4 September, Alès: Rally for freedom for Salah Hamouri

3 September 2017

Monday, 4 September
10:30 am
prefecture d’Alès
Alès, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1945585372378139/

First signatories of the call to rally for the immediate release of Salah Hamouri French-Palestinian lawyer:
Attac Alès, AFPS Alès Cévennes, CiMADE Alès , Ensemble, FSU, LDH, NPA Alès, section PCF Alès, UL CGT Alès…

On the night of Wednesday, 23 August, the occupation army came to arrest Salah Hamouri in his home and took him to a detention center in Jerusalem. He was heard by a judge for 20 minutes and placed in isolation, where he remains. He has not been charged, instead he is detained under the pretext of a “secret file.”

On 29 August, after his lawyers negotiated conditions for his release, he was instead ordered to administrative detention for six months without charge or trial.

We solemnly call on the French head of state to intervene strongly with the Israei authorities as he did for two French compatriots imprisoned in Turkey.

We continue to mobilize to break the silence of the French authorities and demand from Benjamin Netanyahu the liberation of our fellow citizen. Salah Hamouri must not spend another day in Israeli jails. We are determined to obtain justice.

5 September, Paris: Support Committee for Salah Hamouri

3 September 2017

Tuesday, 5 September
7:00 pm
CICP
21ter Rue Voltaire, 75011 Paris, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/141413523127420/

Appeal of Elsa Lefort , Salah Hamouri’s wife , for the formation of a support committee:

“Following the arbitrary arrest by the Israeli army of Salah Hamouri, a Franco-Palestinian lawyer, on August 23 at his home in East Jerusalem, many people mobilized on social networks to demand action by the French government to obtain his release. On 29 August, he was ordered held in administrative detention for an initial period of six months by Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli Minister of Defense.

Since this announcement, the mobilization has grown and we have decided to set up a support committee composed of organizations and citizens in support of justice and the defense of human rights.

We invite you to meet on Tuesday, September 5th, at 7 pm, at the CICP, to lay the foundations of this mobilization with all those who wish to join!

4 September, Paris: Rally to Free Salah Hamouri!

3 September 2017

Monday, 4 September
6:00 pm
Place de la Bataille de Stalingrad
March at 6:30 pm to Republique
75019 Paris
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1936959996575903/

Organized by the Association France-Palestine Solidarite

On Thursday, 31 August, Salah Hamouri’s lawyers were granted an extension until Tuesday, 5 September for his administrative detention order to be confirmed.

AFPS, along with other organizations of the National Collective for a Just and Lasting Peace between Palestinians and Israelis, calls for a demonstration for the release of Salah Hamouri.

Let us be many to support Salah and ask the French authorities to act!

French action alert for Salah: http://www.france-palestine.org/Mobilisation-pour-la-liberation-de-Salah-Hamouri

4 September, NYC: Protest to free Hassan Abu Rish and #StopHP

3 September 2017

Monday, 4 September
4:30 pm
Best Buy – Union Square
52 E. 14th St, NYC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1546599738760043/

Palestinian teen organizer Hassan Abu Rish was seized in the early morning hours of Monday, August 21 by Israeli occupation forces who invaded his family home in the Jerusalem village of Ezzariyeh. Hassan, who is 16 years old, is active in the Nabed (“Pulse”) youth forum in his village; Nabed is a social and cultural forum and group for Palestinian youth looking toward social change, justice and liberation from occupation, colonialism and apartheid.

Hassan has been very concerned by the plight of Palestinian political prisoners and interested in raising the profile of imprisoned Palestinians – especially youth – on an international level. His family has been touched by imprisonment before, as his brother has been jailed three times by Israeli occupation forces. He also plays drums with the Scouts Youth Club of Ezzariyeh.

Hassan is among hundreds of Palestinian children who are repeatedly arrested and jailed by Israeli occupation forces. There are currently over 300 Palestinian child prisoners held at Megiddo and Ofer prisons, and Palestinian children seized by Israeli occupation forces have repeatedly testified to their abuse, mistreatment and torture under arrest, including beatings, kicking, humiliation, intimidation and threats to their family members. In addition, 22 Palestinian teens have been imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention in the past two years.

Hassan was among 25 Palestinians seized in mass arrest raids conducted by Israeli occupation forces in the pre-dawn hours on Monday, August 21. Ma’an News reported that there is a biweekly average of 85 search and detention raids carried out by occupation forces according to the United Nations. These raids are often heavily violent and involve massive weaponry, home invasions, ransacking of belongings and explosions of doors, and often target children like Hassan.

Stand with Hassan to demand that Israel release him, 319 other detained children and all 6,128 Palestinian political prisoners, and that Hewlett Packard companies end their contracts with Israeli prisons and detention centers, occupation and security forces, and checkpoints and settlements.

Help build a growing international campaign to 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.

7 September, Avignon: Rally – Freedom for Salah

31 August 2017

Thursday, 7 September
6:30 pm – 8:30 pm
Prefecture de Vaucluse
84000 Avignon, France
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/2024248407845890/

CALL FOR THE RELEASE OF SALAH HAMOURI

On August 23, 2017, we learned from Elsa Lefort about the arrest of Palestinian-French human rights defender Salah Hamouri: “Salah Hamouri was arrested last night at our home in East Jerusalem by the army of occupation, in his sleep. As often, the military authorities gave no reason for his arrest and we have little information about his detention; he has not been able to contact anyone. Action is needed to protect and secure the release of our fellow citizen who is once again subjected to Israeli arbitrariness.”

We communist activists condemn this arbitrary arrest of our fellow citizen and demand his release as soon as possible.

Organized by Jeunes Communistes Vaucluse – MJCF 84 and PCF 84 – Parti communiste français

2 September, Paris: Build the BDS Campaign, Free Salah Hamouri, Break the Siege of Gaza

31 August 2017

Saturday, 2 September
3 pm to 6 pm
Place Saint-Michel
Paris, France
Metro Ligne 4 and RER C at Saint-Michel
More info: www.europalestine.com

Israel worsened this summer its colonization, repression and the detention of Palestinians.

The people in Gaza under siege are terribly suffering without electricity, drinkable water nor medicines. Everyday children and adults are dying because Israel prevents them from getting treatment (cancer, dialysis, cystic fibrosis…)

In East Jerusalem, not only more and more Palestinian houses are demolished but Israel tries to get hold on Al-Aqsa Mosque!

More than 3800 Palestinians have been arrested and jailed since the beginning of this year.

And among them is Salah Hamouri, 32, who is Palestinian and French. He is a lawyer defending Palestinian prisoners, working with Addameer, and has just been kidnapped at his home in East Jerusalem on the 22nd of August, and has been condemned to 6 months of ” administrative detention “, i.e without any charge or trial.

He had already been imprisoned for 7 years in 2005 for being close to the Popular Front of Liberation of Palestine. He could have chosen after that to live a quiet life in France with his French spouse and their child.

But he decided to stay in Palestine in order to defend his people. And Israel has kept punishing him since then. His wife Elsa is banned from entering Palestine. She was prevented to give birth to their child in Palestine, and now he got arrested and imprisoned. Israel wants to show what happens to those who don’t give up the fight for their rights.

We are calling to join a demonstration in Paris this Saturday, September 2

We are also stressing the importance and the success of the BDS campaign, in spite of all kinds of intimidation and blackmailing with accusations of antisemitism everywhere.

And we congratulate our British comrades who occupied the Israeli Elbit arms factory near Birmingham which had to close for two days last July, !

They will appear in court and their trial will take place on September 13.
You can send them a message of solidarity at : adie_mormech@hotmail.com and, if you can, come to support them on the 13th of September !

CAPJPO-EuroPalestine
www.europalestine.com – info@europalestine.com

1 September, Orleans: Freedom for Salah Hamouri!

31 August 2017

Friday, 1 September
6:00 pm
Place d’Arc
Orleans, France
More information: https://npa45.org/2017/08/30/liberte-pour-salah-hamouri-rassemblement-vendredi-01-09-a-18h-place-darc-a-orleans/

Join the protest called by Palestine 45, UJFP, Mouvement de la Paix, OLP, NPA, PCF and others to demand freedom for French-Palestinian human rights defender Salah Hamouri, who has been ordered to imprisonment without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention.

Call on the French state to take action to defend the rights of their citizen, especially prior to the hearing to confirm his administrative detention on 5 September.

New York protesters demand: #StopHP and free Nael Barghouthi and all Palestinian prisoners

30 August 2017

Protesters in New York City gathered outside the Best Buy electronics store in Union Square to demand freedom for jailed Palestinian Nael Barghouthi, the longest-held Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails. They also urged the boycott of Hewlett-Packard (HP) electronics like computers, tablets, printers, accessories and ink due to the corporation’s involvement in the imprisonment of Palestinians and other aspects of Israeli apartheid.

Participants distributed information to passers-by and Best Buy shoppers about the growing international campaign to boycott HP products. An increasing number of churches and labor unions are becoming “HP-free zones” in protest of the global electronics corporation’s profiteering from Israeli apartheid. HP doesn’t only provide database systems to the Israel Prison Service; it is integrally involved in the creation of the ID card and checkpoint system used to control Palestinian movement and enforce apartheid as well as in IT services to the Israeli occupation military, including naval forces imposing siege on Gaza.

The protest, organized by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, highlighted the case of Nael Barghouthi, 59, from the Palestinian village of Kobar in the occupied West Bank of Palestine. He has spent over 36 years in Israeli prisons. Released in 2011 in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange, he was detained once more in a roundup of dozens of former prisoners in 2014 in an attempt to pressure the Palestinian resistance. Many of these prisoners have had their original sentences reimposed.

Barghouthi was ordered to a 30-month sentence; however, he was not released on schedule because of a pending appeal for a higher sentence by the Israeli military prosecution. On 22 February, his prior sentence of life imprisonment plus 18 years, for involvement in Palestinian resistance actions in the 1970s, was reimposed. His wife, a fellow former prisoner, Iman Nafie, has pledged to keep escalating the struggle for his immediate release.

Protesters also found themselves engaged in conversation to express support for U.S. held Black liberation prisoners like Dr. Mutulu Shakur. Imprisoned since 1986, Shakur was a struggler for civil rights and Black liberation for decades, accused of involvement in bank robberies and other actions to support the Black Liberation movement in the United States and free imprisoned struggler Assata Shakur. Today, within U.S. prisons, Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a member of the New African People’s Organization and the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. Samidoun activists joined Black passers-by who raised the case with protesters in calling together for freedom for Dr. Shakur and all of the political prisoners held in U.S. jails.

As in Barghouthi’s case, Shakur is a long-held political prisoner who was scheduled for release – later denied arbitrarily by the U.S. government as he remains imprisoned. He was set for release on 10 February 2016, but instead was only scheduled for a parole hearing on 4 April 2016. “Dr. Mutulu Shakur is being illegally detained in Federal prison beyond his release date because of his past and ongoing contributions to the human rights, self-determination and liberation of not only his nation New Afrika, but to the freedom and justice for all oppressed peoples,” wrote MXGM.

The participants in the action also expressed their congratulations to Samidoun activist Nick Maniace, who had been unjustly and illegally arrested by the NYPD at the Al-Quds Day protest on 23 June for chanting “Free Palestine” through a megaphone. The ticket and charges were never presented in court because the police failed to provide “legally acceptable” documentation.

This is only the latest incident in an ongoing pattern of NYPD repression of Palestine demonstrations, including assaulting protesters and illegal arrests. Of course, this comes on top of the police department’s lengthy history of racial profiling and intense spying on Arab and Muslim communities, and its violent record of attacks, repression and racism targeting, in particular, New York’s Black and Latinx communities.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will continue to organize actions and events in coming weeks to support freedom for the nearly 6,200 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and the liberation of Palestine’s land and people, including the return of millions of Palestinian refugees in exile and diaspora.

31 August, Paris: Rally for the release of Salah Hamouri

30 August 2017

Thursday, 31 August
4:30 pm
Metro Invalides
75007 Paris
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1091414057655276/

The Association France-Palestine Solidarity, together with the other organizations of the National Collective for a Just and Sustainable Peace between Palestinians and Israelis (CNPJDPI) calls for a rally for the release of Salah Hamouri.

The rally will take place on Thursday, 31 August at 4:30 pm at Invalides, in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where AFPS has requested a delegation be received at 5 pm.

The call is based on the AFPS statement of 29 August, as below:

http://www.france-palestine.org/Salah-Hamouri-la-France-doit-agir-d-urgence-pour-sa-liberation

Salah Hamouri: France must act urgently for his release

Arrested on 23 August by the Israeli army of occupation for no reason, Salah Hamouri, a French-Palestinian citizen, has been ordered to 6 months of administrative detention. While Salah Hamouri’s release conditions were under discussion at the court hearing this morning (Tuesday, 29 August), a six-month administrative detention order was requested by Israeli government officials. We see that the separation of powers is an unknown concept of this state which claims to be the only democracy in the Near and Middle East.

Administrative detention is one of the weapons used by the Israeli authorities to keep Palestinians in prison without having to provide any justification, even a pretext. The “secret file” remains unknown to the accused and his lawyers. Indefinitely renewable for up to six months at a time, it can be used to hold a person in prison infinitely without any charge ever being laid againstcan keep an opponent indefinitely in prison without any charge being meant to him. Thus, dozens of Palestinian political prisoners have spent several years in prison without knowing the reasons for their detention.

Despite the strong mobilization for his release, we do not know whether the French authorities intervened at the level of the State and the government. To date, no public statements have been made. Could we know why a French-Palestinian lawyer imprisoned in Israel would not be given the same consideration as other French detainees abroad?

The court has 48 hours, that is, until Thursday, to confirm or contest this request from the Israeli government.

We call on our fellow citizens to continue to act firmly, quickly and relentlessly! To demand that the French authorities assume their responsibilities.

We once again call upon the President of the French Republic and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to intervene with determination in a strong, visible and public way vis-à-vis the Israeli government and its representation in France so that our fellow citizen is freed.

Freedom for Salah Hamouri!

The AFPS National Office
29 August 2017

Thaer Halahleh boycotts military courts in protest of imprisonment without charge or trial

30 August 2017

Palestinian prisoner Thaer Halahleh, held without charge or trial under an Israeli administrative detention order, is boycotting the Israeli military courts and has been doing so since he was rearrested on 27 April 2017. Halahleh has spent over nine years in Israeli prison, including 6 1/2 years in administrative detention, jailed without charge or trial, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.

Several days ago, his administrative detention was renewed for another four months, his second since he was seized by occupation forces on 27 April. His lawyer, Mahmoud al-Halabi, said that the number of administrative detainees who refuse to attend the military courts has escalated, especially among those who have spent years in administrative detention.

The orders are issued on the basis of secret evidence and are indefinitely renewable, so Palestinians can spend years at a time held without charge or trial. In Halahleh’s case, he has spent the majority of the past five years in Israeli prisons, with only a few months’ break between his release and a new seizure by occupation forces, only to find himself imprisoned once again with no charges against him and not even the opportunity for a military court trial. He was most recently released in October 2016 before being seized again in April 2017; had been imprisoned without charge or trial since July 2014. Prior to that arrest, he had been released in May 2014 after being held without charge or trial since April 2013.

Halahleh, 35, suffers from Hepatitis C, contracted during a dental operation in Israeli prisons where improper sterilization was used. During his previous imprisonment, Halahleh was denied family visits with his wife and children for seven months, and received only painkillers as treatment for his illness. He previously won his release from an earlier administrative detention in 2012 with a 77-day hunger strike. There are currently nearly 500 Palestinians held without charge or trial, out of approximately 6,200 Palestinian political prisoners in total in Israeli jails.

The use of administrative detention has been widely noted to have grown in August, including its use against both Palestinian youth under 18 as well as Palestinian citizens of Israel. On Sunday, 27 August, the central court in Haifa extended the administrative detention order against Alaa Tawil Jabarin, 22, from Umm al-Fahm, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, for our more months. This is the sixth detention of young Palestinians from ’48 occupied Palestine under administrative detention, without charge or trial, in recent months.

A number of lawyers and political leaders of Palestinian organizations in ’48 Palestine have urged attention to the growing use of administrative detention, especially under the pretext of social media postings.

Meanwhile, Palestinian minors like Nour Issa, 16, are also being held under administrative detention. He is not alone; there are 320 Palestinian child prisoners currently held in Israeli jails and dozens of Palestinian teens have been subjected to imprisonment without charge or trial in the past year.

Meanwhile, Palestinian political leaders like Khalida Jarrar, Khitam Saafin and other members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are also held under administrative detention alongside human rights defenders like Salah Hamouri.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Thaer Halahleh and his fellow administrative detainees for their boycott of the occupation military courts and demands the immediate release of all Palestinians held without charge or trial and the abolition of administrative detention, as well as the release of all Palestinians in Israeli jails.

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