoners in the U.S., your letters show these imprisoned strugglers that they are not forgotten, abandoned or isolated despite all attempts to do so, and they also show the jailers that these prisoners have external support.
Please remember that any letters sent to the HLF5 are liable to be opened and read by prison staff. Avoid writing anything sensitive that could be read into by guards and prison officials. Make sure to include both their name and their register number on the envelope.
SHUKRI ABU BAKER 32589-177
USP BEAUMONT
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 26030
BEAUMONT, TX 77720
GHASSAN ELASHI 29687-177
USP MCCREARY
U.S. PENITENTIARY
P.O. BOX 3000
PINE KNOT, KY 42635
The above graphic was designed by an artist in Gaza for Samidoun.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network stands with our International Coordinator Charlotte Kates who was arrested and charged by the Vancouver Police Department this week for a speech she gave on April 26 expressing support for the Palestinian resistance and calling for the Palestinian and Arab resistance – specifically Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Hezbollah – to be removed from so-called ‘terrorist lists’ in Canada and elsewhere.
VPD officers nabbed Kates while she was on the bus riding home after attending the establishment of the Palestine solidarity encampment at the University of British Columbia, and charged her with “public incitement of hatred” and “willful promotion of hatred”. After two hours of questioning she was released with the condition “not to attend any protests, demonstrations and assemblies”.
The attack on Kates is an attack on Samidoun and our work in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. The attack on Kates is an attack on the Palestinian people, part of a longstanding effort by Israel and its imperialist allies to criminalize and de-legitimize Palestinian people, their political organizations and their allies. The attack on Kates is an attack on working class and oppressed people in Canada, signalling that our ‘liberal democratic rights’ will only be tolerated so long as they don’t present any meaningful challenge to the establishment. The attack on Kates is an attack on the people of the world who everywhere are rising up and demanding an end to the Israeli genocide and an end to imperialism and colonialism and are being met with criminalization, repression, expulsion and slander!
As Kates pointed out in her speech, the historic mobilization that we are seeing across the world, is not only a response to witnessing the criminal Israeli genocide. It is equally a response to the inspiring example of Palestinian resistance and steadfastness which, in the face of a century of colonization, 76 years of brutal ethnic cleansing and occupation, and more than 200 days of a genocidal bombing campaign, continues to stand up and struggle for the rights of Palestinians to exist, to resist, to return, and to liberation!
Photo: Michael Y.C. Tseng
The threat that the Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian liberation struggle pose to U.S.-led imperialism, including Canada, is long recognized by the ruling classes of the imperialist countries which is why all factions of the Palestinian resistance are included on the Canadian, European and U.S. so-called terrorist lists. The effort to criminalize Palestinian struggle and to de-link the struggle in Palestine, including the armed struggle, from its international support, has been a feature of the imperialist powers’ political strategy at least since the 1980s.
It’s also why the political establishments and their mainstream media instruments in countries like the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, France and the Netherlands are so desperate to paint Operation Al Aqsa Flood as some kind of ‘barbaric’ assault, beyond the pale of legitimate resistance, and why they continue to produce, disseminate and propagate outrageous lies and atrocity propaganda about October 7. What they can’t admit is that the Palestinian resistance in Gaza, even in the face of the criminal siege, the campaign of assassinations, and the periodic bombings and massacres, were able to mount a brilliant and heroic counter-attack, to defeat the occupiers, break the siege and take prisoners for exchange for the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Through its heroic operation on October 7 and its ability to continue to fight the genocidal invading Israeli army in the following months up to this very moment, the Palestinian resistance has exposed the weakness and illegitimacy of Israel, and by extension its imperialist backers in the United States, Canada, the European Union and elsewhere.
The Palestinian resistance, together with its fellow resistance forces in the region, stretching from Lebanon to Yemen, where the government, armed forces, people and AnsarAllah movement are shutting down the supply lines of genocide, Iraq, Syria, Iran and beyond, are proving that a Palestine free of Zionism and an Arab nation and an entire region free of imperialism are not only possible, but inevitable.
While zionists, their imperialist backers and the corporate media have tried to smear the whole movement in solidarity with Palestine with the brush of antisemitism, constantly and purposefully conflating anti-zionism and support for the Palestinian struggle with antisemitism, it has mobilized more severe and punitive repression for those who speak out in support of the Palestinian resistance and specifically the right to armed struggle against occupation and colonization. For example, Natalie Knight, who on October 28, 2023, gave a speech expressing support for the Palestinian resistance and upholding Operation Al Aqsa Flood as a brilliant and amazing act of resistance, was suspended, then fired from her teaching position at Langara University in Vancouver, British Columbia. U.S. academic and author Jodi Dean was ‘relieved of classroom duties’ specifically in response to a blog post upholding the Palestinian right to resist, including by armed struggle. Thousands of students have been arrested in the United States in militarized raids by police across the country, including in New York, Florida, North Carolina, California, New Hampshire and Chicago. In France, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra has been resisting attempts to ‘dissolve’ it by the French Ministry of the Interior.
Samidoun, as an organization that has clearly upheld the right of the Palestinian people to resistance and armed struggle, has been targeted for repression by multiple imperialist governments. In Germany, Samidoun has been banned as part of the imperialist German state’s crackdown on all visible solidarity with Palestine. On April 15, Nicole De Moor, Belgium’s Secretary for Asylum and Migration, called on Belgian immigration agencies to withdraw the refugee status of Samidoun’s Europe Coordinator Mohammed Khatib, a Palestinian refugee born in Ain el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon. And in Canada, zionists and right-wing media have for more than a year been hysterically calling for repression against Kates and against Palestinian writer and Masar Badil Executive Committee member Khaled Barakat, a call that has now been implemented by the Vancouver Police Department.
It is incumbent on us, as a movement of support for Palestinian liberation, to resist this divide and rule strategy of the zionists and imperialists that seeks to limit our demands and discussion to ‘peace’, ‘ceasefire’ and ‘humanitarian aid’ and to intimidate us from talking about the right to armed resistance, the right of return, and the substance of liberation for the Palestinian people. Resisting this imposed division goes hand in hand with the broad struggle against the whole array of repression being meted out to those who speak out against genocide, especially at this moment of mass arrests and repression faced by student encampments across the U.S. and in Canada and Europe.
Armed struggle is an indivisible and indispensable component of the Palestinian revolution. Dividing Palestinians from this aspect of the national liberation struggle, and steering the solidarity movement away from understanding and supporting armed struggle is a key strategic objective of zionism and imperialism. This is the moment in which we all must fight back – by raising our voices in support of the Palestinian armed resistance — including the heroic and momentous operation Al-Aqsa Flood, launched on October 7 — and by calling for the removal of Palestinian and Arab resistance movements from the so-called terrorist lists. We stand together with Charlotte Kates and all those targeted for repression, and we stand together with the heroic Resistance. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Long live October 7! Long live the Palestinian Resistance! Long live international solidarity!
Revolutionaire Eenheid and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network fully support the students who today started an encampment for Palestine in the Roeterseiland campus, Amsterdam. These students are on the frontline of the resistance against the Israeli genocide in Gaza and Dutch complicity. They follow the example of students in Palestine, the United States and several other countries.
The Amsterdam universities UvA, VU and AUC have various ties with the genocidal apartheid state and it is high time that these ties are broken. The students are determined and will not stop until their goals are achieved. Attempts to repress or breakup the encampment by the authorities will be met with resistance.
Revolutionaire Eenheid and Samidoun call on all students, youth and supporters of Palestine to join these heroic students. We fully support the students’ demands and points of unity:
The demands:
Full cooperation with the Freedom of Information request and full disclosure of all ties between our universities and their ties to Israeli institutions and companies, and ties to companies that profit from genocide, apartheid and the exploitation of Palestinians and their land.
Boycott all academic collaborations with Israeli institutions that are complicit in genocide, apartheid and the exploitation of Palestinians and their land.
Divest and terminate all contracts with Israeli and international companies that profit from genocide, apartheid and the exploitation of the Palestinian people and their land.
Points of Unity:
One democratic Palestine from the river to the sea;
Palestinians have the right to resistance, including armed resistance;
The Palestinian diaspora has a right of return.
Stop the Israeli genocide and all complicity with it! Victory to the Palestinian people and their resistance! Long live international solidarity!
Below is the full initial statement from the students in Amsterdam:
🔻ENCAMPMENT ACTION🔻
Come to REC CAMPUS NOW to join us as we create a liberated zone, in solidarity with Gaza! All students, staff and humans are invited to join us NOW as we show UVA, VU and AUC that there is no business as usual when a genocide is unfolding. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE A STUDENT – all are welcome in our liberated university!
We will occupy and hold the line against any attempt to evict us. We need mass mobilization, and lots of support! Join us as soon as possible, we plan to STAY. Bring tents, sleeping bags and pack your belongings with you. We need both campers and supporters day and night!
We expect repression, so we request our communities to stand by in solidarity with us. We cannot exist without your support.
P.S. PROTESTING STAFF AND LECTURERS WELCOME – Join the brave staff and faculty as they conduct a solidarity demo at 6 PM in support of Gaza and the student intifada.
(Coverage of this statement on AlMayadeen English.)
The repression against Palestinians and their supporters has been mounting across Canada in recent months; in every major city, there are cases of fraudulent charges (often later dropped) brought against activists who dare to clearly challenge the Zionist narrative.
The latest of these politically motivated charges happened a few days ago in Vancouver BC, where Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator of Samidoun was briefly detained and charged with alleged “hate speech” offenses. She was released on the outrageous condition that she does not attend any “protests, rallies or assemblies” until the court date of October 8 (five months away). All this apparently for supporting the right of the Palestinian resistance to fight back against Zionist military oppression and saying “Long live October 7” during a rally speech on April 26.
The Zionist lobby has been on a witch-hunt against Kates, Samidoun and her husband, Khaled Barakat, for several years now. They have been pushing the federal government to include Samidoun on Canada’s “terrorist” list, and CIJA even included this demand as part of their last election platform. However, Kates questioning why Palestinian resistance groups are already on that same list is somehow unacceptable.
We are sick of the double standard at play here. Zionist groups are free to bring actual Israeli soldiers on campuses to offer their “insights from the ground”, their supporters are publicly declaring they are “arming themselves”, but someone daring to even show verbal support for the Palestinian right to resist foreign occupation and aggression is charged with “hate speech”!
Are our politicians not ashamed of the way they all line up to “pile on” and attack whoever the major pro-Israel groups decide is the current persona non grata? And that they do this within just a few hours of each other? From mayors to provincial premiers to federal politicians, time and again we have seen this pattern of rushing to condemn some specific protestor or group. Our politicians, and many of the mainstream media, seem to have no shame when it comes to proving their loyalty to the Zionist project.
Let’s discuss this issue of censuring anyone talking about October 7 (unless it enhances the Zionist narrative of course). It has nothing to do with concern for alleged “racism” or “hate crimes”. Rather, it has more to do with Israel trying to protect its veneer of military invincibility and its much-vaunted cyber security and intelligence. That is the real crux of all the misinformation and blatant (often later debunked) propaganda around what happened on October 7. This brief but decisive dismantling of the Israeli military deterrence is what now drives the revenge campaign of genocide going on in Gaza.
We will support and defend all our community activists. This is not the first case of fraudulent charges being brought against pro-Palestinian advocates and it won’t be the last. Although many of these charges are later dropped, the Zionist lobby groups engaging in this “lawfare” type activity have another agenda…to waste time and resources, to confuse the solidarity movement, and to create a “chill” and an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship.
We will not stand by nor stand down. Palestine will be Free!
Canada Palestine Association, Vancouver
Endorsed by:
Al-Jamia Masjid Vancouver
BDS Vancouver/Coast Salish Territories
Canadian BDS Coalition
Canadian Foreign Policy Institute
Greater Toronto 4 BDS (GTA4BDS)
Just Peace Advocates/Mouvement Pour Une Paix Juste
Ontario Palestinian Rights Association (OPRA)
Palestinian and Jewish Unity Montreal
Niagara Movement for Justice in Palestine Israel
The Regina Peace Council
The International League of Peoples’ Struggle in Canada (ILPS)
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Background Information and Premier David Eby’s Slander
The Zionist ethnic cleansing and genocide started with the 1948 Nakba, where two thirds of the Palestinian population were kicked out of their homeland and over five hundred towns and villages were wiped off the map of the world. Like today, this was accompanied by tens of brutal massacres, and 80% of the Gazan population are refugees from the original 1948 Nakba still waiting to return to their homes and properties. In 1956, Israel occupied Gaza and committed many massacres against the civilian unarmed population, one of these massacres was documented by the UN in Khan Yunis. In 1967 Gaza again came under Israel occupation alongside the West Bank and other Arab lands; since then, Israel is in violation of two UN Security Resolutions (242 and 338) that called on Israel to withdraw from all those occupied territories and called “For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem”.
In January 2006, Hamas was elected and won 74 of the 132 seats (while Fatah trailed with 45) in the Palestinian legislative election. For almost twenty years, Gaza has been under tight Israeli siege and the scene of many brutal and fascist Israeli aggressions.
October 7, 2023 was not the start of the conflict, it came as a result of a continued Israeli Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and genocide and Israeli and western denial of Palestinian human and national rights.
Oct. 7 was a legitimate military operation against one of the most brutal and longest occupations in modern history. In fact, UN resolution A/RES/43/106 of Dec. 8, 1988 “Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for their independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle;”
Israel, its lobby and apologists, in an attempt to cover up Israel’s military blunder, are trying to slander the Palestinian people and their resistance movement. They are also trying to criminalize those who recognize what the UN weapons inspector to Iraq, Scott Ritter, called “the most successful military raid of this century”. In a recent article he detailed Israel’s (and its apologists) lies, fabrications and propaganda; many other interviews/articles have also debunked this Israeli false narrative, especially reporters from The Grayzone and Electronic Intifada.
Nonetheless, Canadian corporate media and Canadian politicians on all levels of governments and political parties have rushed to parrot and amplify these manufactured claims. The level of complicity and lack of any critical judgement is shocking, and simply proves the unbreakable alliance between the Zionist state and the over-arching imperialist agenda to control the region and its resources.
The premier of British Colombia, David Eby, adopted the Zionist narrative from the beginning, with no regards for the Palestinian victims of this settler colonialist movement:
On Oct. 17, 2023 he was quoted as saying:
“There can be no justification for the brutality and terror Hamas visited on innocent victims. None…They are advocates for genocide,” Eby said. “Anyone who attempts to contradict this basic truth should rightfully be denounced … But let’s be clear about something else. Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, not in Gaza, not in the West Bank. They don’t represent our Palestinian friends and neighbours living here in British Columbia.”
First, Mr. Eby, it is outrageous and unconscionable to accuse people who are supporting Palestinian liberation as “advocates for genocide”, your silence on Israeli genocide is complicity in it. The Palestinian people have been the victims of Israeli GENOCIDE for the past 76 years.
Second, Hamas and more accurately the Palestinian resistance movement did not engage in “brutality and terror”; it was a military operation to break the chains of their slavery and tormentation.
Third, yes Hamas does represent the Palestinian people, they were elected by the Palestinian people in 2006 by a larger majority than your NDP government. And NO, Palestinians living here in British Columbia don’t wish to be friends with such an anti-Palestinian racist and bigot.
Finally, your ignorance in conflating Israeli genocide and atrocities with the Jewish people actually promotes anti-Jewish racism.
More recently on April 30, Mr. Eby doubled down on his ignorance and was quoted as saying about the April 26 rally speech: “Celebrating the murder, the rape of innocent people attending a music festival, it’s awful,” … “It’s reprehensible, and it shouldn’t take place in British Columbia.” His slanderous accusation of rape is unsubstantiated, similar to the accusation of UNRWA workers participating in the Oct. 7 revolt. How long will we wait for Mr. Eby to publicly condemn and acknowledge the violence (including sexual violence) against Palestinian women and girls that Israeli soldiers continue to enact right now in Gaza?
If Mr. Eby thinks that his rampage against Palestinian liberation supporters will succeed and put a chill on the Palestinian support movement, he should think again. All he is doing is certifying himself as a committed Zionist and an anti-Palestinian RACIST.
Mr. Eby, we will remember your racism against the Palestinian people next provincial election and beyond.
