International support for detained Palestinian parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar is continuing to grow. The leftist, feminist Palestinian leader and advocate for political prisoners has been jailed by Israel without charge or trial for a year. The Israeli military recently ordered her to another four months of administrative detention, an extension awaiting approval by an occupation military court.
275 international political parties, feminist organizations, solidarity groups, student organizations, social justice movements and others have signed on to the campaign to free Khalida Jarrar, coming together in a common statement to demand her release. Since the statement was announced last week, over 90 organizations have added their endorsements, including the third-largest party in the Turkish parliament, the HDP (People’s Democratic Party).
In France, anti-imperialist collective Coup Pour Coup 31 – a member of the Samidoun network – noted the appearance of “Free Khalida Jarrar” graffiti in the Toulouse area, demanding the release of all Palestinian prisoners.
New Yorkers demonstrated outside the offices of the “Friends of the IDF,” an organization that raises money for the Israeli occupation army, demanding Jarrar’s release, on 30 June. Samidoun activists and others distributed information and material about her case and the situation of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.
In Berlin, a Samidoun delegation visited the South African ambassador, with information about the situation in Palestine and the case of Khalida Jarrar. The South African government has officially called for Jarrar’s release, from the time of her arrest in 2017.
And in Gaza, Palestinians took to the streets to call for freedom for Khalida Jarrar and Hassan Shokeh, a fellow administrative detainee who has been on hunger strike for nearly a month. Gathering outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, demonstrators demanded the abolition of administrative detention and the freedom of Palestinian prisoners.
It is more important than ever that our voices are heard and our actions are visible to demand freedom for Khalida Jarrar and all Palestinian prisoners. You can download flyers, materials and visit petitions to join the campaign here: https://samidoun.net/2018/06/take-action-to-free-khalida-jarrar-june-30-july-2-organize-for-freedom/
You are invited to add your organization’s name to the following statement to demand freedom for imprisoned Palestinian leader Khalida Jarrar! We will continue to update this statement and re-release with additional signatories. To endorse, please use the form or email samidoun@samidoun.net with your group’s name.
Freedom for Khalida Jarrar! End administrative detention!
We, the undersigned organizations, come together to demand freedom for Palestinian political leader Khalida Jarrar, prominent leftist, feminist, prisoners’ rights advocate and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. She has been imprisoned without charge and without trial since July 2017 – and now the Israeli military occupation has declared that her imprisonment will be extended for an additional four months.
On July 2, 2017, Khalida Jarrar’s home was raided by Israeli occupation soldiers in a pre-dawn raid. She was ordered shortly thereafter to administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. She is one of approximately 450 Palestinians held under administrative detention, a relic of the British colonial mandate that has been used by the Israeli occupation to jail thousands of Palestinian community and political leaders, and one of approximately 6,100 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
In December 2017, her detention was renewed for another six months. Now, another military order declares that she will be imprisoned for four more months. Administrative detention orders can be issued for up to six months at a time and are indefinitely renewable. Palestinians can spend years at a time jailed under these orders, never knowing when they could be released, if ever.
As Addameer notes, “This practice of arbitrary detention is a grave violation of international laws and human rights standards, particularly articles 78 and 72 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which state that an accused individual has the right to defend him/herself. This also violates Article 66 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the basic standards of fair trial.”
On July 2, an Israeli military court is scheduled to approve the detention order. Jarrar, like all administrative detainees, has boycotted these hearings since February, as they are mere rubber-stamp sessions used as a fig leaf to “legitimize” the arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinians.
Jarrar is a Palestinian political leader, representing the Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc, allied with the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in the Palestinian Legislative Council. She is a frequent leader and participant in demonstrations and popular actions for Palestinian freedom, a a long-time Palestinian political prisoners’ advocate and former executive director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and now a member of its board, and chair of the Prisoners’ Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
She has also been active in the Palestinian women’s movement since her earliest days as a university student organizing with other female students to challenge the occupation. She is a leading organizer of International Women’s Day events in Palestine and coordinates closely with Palestinian women’s organizations. “Palestinian women are full partners in the Palestinian struggle,” she emphasizes.
Khalida Jarrar is heavily involved in the fight to hold Israeli officials accountable for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. She is a member of a Palestinian commission charged with bringing complaints and files before the international court about ongoing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, from attacks on Gaza to land confiscation and settlement construction to mass arrests and imprisonment.
Since 1998, she has been forbidden to travel outside occupied Palestine. When she needed medical treatment in Jordan in 2010, she struggled for months in a public campaign before finally receiving it. The Israeli occupation attempted to forcibly displace her from her home to Jericho in 2014, and in 2015, arrested and jailed her 14 months for her political activities.
The extended administrative detention of Khalida Jarrar is an attempt to remove an effective, grassroots leader from the Palestinian national movement. Especially now, when people are taking to the streets throughout occupied Palestine and thousands are marching in Gaza for the Great Return March, leaders like her are targeted for arrest and imprisonment in an attempt to defuse the Palestinian struggle.
Khalida Jarrar is being targeted as a Palestinian leader, a Palestinian voice for justice, and an active Palestinian woman. Her imprisonment is yet another attack by the Israeli colonial state against the Palestinian people struggling for freedom, and administrative detention and the mass imprisonment of Palestinians are two of the weapons used in an attempt to break the Palestinian liberation movement.
We come together today to demand the immediate release of Khalida Jarrar, an end to the policy and practice of administrative detention and freedom for Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. We pledge to struggle for justice through protests, actions, organizing and escalating boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) actions against Israel, in Khalida’s own spirit of resistance.
Signed,
- Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
- Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition
- Al-Awda, The Palestine Right of Return Movement
-
Action Antifasciste NP2C
- Actions4Palestine
- Alkarama Movement of Palestinian Women
- Al-Quds Day Committee of New York
- American Muslims for Palestine – NY/NJ
- American Party of Labor
- Anticapitalistas
- Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland
- Anti Internment Group London
- Anti-Zionist and Anti-Imperialist Friends of Palestine
- ArbeiterInnenmacht (Germany)
- Arbeiter*innenstandpunkt (Austria)
- Asociación Palestina BILADI
- Association Belgo-Palestinienne
- Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP)
- Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), India
- Association France-Palestine Solidarité
- Association France-Palestine Solidarité — Groupe du Pays de Cornouaille
- AFPS 63 (Association France Palestine Solidarité 63)
- AFPS 59/62
- AFPS Albertville
-
AFPS Alès-Cévennes
- AFPS Paris 14-6
- Associazione Amicizia Sardegna Palestina
- Assopace Palestina – Italy
- ATIK – Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe
- BAF – Brigade Antifasciste de Strasbourg
- Balfour Declaration Centenary Campaign
- BDS Berlin
- BDS France Saint-Étienne
- BDS France Toulouse
- BDS Italia
- BDS Turkey
- BDS UChile (Universidad de Chile)
- BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish
- BDS Zürich
- Belgian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (BACBI)
- Biellesi per la Palestina Libera Committee
- Black Alliance for Peace
-
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (aka Boycott from Within – Israeli citizens for BDS)
- Bruxelles Panthéres
- Cafe Palestina of the Southern Berkshires
- California Coalition for Women Prisoners
- Campagne BDS France
- Campagne unitaire pour la libération de Georges Ibahim Abdallah (Paris)
- Campaign to Boycott Supporters of “Israel” in Lebanon
- Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat
- Canada Palestine Association
- Canadian BDS Coalition
- Canadian Friends of Sabeel
- Centre de la Communauté Démocratique Kurde de Toulouse
- Cercle de Silence – Amiens
- Christchurch Progressive Network
- Coalition for Justice – Blacksburg
- Coalition of Women for Peace
- CODEPINK – Women for Peace
- Colectivo Contraimpunidad
- Collectif 69 de soutien au peuple palestinien
- Collectif de Soutien à la Résistance Palestinienne 59-62
- Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine
- Collectif Justice pour la Palestine Annecy
- Collectif pour la Libération de Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
- Colletivo Palestina Rossa
- Comité Internacional Paz,Justicia y Dignidad a los Pueblos
- Comité de Vigilance pour la Démocratie en Tunisie
- Comité Poitevin Palestine
- Comite pour le Respect des Libetés et des Droits de l Homme en Tunisie CRLDHT
- Committee to Stop FBI Repression – National
- Committee to Stop FBI Repression – NY
- Committees for a Democratic Palestine – Europe
- Communist Party, Sweden
- Coordinamento Napoli Palestin
- Coordinamento di Solidarietà con la Palestina – Sicilia
- Corsica Internaziunalista
- Corvallis Palestine Solidarity
- Coup Pour Coup 31
- Dones x Dones
- Dun Padraig Friends of Palestine
- Egitim Sen Istanbul 6 Nolu Üniversiteler Subesi
- EH Bildu municipal group of Donostia
- Eye On Palestine Arts and Film Festival
- Familles de prisonniers pour la Justice – Belgique
- Femmes en lutte 93
- Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! Manchester
- F.O.R. Palestine (Berlin)
- Free Gaza Movement
- Free Palestine Movement
- Freedom Archives
- Freedom Road Socialist Organization
- Friends of Palestine Network
- Friends of Sabeel North America
- Frihet åt Ahed Tamimi Göteborg
- Fronte Palestina
- Gaza Action Ireland
- General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS Aix-Marseille)
- General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS France)
- Gents Actieplatform Palestina
- Global Campaign for Palestinian Political Prisoners (GCPPP)
- Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
- Greek Front of Resistance and Solidarity with Palestine “Ghassan Kanafani”
- Green Mountain Solidarity with Palestine
- Greenville for Gaza
- Groupe Non-Violent LOUIS LECOIN
- Handala Center for Prisoners and Former Prisoners – Palestine
- Harakat Shaab – Lebanon
- HDP Peoples’ Democratic Party
- HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) Central Women’s Assembly
- Hilombé Solidaridad
- Human Rights Defenders
- ICAHD
- If Americans Knew
- Independent Jewish Voices – Canada
- Indivisible Midlands
- Inminds Human Rights Group
- intal
- International Action Center
- International Association of Democratic Lawyers
- International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
- International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) Spain
- International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network – Canada
- International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS)
- International Red Help
- International Women’s Alliance
- Internationalt Forum – Denmark
- Invictapalestina – Documentation Center
- Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA)
- Irish Socialist Republicans
- ISM France
- Izquierda Unida – Spain
- Jacksonville Community Action Committee
- Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network
- Jericho Movement – National
- Jericho Movement – New York City
- Jersey City Peace Movement
- Jeune Garde Lyon
- Jeunes Révolutionnaires Genève
- Jeunes Révolutionnaires Vaud
- Jewish Liberation Theology Institute
- Jewish People’s Liberation Organization
- Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
- Jewish Women for Justice in Israel/ Palestine
- Jews Against Genocide (JAG)
- Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
- Justice For Palestinians, Calgary
- Justice for Palestinians – San Jose
- Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights – Philippines
- Katie Miranda Studios
- Kia Ora Gaza (New Zealand)
- Kickapoo Peace Circle
- LA4Palestine
- Labor for Palestine
- Laura Wells for Congress, District 13
- La Voix des Prisonnier.ère.s Politiques de Turquie et Kurdistan
- Le Collectif Rouge Internationaliste pour la libération des prisonniers révolutionnaires (Paris)
- Le Comité d’action et de soutien aux luttes du peuple marocain (Paris)
- League for the Fifth International
- Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre
- Links Ecologisch Forum/Forum Gauche Ecologie – LEF-FGE
- Libérons-les
- London Palestine Action
- Madison-Rafah Sister City Project
- MADRE
- Manchester Boycott Israel Group
- Manchester Palestine Action
- Mouvement Citoyens Palestine
- National Campaign to Free Georges Abdallah – Lebanon
- National Coalition to Protect Student Privacy
- National Lawyers Guild International Committee
- National Lawyers Guild- Massachusetts Chapter
- National Student Federation (Pa
- New Orleans Workers Group
- Newry Palestinian Support Group
- NION (Not In Our Name)
- No One Is Illegal – Vancouver Coast Salish Territories
- NY4Palestine
- NYU Disorientation Guide
- NYU Jewish Voice for Peace
- NZ Palestine Solidarity Network
- Palbox
- Palestine Democratic Forum
- Palestine International Network – Lebanon
- Palestine Solidarity Committee – Austin, TX
- Palestine Solidarity Network – Edmonton
- Palestinian Child and Youth Institute (PCYI)
- Palestinian Cultural Club – American University of Beirut
- Palestinian Cultural Club – Beirut
- Palestinian Progressive Student Bloc
- Palestinian Refugee Portal
- Palestinian Support Centre- Kingston ON
- Palestinians and Jews Decolonize
- Palestina Toma La Calle
- Palestinian Youth Movement – USA
- Partido Comunista de España
- Party for Socialism and Liberation
- Paz con Dignidad
- People Power Assembly Queens
- People’s Power Assembly
- Pittsburgh Palestine Solidarity Committee
- Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine
- Popular Resistance
- Potere al popolo Biella e Valsesia Party
- Progetto Palestina
- Progressive Palestinian Youth Union
- Progressive Scouts Group – Gaza
- Progressive Student Labor Front (Palestine)
- Project South
- Queer Palestinian Empowerment Network
- RAGE – Réseau d’Agitation Genève
- RedMed Web Network
- Release Aging People in Prison/RAPP
- Republican Network for Unity
- Revolutionary Socialist Movement (Pakistan)
- Revolutionary Workers Party (DİP) (Turkey)
- REVOLUTION (youth movement)
- Rifondazione Comunista Biellese Party
- Right of Return Coalition – Baddawi Camp, Lebanon (composed of 22 organizations)
- Saoradh
- Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign
- Secours Rouge Belgique / Red Help Belgium
- Secours Rouge Canada
- Secours Rouge Genève
- Sheffield Hallam Palestine Society
- Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine
- Sheffield Labour Students
- Sheffield Palestine Education Network
- Sodepaz Euskadi
- Solidarity with Palestine St. John’s
- Studenten voor Rechtvaardigheid in Palestina (SRP-NL)
- Students Against Israeli Apartheid at York University
- Students for Justice in Palestine – CCNY
- Students for Justice in Palestine – College of Staten Island
- Students for Justice in Palestine – Houston
- Students for Justice in Palestine – NYU
- Students for Justice in Palestine – Temple University
- Students for Justice in Palestine at University of South Carolina
- Syria Solidarity Movement
- Taqadomy Media Team
- TJA (Tevgera Jinên Azad) – Free Women Movement
- The Bronx Green Party
- The Palestine Project
- The Red Nation
- Toronto BDS Action
- UNADIKUM Association
- United National Antiwar Campaign (UNAC)
- Union of Palestinian Communities and Institutions – Europe
- Unión de Juventudes Comunistas de España
- Unione Democratica Arabe Palestina (UDAP)
- Union des consommateurs musulmans de la région parisienne
- Union juive française pour la paix (UJFP)
- United Church of Christ Palestine Israel Network
- United for Palestine Toronto/GTA
- University of Leeds – Palestine Solidarity Group
- University of Sheffield Palestine Society
- UGEP (Unión General de Estudiantes Palestinos Chile)
- US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)
- US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
- Vermonters for Justice in Palestine
- Victoria Coalition against Israeli Apartheid
- Victory to the Intifada Manchester
- Vlaams-Socialistische Beweging (Flanders)
- Vrede vzw
- WESPAC Foundation
- Within Our Lifetime • United for Palestine
- Women Against Military Madness
- Women In Solidarity With Palestine
- Women for Women’s Humans Rights – New Ways
- Women’s Organization for Political Prisoners (WOFPP)
- Women’s Solidarity Foundation (KADAV)-Turkey
- Workers World Party
- YECHOUROUN-Judaisme contre sionisme
- Young Democratic Socialists – University of South Carolina
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