4 December, NYC: Protest to free Salah al-Khawaja and Stop HP

3 December 2017

Monday, 4 December
5:00 pm
Best Buy – Union Square
52 E. 14th St, NYC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/395163114236693/

On Friday, Salah al-Khawaja, of the village of Ni’lin in Ramallah, will reach his 26th consecutive day refusing food in protest of his “administrative detention,” imprisonment without charge or trial. He launched his hunger strike in protest of the renewal of his administrative detention order only one day before his scheduled release.

Al-Khawaja was seized by Israeli occupation forces on July 23, 2017 and ordered to four months in “administrative detention,” imprisonment without charge or trial. These detention orders are indefinitely renewable. Palestinians have spent years at a time jailed under administrative detention orders ( samidoun.net/2017/12/two-palestinian-prisoners-on-hunger-strike-in-israeli-prisons).

Stand with al-Khawaja to demand that Israel release him, 462 other administrative detainees and all 6,198 Palestinian political prisoners (addameer.org/statistics), and that Hewlett Packard companies end their contracts with Israeli prisons and detention centers, occupation and security forces, and checkpoints and settlements (investigate.afsc.org/company/hp-inc, investigate.afsc.org/company/hewlett-packard-enterprise,investigate.afsc.org/company/dxc-technology-company).

Help build a growing international campaign to boycott HP (bdsmovement.net/boycott-hp) over the companies’ support for Israeli crimes.

Support the Palestinian people, the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian Resistance, and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

100 days of arbitrary detention: 1,000 elected officials join call to free Salah Hamouri

1 December 2017

30 November marked the 100th day of imprisonment without charge or trial for Salah Hamouri, the French-Palestinian lawyer and human rights advocate jailed in Israeli prisons. Hamouri is supported by a growing campaign throughout France; as the 100th day of his imprisonment was marked, the campaign for his support announced that 1,000 French elected officials and 56 Members of European Parliament had signed on to support Hamouri’s release.

Town councils throughout France have signed on to a call for Hamouri’s release and events have been organized throughout the country to demand that the French government take an active role in advocating for his immediate release. He has been jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention since 23 August 2017.

While the campaign to support Hamouri, led by his wife Elsa Lefort – who herself has been banned by the Israeli occupation for 10 years after returning to Palestine with a valid visa alongside her husband while over six months pregnant and expelled after several days detained in Ben-Gurion airport – has achieved significant support by a growing number of town councils, elected officials and within the French National Assembly, the Macron government continues to avoid firm demands for Hamouri’s release.

The French government expressed its “dissatisfaction” with administrative detention as it violates the right to a fair trial and “requested” an end to Hamouri’s detention, but Macron has not taken serious action to demand Hamouri’s freedom, even as he plans a visit with Israeli prime minister and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu in Paris in early December.

Of course, this comes as no surprise given that France continues to imprison Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese Communist struggler for Palestine jailed for over 33 years, despite his eligibility for parole since 1999, has continued to persecute BDS activists struggling for justice in Palestine, and continues to imprison Canadian professor Hassan Diab on baseless charges despite a severe lack of evidence and repeated decisions by investigating judges for his release.

However, the popular movement to support Hamouri has grown dramatically as evidenced by the over 1,000 elected officials supporting Hamouri and the numerous village, town and city councils officially standing for his release. The 100th day of his imprisonment is being marked with multiple events across France, including a protest on 2 December in Paris and upcoming events in Quimper and Bourg-en-Bresse, among others.

Take Action:

1. Sign the appeal to support Salah Hamouri at http://libertepoursalah.fr

2. Organize an action, event or activity to mark the 100th day of Salah Hamouri’s detention and demand his immediate freedom. Raise his case at events and actions for Palestine.

3. Like and share the Facebook page for Salah Hamouri, which will be regularly updated with news and actions to demand Salah’s freedom: https://www.facebook.com/freesalahhamouri/

Statement of European Parliamentarians for Salah Hamouri:

We, Members of the European Parliament from various opinions, Protest against the unfair treatment of Salah Hamouri a young French citizen, lawyer since August 2017, arrested on August 23 and now in administrative detention in the Israeli prison of Al Naqab based on an allegedly secret file. Call the Israeli authorities to immediately release him. Call on the European institutions to intervene with the Israeli government to put an end to this injustice, in the name of the values that underpin the Européen Union.

Patrick Le Hyaric – Vice-président GUE/NGL ; membre de la délégation du parlement européen chargé des relations avec La Palestine (France – GUE/NGL)
Philippe Lamberts – Coprésident VERTS/ALE (Belgique – GREENS/ALE)
Gabi Zimmer – Présidente du groupe de la Gauche unitaire européenne/Gauche verte nordique (Allemagne – GUE/NGL)
Tania González Peñas – Vice-présidente GUE/NGL (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Maria Arena – (Belgique – S&D)
Paloma López Bermejo – (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Bart Staes – (Belgique – GREENS/ALE)
Nikolaos Chountis – (Grèce – GUEN/NGL)
Miguel Viegas – (Portugal – GUE/NGL)
António Marinho e Pinto – Vice-président Délégation Brésil (Portugal -ALDE)
Eleonora Forenza – Vice-présidente Délégation Chili (Italie – GUE/NGL)
Pascal Durand – Vice-président VERTS/ALE (France – GREENS/ALE)
Angela Vallina – (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Karima Delli – Présidente Commission des transports et du tourisme (France -GREENS/ALE)
Sofia Sakorafa – Présidente Délégation pour les relations avec les pays d’Amérique centrale (Grèce – GUE/NGL)
Ernest Urtasun – Vice-président Assemblée EUROLAT (Espagne -GREENS/ALE)
Younous Omarjee – Vice-président Commission du développement régional (France -GUE/NGL)
Javier Nart – Vice-président ALDE – Vice-président Assemblée paritaire ACPUE (Espagne – ALDE)
Marina Albiol – (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Edouard Martin – (France – S&D)
Neoklis Sylikiotis – Président Délégation Palestine – Vice-président GUE/NGL- Président délégation Palestine (Chypre – GUE/NGL)
Margrete Auken – Vice-présidente Délégation Palestine (Danemark – GREENS/ALE)
Lola Sanchez Caldentey – (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Michèle Rivasi – Vice-présidente Assemblée paritaire ACP-UE (France -GREENS/ALE)
Josu Juaristi – (Pays Basque – GUE/NGL)
Ivo Vajgl – (Slovénie – ALDE)
Joao Ferreira – (Portugal – GUE/NGL)
Sergio Cofferati – (Italie – S&D)
Marie-Pierre Vieu – (France – GUE/NGL)
Jean-Marie Cavada – Vice-président Commission des affaires juridiques (France – ALDE)
Marc Tarabella – Vice-président Délégation pour les relations avec les pays de l’Asie du Sud-Est et l’Association des nations de l’Asie du Sud-Est (Belgique – S&D)
Marie-Christine Vergiat – (France – GUE/NGL)
Josep María Terricabras – Vice-président Verts/ALE (Espagne – GREENS/ALE)
Barbara Spinelli – Vice-présidente Commission des affaires constitutionnelles (Italie – GUE/NGL)
Yannick Jadot – Vice-président Commission du commerce international (France – GREENS/ALE)
Javier Couso Permuy – Vice-président Commission des affaires étrangères – Vice-président délégation pour les relations avec l’Iraq (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Eva Joly – Vice-présidente Commission d’enquête chargée d’examiner les allégations d’infraction et de mauvaise administration dans l’application du droit de l’Union en matière de blanchiment de capitaux, d’évasion fiscale et de fraude fiscale (PANA) – Vice-présidente Délégation pour les relations avec l’Afghanistan (France – GREENS/ALE)
Marisa Matias – Présidente Délégation pour les relations avec les pays du Mashrek (Portugal – GUE/NGL)
José Bové – (France – GRENS/ALE)
Lidia Senra – (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Patricia Lalonde – (France – ALDE)
Martina Anderson – (Irlande du Nord – GUE/NGL)
Julie Ward – (Royaume Uni – S&D)
Matt Carthy – (Irlande – GUE/NGL)
Ana Maria Gomes – Vice-présidente Commission d’enquête chargée d’examiner les allégations d’infraction et de mauvaise administration dans l’application du droit de l’Union en matière de blanchiment de capitaux, d’évasion fiscale et de fraude fiscale (PANA) – (Portugal – S&D)
Lynn Boylan – (Irlande – GUE/NGL)
Hilde Vautmans – (Belgique -ALDE)
Liadh Ní Riada – (Irlande – GUE/NGL)
Keith Taylor – (Royaume Uni – GREENS)
Joao Pimenta – Vice-président Commission des droits de la femme et de l’égalité des genres – Vice-président Délégation à l’Assemblée parlementaire euro-latinoaméricaine – (Portugal (GUE/NGL)
Miguel Urbán (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Xabier Benito Ziluaga – Vice-président Délégation pour les relations avec le Mercosur – (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Estefanía Torres Martínez – (Espagne – GUE/NGL)
Merja Kyllönen – (Finlande – GUE/NGL)
Curzio Maltese – (Italie – GUE/NGL)
Stelios Kouloglou – (Grèce – GUE/NGL)
Jozo RADOŠ (Croatia – ALDE)

Two Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Israeli prisons

1 December 2017

There are currently two Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails on hunger strike. Ali Barghouthi is on hunger strike for the fourth day; he launched his strike on 28 November in protest of the delay in medical treatment at the Ashkelon prison clinic. Barghouthi has been prescribed to receive a heart test and a CT scan, but the prison clinic has been delaying for over two months. This means that he has received no diagnosis for his ongoing health problems; he is suffering from chest pain and feels tiredness and pain when walking or moving.

Barghouthi, 45, is from the village of Abboud west of Ramallah. He is serving a life sentence for resisting the Israeli occupation as part of the Fateh movement and has been jailed since April 2004.

He joins the ongoing hunger strike of Salah al-Khawaja of the village of Ni’lin in Ramallah, who has been refusing food for 19 days consecutively in protest of his administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. He launched his hunger strike in protest of the renewal of his administrative detention order only one day before his scheduled release.

Khawaja was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 23 July 2017 and ordered to four months in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. These detention orders are indefinitely renewable; Palestinians have spent years at a time jailed under administrative detention orders. Khawaja is one of over 450 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial and a total of nearly 6,200 Palestinian political prisoners. Over the years, he has spent nearly 12 years in Israeli prisons through multiple arrests and detentions.

He is carrying out his hunger strike despite his own deteriorating health. He walks slowly and has lost significant weight, and he suffers from high blood pressure, diabetes and poor vision in his left eye.

Palestinian former hunger striker jailed without charge ordered into isolation by Israeli occupation

1 December 2017

Palestinian prisoner and former long-term hunger striker Ayman al-Tabeesh, 37, imprisoned without charge or trial by the Israeli occupation, has been ordered into isolation on the pretext of being a “security threat.” Al-Tabeesh, from the village of Dura near al-Khalil, has been imprisoned since 2 August 2016 with no charges and no trial on the basis of so-called “secret evidence.”

He has spent nearly 13 years in total in Israeli prisons through multiple re-arrests and has engaged in two long-term hunger strikes to demand his freedom. On Wednesday, 29 November, he was transferred from the Ofer prison to the Ohli Kedar isolation cells.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society emphasized that the Israeli occupation intelligence has a policy of isolation and unilaterally isolates many prisoners each year under the pretext of “secret evidence,” the same type of secret file that is used to jail al-Tabeesh. He is one of over 450 Palestinians jailed under administrative detention orders and 6,200 total Palestinian prisoners. In some cases, isolation orders are extended for years without any meaningful reason given to the detained person or their lawyer.

6 December, Bourg-en-Bresse: Public Meeting to Support Salah Hamouri

1 December 2017

Wednesday, 6 December
8:00 pm
21 A Allee de Challes
Bourg-en-Bresse, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/185962035301481/

Join the committee to support Salah Hamouri in Bourg-en-Bresse for an event with Jean-Claude Lefort, honorary deputy and the father-in-law of Salah Hamouri, arbitrarily imprisoned French-Palestinian lawyer.

5 December, Atlanta: Palestinian Prisoners and Human Rights with Sahar Francis

1 December 2017

Tuesday, 5 December
7:00 pm
Emory University, Rita Anne Rollins Building (RARB) 252, Candler School of Theology, Center for Ethics building
Atlanta, GA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/293377241169479/

Did you know that as of August 2017, there are more than 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails?

Join is for a critical discussion with Sahar Francis, the Executive Director the Palestinian Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Addameer. Francis will be on a US speaking tour, sharing information about Palestinian prisoner’s rights. We are so excited to be welcoming her to Atlanta!

EVENT INFO:
Tuesday December 5 at 7:00pm at Emory University
RARB (Rita Anne Rollins Building) 252
Candler School of Theology, Center for Ethics building
*Cosponsored by:
Jewish Voice for Peace-Atlanta,
Emory Students for Justice in Palestine
& Joining Hands for Justice in Israel and Palestine

4 December, Quimper: Freedom for Salah Hamouri!

1 December 2017

Monday, 4 December
8:30 pm
Halles St Francois
Quimper, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1988587821414005/

Public meeting with Jean-Claude Lefort, honorary deputy and father-in-law of Salah Hamouri. The young French-Palestinian lawyer is held without charge or trial in arbitrary administrative detention by the Israeli occupation since 23 August without charge or trial. Event organized by AFPS in Cornouaille with the support of PCF and other organizations.

2 December, Paris: Rally to Free Salah Hamouri

1 December 2017

Saturday, 2 December
6:00 pm
Place du Palais Royal
Paris, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/157960251620586/

This protest will bring people together to commemorate the 100th day in Israeli prison of French-Palestinian human rights defender and political prisoner Salah Hamouri. Hamouri has been imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 23 August 2017.

Today, France has merely “asked” for his release and expessed “dissatisfaction” with administrative detention. However, there is more that can be done to win his freedom.

This event will also salute the first 1,000 elected representatives who have mobilized to demand freedom for Salah Hamouri, a list that continues to grow. Netanyahu will be in Paris in early December, invited by French president Macron. The question of Salah Hamouri must be brought to the forefront on and before this occasion.

Protesters in New York urge HP boycott, freedom for Palestinian prisoners

1 December 2017

Samidoun activists in New York City organized a protest on Monday, 27 November to support imprisoned Palestinian hunger striker Salah al-Khawaja and all Palestinian prisoners. The protest also came as part of global actions in support of the boycott of Hewlett-Packard (HP) corporations for its involvement in profiteering from and selling technology to sustain the occupation, oppression and colonization of Palestine.

Protesters gathered outside the Best Buy electronics store in Manhattan’s Union Square on Monday evening, distributing flyers and leaflets to passers-by on the busy holiday shopping evening. The electronics store sells many HP consumer products, including laptops, tablets, printers, ink and computer accessories. HP corporations have contracts with a range of Israeli security and military agencies.

These include the Israel Prison Service – where they maintain the database software of Palestinian political prisoners – the Israeli identity card and checkpoint system, and the Israeli occupation navy that maintains the brutal and deadly siege on the Gaza Strip, where over 2 million Palestinians live in what has been described as an open-air prison. The Israeli occupation navy targets Palestinian fishers and fishing boats for destruction, arrest and even death with the help of HP technology.

There is a growing global movement to boycott HP and demand the corporation cut ties with the occupation. Churches, labor organizations, student groups and others have declared themselves HP-free zones, refusing to buy HP products until the corporation ends its profiteering from Israeli apartheid and colonization. Participants in the protest carried signs about HP’s role in propping up the Israeli assault on Palestinians and handed out leaflets with information on the HP boycott.

The protest also focused on the hunger strike of Palestinian prisoner Salah al-Khawaja, jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention. Khawaja, from the village of Nil’in, had been on hunger strike for 15 days after his administrative detention was extended one day before he was to be released.

There are currently nearly 450 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention out of nearly 6,200 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable and Palestinians have spent years at a time jailed with no charge. He is on hunger strike to demand an end to his imprisonment.

The New York protest came two days before 29 November, the 70th anniversary of the UN partition of Palestine and the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People. Protests took place in multiple other cities marking the day and highlighting the HP boycott, including Vancouver and Berlin.

Samidoun in New York will be participating in a number of upcoming events, including the weekly Monday protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners and to #StopHP, as well as the upcoming event to support Colombian political prisoner in U.S. jails, Simon Trinidad, on 5 December, and the Anarchist Black Cross annual holiday party to send cards to U.S.-held political prisoners in Brooklyn on 3 December.

Samidoun: Leila Khaled denied entry to Italy in political attack on Palestinian rights

28 November 2017

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces in the strongest terms the denial of entry and deportation of Palestinian leftist figure, national leader and resistance icon Leila Khaled at Italy’s Leonardo da Vinci – Rome Fiumicino Airport today, Tuesday, 28 November.

This action evidences the complicity of the European Union and European states with the Israeli occupation as well as its capitulation to the racist demands of the Zionist movement and the fascist right-wing forces. This is a political action that constitutes a flagrant attack on the rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of their national leaders to travel and to be heard, and also an attack on the Palestinian community in Italy and throughout Europe in an attempt to besiege and isolate Palestinians in exile from one another.

We stand in solidarity with Leila Khaled, with the Arab-Palestinian Democratic Union (UDAP) of Italy and with the Palestinian people who continue to resist all forms of injustice, siege and oppression and struggle for return and liberation.

We reprint the statement below from UDAP, the organizers of Leila Khaled’s tour of Italy:

Leila Khaled denied entry to Italy

A statement by the Arab Palestinian Democratic Union (UDAP)

Today, Tuesday, 28 November 2017, Leila Khaled was stopped at Leonardo da Vinci – Rome Fiumicino Airport. The Palestinian leader was denied entry to Italy and forced to depart on the next flight to Amman.

This incident took place following repeated and extensive media attacks and intense pressure by the Zionist lobby in Italy. In the days before her arrival, many newspapers published sensationalist and defamatory articles about the tour of Leila Khaled in Italy.

The forced repatriation of comrade Leila Khaled is only a demonstration of the failure of Italian institutions and their inability to escape Zionist blackmail. It is clear how much they fear this clear, free and consistent voice. Leila Khaled had a visa to Europe that was revoked here, in Rome, at landing. Less than a month ago, she was in Spain and Belgium and held a conference in the European Parliament.

Despite the pressures, defamations and provocations, despite the deportation imposed on our comrade by the Italian authorities, the Arab-Palestinian Democratic Union (UDAP) will continue to hold its events, during which Leila Khaled will speak with us over a live video link.

The “Fifty Years of Resistance” events are still confirmed.

Arab Palestinian Democratic Union (UDAP) – Rome

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