Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its solidarity with the Moroccan people in the Rif and throughout the country in their struggle for social justice, and urges the immediate release of all political detainees and prisoners in Moroccan jails.
The Moroccan monarchy and government not only engages in a policy of marginalization and deprivation in the Rif, but also is engaged in normalization with the Israeli state. Morocco’s trade with Israel has reached over $50 million annually at the same time that the Palestinian movement is urging international boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli state.
Since 26 May, the popular movement in the Rif has been hit by a wave of arrests and repression, with over 85 men and women seized by the authorities or otherwise disappeared. The popular movement is based on social and economic struggle, including demands for access to education, decent work, infrastructure and public services and an end to the militarization of the region.
For years, there have been waves of strikes, protests, and popular organizing throughout the country, yet we see that the repressive grasp of security forces and violations of people’s and human rights have reached to a higher level of oppression and escalation. The current struggles in the Rif and throughout Morocco have grown because of this very oppression, and stem from years of protest and struggle by the Moroccan people in the face of harsh repression that have included attacks on protests and killings inside prisons.
For example, we remember the student activist Abderrazak El Gadiri, shot dead by Moroccan security forces in 2009 while participating in a solidarity march against the Israeli attack on Gaza, “Operation Cast Lead,” as we remember Mohsine Fikri, the impoverished fish vendor crushed to death as he attempted to retrieve his goods. All of these workers’ struggles and social and liberation movements have grown from the Moroccan people’s long history of struggle and confrontation against both French and Spanish colonialism, for national liberation and social justice. Palestinian progressive and left organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, have expressed their solidarity with the protesters “struggling for their just and legitimate rights, especially under conditions of deprivation, isolation and the policy of marginalization.”
We stand in solidarity with this social justice struggle and add our voice to the many calling for justice and freedom for the political prisoners in Moroccan prisons, including the recent detainees of the social justice movement, Sahrawi prisoners – including those on hunger strike to demand their freedom in their struggle for self-determination, and political prisoners of the workers’ and students’ movements. We support the struggle for an end to political detention and torture. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges participation in the protests and events taking place internationally to call for freedom for political prisoners and detainees in Morocco and to support the struggle for social justice.
Palestinian student and youth activist Nassar Jaradat was seized in Ramallah three days ago, on 8 June, by Palestinian Authority security forces. Since that time he has been held in the offices of the Palestinian Authority Preventive Security. On Saturday, 10 June, a PA court in Ramallah extended his detention for 15 days on the basis of a public Facebook post he made criticizing PA official Jibril Rajoub for comments in an Israeli TV interview regarding Jerusalem.
Jaradat, 23, is a student of agricultural engineering at Al-Quds Open University as well as an active youth organizer.
Rajoub’s comments – in which he declared that al-Buraq Wall (the Western Wall) in Jerusalem would “remain under Israeli sovereignty,” were widely denounced by Palestinians. The Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe declared that “the statements of Mr. Jibril Rajoub come precisely in line with the positions of the leaders of the racist Zionist entity. They also come directly before the 50th anniversary of the aggression and expansion of occupation of 1967….The positions of Mr. Jibril Rajoub are an insult to the Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nation.”
The arrest of Jaradat comes as part of a Palestinian Authority policy of arresting Palestinians for voicing their political opinions on Facebook; other activists, like Seif al-Idrissi and Kifah Quzmar, have been seized in the past for Facebook posts. Both now are imprisoned in Israeli prisons, illustrating the “revolving door” nature of PA arrests and imprisonment by the Israeli occupation, often linked to PA security coordination with Israel.
The dangers posed by security coordination to Palestinian organizers were highlighted in recent Palestinian and international demonstrations marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, marking the 40th day after the Israeli assassination of Basil al-Araj, pursued by the Israeli occupation after being released from PA prison; he and his comrades’ arrest was trumpeted by PA officials, including PA President Mahmoud Abbas, as a triumph of security coordination.
Khaled Barakat, Palestinian leftist writer and international spokesperson of the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, said that “This is a very dangerous path that the Palestinian Authority is taking, targeting people and the resistance. What Nassar Jaradat did is to express his opinion and rejection of Jibril Rajoub’s statement to the Zionist media. The Palestinian Authority is particularly targeting young, dedicated organizers with a vision of liberation for Palestine. No one knows exactly how many Palestinian political detainees are held right now in Palestinian Authority jails or Preventive Security centers,” he said, demanding Jaradat’s immediate release and that of fellow political detainees.
Barakat also criticized the “silence of some Palestininan human rights organizations when it comes to the practices of the PA, especially when those PA policies – and continued ‘security coordination’ with the Israeli occupation – operate hand in hand with Israeli attacks and mass arrests against the Palestinian people.”
“All of this is an indication that the catastrophic political path that the PA is marching towards. They are gambling with the Palestinian people’s rights in full coordination with the Israeli occupation and under the supervision of Trump’s supervision and conditions,” said Barakat.
Nassar Jaradat’s Facebook post:
Translation: “To give what you don’t own, personally, to those who do not deserve it. This is the essence of deceiving and the terror of concessions…to appear in the enemy media, by competing with time, you and your ilk from the Fateh leadership, you make concessions and promote yourself in order to be accepted by the surroundings and to impose yourself as an alternative to the “old man” and a good inheritor who can be “dealt with”..
At the expense of the land that is sacred land of the Islamic Waqf and belongs to the Moroccan Quarter and the Moroccan pilgrimage. We have nothing that we must do except to protect this land. We are betraying and deceiving over the entire time of the existence of the Authority. Words remain words, and no taxes on words, as long as the coming stage is one of people’s revolution who will not accept that you will be part of its fabric. This is not the way camels are led to water [a traditional phrase meaning “Not on your way”], Jibril Rajoub!”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the arrest of Nassar Jaradat and demands his immediate release and that of fellow Palestinian political detainees in PA prisons. We join our voices with Palestinian organizations and organizers demanding an end to Palestinian Authority security coordination with the Israeli occupation. It is very important for Palestinian communities in exile and international supporters of the Palestinian people and Palestinian cause to make their voices heard to the PA to demand the release of Nassar Jaradat and an end to security coordination and political detention.
Take Action!
1. Email the Palestinian Embassy or PLO Mission in your country. Click here for a list of contact information. Make it clear that Palestinians around the world and international activists stand together to confront occupation, end security coordination, and free Nassar Jaradat and fellow political detainees.
2. Call the Palestinian Embassy or PLO Mission. This is a case where phone calls can make a real difference! Palestinians and internationals around the world can raise their voice and demand action.Phone numbers for some missions follow: PLO Delegation in Washington, DC: 202-974-6360. Palestinian Mission to the UN: 212-288-8500. Palestinian General Delegation in Ottawa, Canada: 613-736-0053. Palestinian Mission UK: +44 (0)20 8563 0008. More may be found here!
3. Join social media actions to #FreeNassarJaradat. Friends, family and supporters of Nassar Jaradat have launched a facebook page to support his case and are encouraging Twitter and Facebook users to share photos of Nassar, the Facebook page and other posts about him with the hashtags #FreeNassar and #FreeNassarJaradat.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network participated in a forum in New York City organized by the International League of People’s Struggles, the United National Antiwar Coalition and the International Action Center on Tuesday, 6 June.
Joe Catron of Samidoun spoke at the Solidarity Forum, dedicated to the discussion of rebuilding anti-war and anti-imperialist organizing in the United States, with a presentation on Palestinian political prisoners, the recent hunger Strike for Freedom and Dignity and the ongoing Palestinian struggle for liberation as well as solidarity actions and campaigns, such as the BDS campaign to #StopHP for its involvement in contracting with and profiteering from Israeli imprisonment, occupation, colonialism and apartheid.
I’d like to start by honoring the deaths of Saba Abid, Mutaz Bani Shamsa, and Raed Ahmad Radayda. They were the three young Palestinian men, between 15 and 23 years old, gunned down by Israeli soldiers and a settler while protesting in support of Palestinian political prisoners’ Strike of Freedom and Dignity. When we discuss the strike and its gains, their sacrifices should be foremost in our minds.
And the gains for which they fought and died are worth celebrating. Through Palestinian prisoners’ 40 days on hunger strike, they won improvements to their education, family visits, food, health care, recreational facilities, telephone access, transportation and general conditions.
Many of these changes will drastically improve the lives of prisoners. More than 140 children who had been denied family visits will be able to see their imprisoned parents. Prisoners being transported between courts and prisons will get meals and bathroom breaks. And cooling and ventilation systems will make the coming summer months more tolerable for thousands in Israel’s crowded prison blocks.
The biggest concession may have been won not from Israel, but the International Committee of the Red Cross. In May 2016, the ICRC, which coordinates family visits to Palestinian prisoners, announced drastic cuts to the program, slashing visits to most prisoners by half, to one per month. After over a year of protests inside and outside the prisons, including the strike, the ICRC agreed to restore visits to their earlier level.
The mere fact that prisoners were forced to launch a hunger strike targeting a supposedly neutral body mandated to protect their rights is obscene. And the ICRC’s intransigence in continuing to deny prisoners a right as basic as regular family visits until the strike had lasted for over a month should make clear to all of us where it stands in the struggle between Palestinians and the Israeli occupation.
But the strike’s most lasting impact may lie not in the concessions it won from the occupation and its accomplices, but rather its role as a focus for continued Palestinian resistance.
On April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and the day the strike began, Marwan Barghouti, an imprisoned Palestinian parliamentarian, wrote in the New York Times, “Israel’s prisons have become the cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination. This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom.”
At its end, Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and, like Barghouti, a leader of the strike, repeated the metaphor of the compass.
On May 28, he wrote, “This victory has important implications: first, to reaffirm the fact that rights can only be taken and never begged for, and that the resistance was the main lever for all of the achievements of the Palestinian people in the successive eras of the revolution. Second, that the different factions of the prisoners’ movement and the atmosphere of division did not prevent the unity of action of all of the national and Islamic factions on the fields of confrontation, as long as the compass of struggle remained directed at the primary contradiction with the occupation. The third significant point is that the confrontation does not end with the strike; instead, it must continue in order to strengthen the achievements of the strike, expand them and build on them. This is critical to rebuild and unify the body of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and expand its role to exit the situation of fragmentation and division and instead present a living model to our people to bring forward sincere efforts to advance the Palestinian cause from this current crisis and the framework of division.”
The challenge he describes the strike as posing to the political division and social fragmentation of the Palestinian people and their national movement, cultivated by Israel and its supporters over decades, comes at a time when Israeli and allied forces seek to further strengthen these strategic advantages for the occupation.
In 1969, the Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine, the foundational text of contemporary Palestinian leftism, analyzed the enemies facing the Palestinian people.
It concluded that these enemies included not only Israel itself, but also the world Zionist movement, world imperialism led by the United States, and Arab reaction represented by feudalism and capitalism.
Today, these are the very forces we see working together to foment chaos and bloodshed across the Arab world, particularly in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
Together, they funnel arms and other material support to the most reactionary and sectarian forces while both politically isolating and militarily bombarding any supporters of Palestinians and other liberation movements.
Inside Palestine, they work hand-in-hand to crush any semblance of resistance by Palestinians while reinforcing divisions among Palestinian factions, and the limited self-rule projects in Ramallah and Gaza.
While I certainly don’t have time to analyze it extensively, here I should mention the current diplomatic offensive against Qatar by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Egypt, and Bahrain, plus the nominal, Western-backed governments controlling portions of Yemen and Libya.
Over the past two days, each has severed its diplomatic ties with Qatar, ordered the expulsion of Qatari citizens, and for Qatar’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf, imposed closures on it by land, air and sea.
Qatar is hardly a friend of either the Palestinian struggle or religious pluralism.
But statements by leaders of the states aligned against it make clear that their key motives include its insufficient sectarianism, in terms of its cooperative development of the world’s biggest natural gas field, which it shares with Iran, and its unwillingness to completely crush Palestinian resistance.
Coming fresh on the heels of Donald Trump’s Riyadh summit, which aimed to create what White House officials have called an “Arab NATO,” targeting Iran and quietly including Israel, the US role is obvious.
Similarly, as the Trump administration demands unprecedented concessions from the Palestinian Authority, including an end to even token support for Palestinians targeted by Israel for their resistance, its closest Arab allies, led by the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are openly scheming to impose new, Israel-friendly leadership in Gaza and Ramallah.
But these attempts face the Dignity Strike, and the broad Palestinian mobilization in support of it, which show the leadership that the unites the Palestinian people are inside Israeli prisons, united in their determination to resist encroachments on Palestinian land and freedom.
And in a year filled with historic anniversaries for Palestine – a decade after Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip, 50 years since its military seizure of the Strip and the West Bank, as well as Syria’s Golan Heights, approaching 70 years of the Nakba, or ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and a century after the United Kingdom’s Balfour Declaration – the strike, and the Palestinian prisoners’ movement overall, are a compass pointing towards further resistance, until liberation and return.
For those of us here tonight, I think our tasks are relatively clear. We must create further space for Palestinian struggle, from the prison blocks to the popular protests to the resistance brigades, by weakening the racist, settler-colonial State of Israel, particularly its key pillars of support – Zionism and imperialism – within the United States.
I’m proud of the work Samidoun and our partner organizations have done to advance the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, helping to drive the world’s biggest security company, G4S, out of Israeli prisons, settlements and checkpoints and building awareness of Hewlett Packard’s complicity in Israel’s political imprisonment and other crimes against Palestinians.
I also think that all of us – not only Samidoun as a small organization, but also much larger solidarity, Palestinian and anti-war movements – need to think critically about what it would mean to seriously target imperialist and Zionist support for Israel, with a clear focus on their flagship project: the $3.8 billion dollars in annual military aid that makes Israel’s crimes possible.
For now, I’ll leave you with a favorite quote from Palestinian prisoner and leader Ameer Makhoul. He wrote it in the aftermath of a hunger strike through which Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan won his freedom in 2012. I think his words are no less relevant today:
“This battle highlighted the bankruptcy of the discourse of ‘moderation’ which Israel and the US have foisted on the official Palestinian leadership. This moderate stance claims that if we Palestinians wish to secure international support, we must adopt a moderate posture. In practice, this means voluntarily accepting the oppressive controls imposed by the globalized terror of the state. ‘Moderation’ here means abandoning the right to resist the occupying state.
“Yet what we have just witnessed is that the world lends support when Palestinians themselves fight back and stand firm, regardless of their political affiliation. The ability to affect and move international public opinion and secure effective wide-scale solidarity was not the outcome of a public relations strategy but of a real struggle on the ground to stand up to the oppressive colonialist machine.
Three prominent Palestinian activists were ordered to additional periods of administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. Palestinian journalist Hasan Safadi, youth organizer Hassan Karajah and leftist community leader Rami Fadayel, all of Ramallah, were ordered to further imprisonment without charge or trial by Israeli military courts.
Fadayel, 37, has been imprisoned for 18 months under administrative detention; this is the fourth time the order against him has been renewed. He has spent over seven years in total in Israeli prisons and was ordered to another four months of imprisonment without charge or trial. He was hit with another four-month detention order on Wednesday, 7 June.
Rami Fadayel
Haneen Nassar, Fadayel’s wife and an organizer with the Palestinian Prisoners’ Committee, a popular organization in Palestine that works to support the prisoners’ struggle and demand their freedom, said that she and her husband have never been able to enjoy a free and safe life since their marriage. Fadayel has been arrested repeatedly; they marked their engagement while he was imprisoned. She noted that their daughter, Mays, 10, has not seen her father in their home for nearly half of her life.
Fadayel is well-known in Ramallah as a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian leftist political party. Nasser noted that his administrative detention has been repeatedly renewed under the pretext of a “secret file;” all of the appeals of his lawyer have been rejected.
Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention orders can be detained indefinitely; these one- to six-month orders can be repeatedly renewed on the basis of so-called “secret evidence.” There are currently over 500 Palestinian administrative detainees imprisoned by the Israeli occupation. Some Palestinians have spent years at a time under administrative detention on the basis of this so-called secret evidence. Over 50,000 administrative detention orders have reportedly been issued since 1967; the practice dates from the colonial British mandate over Palestine and was re-imposed by the Israeli occupation.
Safadi, 26, has been imprisoned since 1 May 2016, when he was seized by Israeli occupation forces as he crossed the Karameh/Allenby bridge between Jordan and Palestine, returning from an Arab youth conference organized in Tunisia. After 40 days of interrogation in the Moskobiyeh interrogation center, he was ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial, which has since been renewed twice. His new administrative detention order is scheduled to expire on 8 December 2017.
Hassan Karajah
Hassan Karajah, a prominent youth activist with the Stop the Wall Campaign and a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activist, was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 12 July 2016 at a military checkpoint west of Ramallah. He has been held under administrative detention without charge or trial since that time; his detention was also renewed on 7 June 2017 for the third time for a four-month period.
Karajah was previously arrested on 23 January 2013 and freed on 19 October 2014, accused of participation in a prohibited organization and contact with an enemy state, an allegation frequently used to target Palestinians who travel to conferences and events in Lebanon and other Arab countries.
These orders came after the Ofer military court confirmed even more administrative detention orders on Wednesday, 7 July. The military court approved six-month detention orders against Raed Abd al-Admu of al-Khalil, Tayseer Maher Hamed, Mohammed Badr al-Alouneh, Islam Fayeq Nimer of Ramallah and Suhaib Ahmed Mohammed of Tulkarem. It approved four-month imprisonment orders against Nidal Hashim Abdel Hadi and Yousef Ahmed Nasser of Jenin and Khalil Hassan Hamed, Ayman Naim Hamed, Hamza Ibrahim Zahran and Omar Mohammed Abu Latifa of Ramallah. It also affirmed a two-month detention order against Rabie Mohammed Musallah of Jenin.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the continued imprisonment without charge or trial of Rami Fadayel, Hasan Safadi and Hassan Karajah, all Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention and all Palestinian prisoners. We express our utmost solidarity with Rami, Hasan and Hassan and pledge to organize for their freedom and that of their fellow prisoners, and urge all organizers for Palestine to join us in escalated international campaigns to expose and put an end to the use of administrative detention to imprison hundreds of Palestinians, often targeting community leaders, journalists and youth activists like these three organizers.
Palestinian women prisoners said that the Israel Prison Service conceded to their demands following their protests, said lawyer Taghreed Jahshan after meeting with Palestinian women prisoners in HaSharon prison on Thursday, 8 June.
Palestinian activist Amna Hamid spoke in Gaza City at an event in solidarity with the Palestinian women prisoners organized by Mohja al-Quds Foundation, emphasizing the importance of continuous international solidarity with the Palestinian women prisoners. “The prisoners’ demands are clearly legitimate. They are rejecting the repressive policy of the occupation against the prisoners. There is no secret of the inhumane violations of the occupation against the prisoners, especially under interrogation and of medical neglect.” She called for international sanctions on the occupation to support the prisoners’ struggle.
Former prisoner Lena Jerbouni, the longest-held woman Palestinian prisoner before her release in April, said that Palestinian women prisoners were committed to achieve their rights and were under attack during Ramadan, a time that is precious to the prisoners. She described the collective experience of the women prisoners in preparing iftar together, saying that the women “work like bees” to distribute roles and tasks to all prisoners, even the minor girls, in preparing the meal to break the fast.
Raafat Hamdouna of the Palestinian Prisoners’ center for Studies said that Palestinian women who are transferred with or near Israeli criminal prisoners are targeted for abuse, insults and attacks. He also noted that Palestinian women prisoners are held in overcrowded sections and rooms and are often prevented from receiving important materials, including textbooks and other materials for studies, from parents and relatives. In addition, the food they receive is very bad and they must often rely almost entirely on the “canteen” (prison store.) He emphasized the long history of Palestinian women in the national liberation struggle, including in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. “Palestinian women have been subject to arrest and deportation, house arrest and abuse in prisons. They have fought many struggles, protests and open hunger strikes in order to improve the conditions of their lives and livelihoods, and to confront the policies of repression to which they are subject by the occupation,” Hamdouna said.
Imprisoned Palestinian journalist and former long-term hunger striker Mohammed al-Qeeq will be released after six months after an agreement for a sentence of 10 and one-half months completed by his lawyer, said his wife Fayha Shalash on Thursday, 8 June.
Al-Qeeq, 35, was seized by Israeli occupation forces on the evening of 15 January as he returned to his home in Ramallah from a demonstration in Bethlehem demanding the return of the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israel that remain detained by Israeli occupation forces.
However, in mid-April, shortly before he was slated to be released, he was instead transferred to the military courts and hit with “incitement” charges related to his public speeches at events Bir Zeit University, his alma mater. While he was a student at Bir Zeit, he was president of the student council – and then arrested and imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces for his student activity.
Shalash noted that he recently participated in the Strike of Freedom and Dignity, the collective hunger strike that concluded after over 40 days of struggle.
Former Palestinian prisoner and long-term hunger striker, lawyer Muhammad Allan, was seized once more by Israeli occupation forces in a series of pre-dawn raids throughout occupied Palestine.
Allan was seized from his home in the village of Einabus, Nablus and taken to an unknown destination. He was previously released in 2015 after a 66-day hunger strike against his imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention that drew worldwide support and solidarity.
He was among at least 11 Palestinians seized overnight by occupation forces, reported Ma’an News.
In Madama, Ahmad Nizar Ziyadah and Aseed Abdel-Nasser Qit were seized by occupation forces. Qit is a university student currently completing his final exams prior to graduation. In Anabta near Jenin, Omar Sari Ibrahim, 18, a student at an-Najah University, was seized by occupation forces, while Ahmad Abdel-Hadi Qishta was seized in Qalqilya.
In the Bethlehem village of Tuqu, occupation forces seized Muhannad Hajahjah, while they seized Iyad Abu al-Awra in al-Khader village. At least three Palestinian children were seized in Jerusalem and accused of “throwing stones” toward Israeli occupation police, and at least one Palestinian was seized in al-Khalil.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the arrest of Muhammad Allan and the continued targeting of former Palestinian prisoners. We demand the immediate release of all Palestinians seized by Israeli occupation forces.
Protest for Sanabel journalists. Photo: Asra Media Office
The five imprisoned Palestinian journalists of Sanabel Radio – Ahmad Daraweesh, Montasser Nassar, Mohammed Imran Sous, Nidal Amro and Hamed Nammoura – released a letter from Ofer prison in which they state that the Israeli occupation military prosecution is seeking to imprison them for three years on allegations of “incitement” for their public repoting of news and information about Israeli attacks on Palestinians.
They declared that they were subject to repeated and extensive interrogation on their broadcasts and programs, their broadcasting of revolutionary and historic Palestinian music and their use of the word “martyr” for Palestinians killed by the occupation forces, noting that these things are considered “incitement.” The prisoners said that these charges and demanded sentences prove the intent to hurt Palestinian journalists and media organizations and “raise the alarm for what is coming against journalists and media organizations in Palestine.”
“If the prosecutors are able to impose this prison sentence on these charges, this will serve as a gateway for the future arrest and prosecution of journalists, restricting their freedom. The indictments and jails will be ready,” they warned. They emphasized that they will not accept such a sentence and will not serve as a means of legitimizing new or intensified Zionist persecution of Palestinian journalists.
Their radio station in Dura near al-Khalil was raided in a violent storming by Israeli occupation forces on 31 August 2016, confiscating their equipment and shutting down the station. They are among dozens of Palestinian journalists imprisoned by the Israeli occupation, including Hasan Safadi, the Arabic media coordinator of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, whose imprisonment without charge or trial was extended today for another six months.
Thursday, 15 June 7:00 pm Venizelos Statue Thessaloniki, Greece
Call for DEMONSTRATION against the War Criminal Netanyahu in Greece
No to the reactionary alliance between Greece, Israel and Cyprus!
No to NATO and its military bases in the Mediterranean and the world!
No to the European Union and its colonialist policies!
No to imperialist intervention in the region!
Yes to solidarity with the people of Palestine and the rights of refugees and immigrants
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and
Supporters of the PFLP in Thessaloniki
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network received the following statement from former political prisoners in Timor-Leste, who expressed their solidarity with Palestinian prisoners’ struggle for justice and liberation, including the recent hunger strike of Freedom and Dignity of over 40 days. We republish the statement below from the Timor-Leste Association of Ex-Political Prisoners and Solidarity Association and express our solidarity with the people of Timor-Leste and with all the political prisoners and former prisoners around the world. The mutual solidarity from Palestine, to Ireland, to the Basque Country, to the Philippines, to Turkey and Kurdistan, to Timor-Leste, among political prisoners and former prisoners is critical to building true international connections and solidarity between liberation movements and strugglers for justice.
Activists in Timor-Leste have long felt a strong connection and sought to offer solidarity to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination, peace and human dignity. Human rights and student groups have organized seminars, rallies, candlelight vigils and solidarity statements to support peace and justice in Palestine. After receiving an international call to celebrate the success of a 40-day hunger strike by Palestinian political prisoners, Timorese human rights activists contacted the Timor-Leste Association of Ex-Political Prisoners. Together, they drafted the following statement, which they released on the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Tetun Komunikadu Imprensa below
Press Release
The Timor-Leste Association of Ex-Political Prisoners and Klibur Solidariedade (Solidarity Association) send congratulations and solidarity to Palestinian Political Prisoners
We congratulate the 1,500 Palestinian Political Prisoners (men, women and children) who, through their 40-day collective hunger strike, have secured basic rights which had been systematically denied them by Israel. We celebrate the courage and commitment of your collective action; we celebrate your success.
As we celebrate, we also declare our solidarity and call attention to the long and continuing struggle for freedom, equality, self-determination and basic human rights of the Palestinian people. Our national history teaches us that when faced with occupation, oppression, and injustice, there is no choice but to resist. “To resist is to win.”
Many of us are ex-political prisoners, jailed by Indonesia because we refused to simply accept an illegal occupation of our land. During Indonesia’s brutal occupation, we stood up to military violence and human rights abuses; we stood up against an international order oriented to U.S. corporate interests and militarism. We stood up for the dignity of ourselves, our families and our communities. We stood up for our vision of peace and justice, now and in the future. We encourage political prisoners and wish to tell you that many times, our struggle for a noble cause demands sacrifice and determination. We must believe that the truth will win and will bring happiness to many people. All of your sacrifices will be acknowledged; tudo vale a pena (‘everything is worth the effort’).
Today, as we celebrate with you, we also stand against the widespread detention of Palestinians for defending their basic rights. According to the NGO Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, there are now 6500 Palestinian political prisoners, including 300 children. We stand against the continuing role of the US as a major supporter of militarism and occupation. We stand for against the denial of Palestinian’s basic rights by Israel. We stand for Palestinian’s rights to clear water, safe shelter, food, and basic social services, equality before the law. “A luta continua.” The struggle continues.
The Timor-Leste Association of Ex-Political Prisoners first formed during Indonesia’s illegal occupation, during which systematic arbitrary detention of East Timorese civilians was routine security practice.
Klibur Solidadariedade was formed was formed by Timorese and international solidarity activists in 2009, on the 10th anniversary of Timor-Leste’s historic referendum on independence. Komunikadu Imprensa
Asosiação dos Ex-Prizioneiros Políticos no Klibur Solidariedade Timor-Leste fó parabéns no solidariedade ba Prizioneiru Polítiku Palestina
Data: 6 fulan-juñu tinan 2017
Ami hato’o parabéns ba prizioneiru polítiku palestinianu (mane, feto no labarik sira) ne’ebé – liuhosi greve han koletivu durante loron 40 – manán atinje 80% husi ezijénsia sira-nian ba direitus umanus báziku ne’ebé Israel viola sistematikamente. Ami selebra prizioneiru polítiku sira-nia asaun koletiva ne’ebé hatudu barani no aten-barani; Ami selebra imi-nia manán.
Tempu hanesan selebra, ami mós deklara solidariedade no bolu atensaun ba imi-nia luta ba liberdade, igualdade, autodeterminasaun no direitus umanus ne’ebé povu palestina buka durante tinan barak ona. Ami-nia istória nasionál hanorin katak bainhira ema hasoru okupasaun, esplorasaun no injustisa, tenke reziste. “Resistir e vencer.”
Barak husi ami mak eis-prizioneiru polítiku, dadur husi Indonézia tanba ami la simu de’it okupasaun ilegál iha ami-nia rai doben. Durante okupasaun Indonézia, ami hasoru violénsia militár no abuzu direitus umanus; ami hasoru orden internasionál ida-ne’ebé orientadu ba interese kompañia Estadus Unidus Amérika no militerizmu. Ami defende ema nia dignidade – ami nian, ami-nia familia no komunidade nian. Ami defende ami-nia vizaun ba dame no justisa, agora no iha futuru. Ami enkoraja prizioneiru polítiku sira no hato’o katak dala barak, luta ba objetivu ne’ebé mulia (laran nakonu domin) ezije ita halo sakrifísiu ho determinasaun. Ita tenke fiar katak lia-loos sei manán no sei habelar felisidade ba ema barak. Sakrifísiu hotu sei hetan rekoñesimentu; “tudo vale a pena”.
Ohin-loron, ami selebra ho imi no ami mós hasoru violasaun direitus umanus ema Palestina nian husi Estadu Israel. Tuir ONG Klube Prizioneiru Palestina, iha prizioneiru polítiku palestinianu na’in-6,500 ne’ebé inklui labarik na’in-300. Ita hasoru violasaun sistemátika ida-ne’e, no mós hasoru papél Estadus Unidus Amérika ho ninia suporta maka’as ba militerizmu no okupasaun. Ami defende direitus umanus báziku ema Palestina nian, inklui direitu ba bee moos, uma, ai-han no servisu sosiál báziku sira no igualdade iha lei nia oin. “A luta continua.”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its solidarity with the Moroccan people in the Rif and throughout the country in their struggle for social justice, and urges the immediate release of all political detainees and prisoners in Moroccan jails.
Palestinian women prisoners
Imprisoned Palestinian journalist and former long-term hunger striker 
Former Palestinian prisoner and long-term hunger striker, lawyer 
Call for DEMONSTRATION against the War Criminal Netanyahu in Greece
Samidoun at New York Solidarity Forum on Palestinian Prisoners and Palestinian Resistance
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network participated in a forum in New York City organized by the International League of People’s Struggles, the United National Antiwar Coalition and the International Action Center on Tuesday, 6 June.
Joe Catron of Samidoun spoke at the Solidarity Forum, dedicated to the discussion of rebuilding anti-war and anti-imperialist organizing in the United States, with a presentation on Palestinian political prisoners, the recent hunger Strike for Freedom and Dignity and the ongoing Palestinian struggle for liberation as well as solidarity actions and campaigns, such as the BDS campaign to #StopHP for its involvement in contracting with and profiteering from Israeli imprisonment, occupation, colonialism and apartheid.
Participants discussed the upcoming UNAC national conference in Virginia and the ILPS “Solidarity and Fightback: Building Resistance to US-led War, Militarism and Neofascism” conference in Toronto, as well as popular movements and struggles in Venezuela, Korea and the Philippines, with speakers involved in each movement and solidarity organizing providing a report and analysis.
Joe Catron’s talk at the forum is below, in full:
I’d like to start by honoring the deaths of Saba Abid, Mutaz Bani Shamsa, and Raed Ahmad Radayda. They were the three young Palestinian men, between 15 and 23 years old, gunned down by Israeli soldiers and a settler while protesting in support of Palestinian political prisoners’ Strike of Freedom and Dignity. When we discuss the strike and its gains, their sacrifices should be foremost in our minds.
And the gains for which they fought and died are worth celebrating. Through Palestinian prisoners’ 40 days on hunger strike, they won improvements to their education, family visits, food, health care, recreational facilities, telephone access, transportation and general conditions.
Many of these changes will drastically improve the lives of prisoners. More than 140 children who had been denied family visits will be able to see their imprisoned parents. Prisoners being transported between courts and prisons will get meals and bathroom breaks. And cooling and ventilation systems will make the coming summer months more tolerable for thousands in Israel’s crowded prison blocks.
The biggest concession may have been won not from Israel, but the International Committee of the Red Cross. In May 2016, the ICRC, which coordinates family visits to Palestinian prisoners, announced drastic cuts to the program, slashing visits to most prisoners by half, to one per month. After over a year of protests inside and outside the prisons, including the strike, the ICRC agreed to restore visits to their earlier level.
The mere fact that prisoners were forced to launch a hunger strike targeting a supposedly neutral body mandated to protect their rights is obscene. And the ICRC’s intransigence in continuing to deny prisoners a right as basic as regular family visits until the strike had lasted for over a month should make clear to all of us where it stands in the struggle between Palestinians and the Israeli occupation.
But the strike’s most lasting impact may lie not in the concessions it won from the occupation and its accomplices, but rather its role as a focus for continued Palestinian resistance.
On April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and the day the strike began, Marwan Barghouti, an imprisoned Palestinian parliamentarian, wrote in the New York Times, “Israel’s prisons have become the cradle of a lasting movement for Palestinian self-determination. This new hunger strike will demonstrate once more that the prisoners’ movement is the compass that guides our struggle, the struggle for Freedom and Dignity, the name we have chosen for this new step in our long walk to freedom.”
At its end, Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and, like Barghouti, a leader of the strike, repeated the metaphor of the compass.
On May 28, he wrote, “This victory has important implications: first, to reaffirm the fact that rights can only be taken and never begged for, and that the resistance was the main lever for all of the achievements of the Palestinian people in the successive eras of the revolution. Second, that the different factions of the prisoners’ movement and the atmosphere of division did not prevent the unity of action of all of the national and Islamic factions on the fields of confrontation, as long as the compass of struggle remained directed at the primary contradiction with the occupation. The third significant point is that the confrontation does not end with the strike; instead, it must continue in order to strengthen the achievements of the strike, expand them and build on them. This is critical to rebuild and unify the body of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and expand its role to exit the situation of fragmentation and division and instead present a living model to our people to bring forward sincere efforts to advance the Palestinian cause from this current crisis and the framework of division.”
The challenge he describes the strike as posing to the political division and social fragmentation of the Palestinian people and their national movement, cultivated by Israel and its supporters over decades, comes at a time when Israeli and allied forces seek to further strengthen these strategic advantages for the occupation.
In 1969, the Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine, the foundational text of contemporary Palestinian leftism, analyzed the enemies facing the Palestinian people.
It concluded that these enemies included not only Israel itself, but also the world Zionist movement, world imperialism led by the United States, and Arab reaction represented by feudalism and capitalism.
Today, these are the very forces we see working together to foment chaos and bloodshed across the Arab world, particularly in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Yemen.
Together, they funnel arms and other material support to the most reactionary and sectarian forces while both politically isolating and militarily bombarding any supporters of Palestinians and other liberation movements.
Inside Palestine, they work hand-in-hand to crush any semblance of resistance by Palestinians while reinforcing divisions among Palestinian factions, and the limited self-rule projects in Ramallah and Gaza.
While I certainly don’t have time to analyze it extensively, here I should mention the current diplomatic offensive against Qatar by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Maldives, Egypt, and Bahrain, plus the nominal, Western-backed governments controlling portions of Yemen and Libya.
Over the past two days, each has severed its diplomatic ties with Qatar, ordered the expulsion of Qatari citizens, and for Qatar’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf, imposed closures on it by land, air and sea.
Qatar is hardly a friend of either the Palestinian struggle or religious pluralism.
But statements by leaders of the states aligned against it make clear that their key motives include its insufficient sectarianism, in terms of its cooperative development of the world’s biggest natural gas field, which it shares with Iran, and its unwillingness to completely crush Palestinian resistance.
Coming fresh on the heels of Donald Trump’s Riyadh summit, which aimed to create what White House officials have called an “Arab NATO,” targeting Iran and quietly including Israel, the US role is obvious.
Similarly, as the Trump administration demands unprecedented concessions from the Palestinian Authority, including an end to even token support for Palestinians targeted by Israel for their resistance, its closest Arab allies, led by the UAE, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, are openly scheming to impose new, Israel-friendly leadership in Gaza and Ramallah.
But these attempts face the Dignity Strike, and the broad Palestinian mobilization in support of it, which show the leadership that the unites the Palestinian people are inside Israeli prisons, united in their determination to resist encroachments on Palestinian land and freedom.
And in a year filled with historic anniversaries for Palestine – a decade after Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip, 50 years since its military seizure of the Strip and the West Bank, as well as Syria’s Golan Heights, approaching 70 years of the Nakba, or ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and a century after the United Kingdom’s Balfour Declaration – the strike, and the Palestinian prisoners’ movement overall, are a compass pointing towards further resistance, until liberation and return.
For those of us here tonight, I think our tasks are relatively clear. We must create further space for Palestinian struggle, from the prison blocks to the popular protests to the resistance brigades, by weakening the racist, settler-colonial State of Israel, particularly its key pillars of support – Zionism and imperialism – within the United States.
I’m proud of the work Samidoun and our partner organizations have done to advance the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, helping to drive the world’s biggest security company, G4S, out of Israeli prisons, settlements and checkpoints and building awareness of Hewlett Packard’s complicity in Israel’s political imprisonment and other crimes against Palestinians.
I also think that all of us – not only Samidoun as a small organization, but also much larger solidarity, Palestinian and anti-war movements – need to think critically about what it would mean to seriously target imperialist and Zionist support for Israel, with a clear focus on their flagship project: the $3.8 billion dollars in annual military aid that makes Israel’s crimes possible.
For now, I’ll leave you with a favorite quote from Palestinian prisoner and leader Ameer Makhoul. He wrote it in the aftermath of a hunger strike through which Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan won his freedom in 2012. I think his words are no less relevant today:
“This battle highlighted the bankruptcy of the discourse of ‘moderation’ which Israel and the US have foisted on the official Palestinian leadership. This moderate stance claims that if we Palestinians wish to secure international support, we must adopt a moderate posture. In practice, this means voluntarily accepting the oppressive controls imposed by the globalized terror of the state. ‘Moderation’ here means abandoning the right to resist the occupying state.
“Yet what we have just witnessed is that the world lends support when Palestinians themselves fight back and stand firm, regardless of their political affiliation. The ability to affect and move international public opinion and secure effective wide-scale solidarity was not the outcome of a public relations strategy but of a real struggle on the ground to stand up to the oppressive colonialist machine.