On International Day of Quds, people of conscience gather to express solidarity with all the oppressed human beings of the world and particularly the innocent civilians of Palestine who are victimized by the oppressive and racist Zionist regime.
We invite all peace loving people to voice their opposition to the unjust and illegal occupation of the great Al-Aqsa Mosque and the usurpation of the Holy Land by the Zionist regime. In addition, we will also protest the current Saudi aggression in Yemen.
We, the citizens of the United States and in particular residents of New York, reserve the right to boycott any and all parties involved in practicing racist, discriminatory, and oppressive policies.
Stand with us! Stand for your rights!
We will rally at Times Square at 4:30 where our speakers will shed lights on the atrocities being committed by the Zionist state on the oppressed people of Palestine.
*ENDORSING ORGANIZATIONS*
1) Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
2) Jafaria Association Of North America
3) Neturei Karta
4) International Action Center
5) Al Awda NY
6) Palestine Right to Return Coalition
7) New York Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
8) BDS App
9) Students & Youth for a New America
10) New York for Palestine
11) Samidoun
————————–—————-
NOTE: “Muslim Congress and its AlQuds subcommittees in respective cities have no affiliation with any foreign entity.
Funds for Al-Quds events are generated by local community organizers who strongly believe in exercising their legal right to protest against oppression.”
Moderated by former political prisoner and Freedom Archives director, Claude Marks
Just a couple weeks ago, Palestinian prisoners suspended a 40-day hunger strike, bringing the Israeli state to the negotiating table. At the same time word began to emerge of a prisoner hunger strike against appalling conditions at Folsom State Prison here in California. Although both strikes come amid an intensification of Israeli colonialism in Palestine, and brazen plans for increased policing and imprisonment against Black, Brown, and immigrant communities in the US, they are also born of bold prisoner organizing.
Join us for a discussion drawing connections between struggles by
imprisoned organizers in Palestine and California, providing updates on current prisoner-led actions, and lifting up opportunities for more powerful solidarity.
Large crowds took to the streets on Thursday, 15 June in Thessaloniki and Athens, Greece, protesting the visit of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Greece-Israel-Cyprus summit promoting increased economic and military cooperation between the Israeli occupation, Greece and Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean region.
Photo: Athens, 15 June – Workers’ Revolutionary Party
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network in Greece joined a number of Greek and Palestinian organizations in calling for the demonstrations to reject the presence of Netanyahu in Greece as a war criminal. Organizations including ANTARSYA, KOE (Communist Organization of Greece), NAR (New Left Current), EEK (Workers’ Revolutionary Party), KKE ml (Communist Party of Greece – Marxist-Leninist), the Friends of Palestine, the Ghassan Kanafani Front for Resistance and Solidarity, the Friends of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a wide range of anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-racist and social justice organizations and activists joined in the marches that took to the streets in both cities.
The summit, which included Netanyahu, Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras and Cypriot president Nicos Anastasiades, convened in Thessaloniki under the auspices of a touted gas deal for pipeline construction between occupied Palestine, Greece and Cyprus. Protesters denounced the role of the SYRIZA-ANEL government in Greece, elected on a left, anti-austerity program with campaign pledges that included an end to joint military exercises with Israel, for its role in enforcing more austerity, greater EU control over Greek resources and a massively intensified relationship with the apartheid settler-colonial Israeli regime.
Photo: Thessaloniki, 15 June – Middle East Monitor
In Athens, hundreds gathered outside the Israeli Embassy where protests went on for over an hour before a march through the streets to the Defense Ministry, demanding an end to collaboration with the Israeli occupation. A wide array of left organizations and youth participated in the protest and march.
“We are here to protest the presence of the war criminal Netanyahu in Greece. We are against this relationship between the current SYRIZA government and the Israeli apartheid state. We see Greece’s natural position in the Middle East, supporting the people and anti-war. We are against the involvement of Greece in the European Union, more and more, and supporting the colonial machine in the region,” said Mohammed Khatib, the European coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, speaking to reporters at the protest.
Photo: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao Kokovlis
In Thessaloniki, an even larger crowd gathered at the Venizelos Statue and marched throughout the city carrying Palestinian flags and red flags, banners and signs demanding an end to Greek cooperation with EU, US and Israeli schemes stripping the wealth of the Greek and Palestinian people. As they marched by the United States consulate in Thessaloniki, protesters stopped and burned an image of a U.S. and Israeli flag, chanting slogans against U.S. imperialism in the region.
Also in Thessaloniki, another protest of hundreds marched from St. Sophia Square to denounce ongoing NATO involvement in Greece and Israeli occupation. Another group of Greek activists protested inside the studios of state-run TV station ET3 until they ran a video protesting the summit and denouncing the role of Tsipras in engaging in military and economic cooperation with the Israeli occupation.
Palestinian revolutionary Leila Khaled called on all to participate in the demonstration: “This message is to call on all progressive, socialist, democratic, anti-imperialist, anti-apartheid forces to firmly stand strongly against this visit and this summit. Our mutual struggle is based on common interests for our peoples. On behalf of the martyrs, the prisoners and their families, I call upon everyone to participate in the demonstration. Let Netanyahu hear our voices, from Palestine to Greece via Cyprus, that he is not welcome anywhere.” In Athens, Leila Khaled’s message was read aloud in Greek to the crowd.
Photo: Athens, 15 June – Workers’ Revolutionary Party
Earlier, the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine had urged protests of the summit, calling on Greek organizations to respond: “The PFLP urged all friendly Greek forces and parties to fight the intensifying political, military and economic ties between Greece and the Zionist entity, which necessarily come at the expense of the Palestinian and Arab people whose resources and rights have been confiscated by the occupier, while opening the wealth of the Greek people to looting by the U.S. and Zionist state. The Front denounced the role of the Syriza-ANEL government in escalating this relationship between Greece and the Zionist occupation state to unprecedented levels at the expense of the Greek and Palestinian peoples and their gas and water wealth and resources.”
Photo: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao Kokovlis
The Union of Palestinian Communities and Organizations in Europe had called on the Greek government to cancel the meeting. “The SYRIZA government was elected with claims of commitment to international law and respect for the will of the Greek people. At the same time, it is standing with imperialism and Zionist forces and the interests of oil and gas companies while receiving a racist war criminal who killed thousands of civilians in Gaza. Netanyahu is a criminal, a killer of children, and his only natural place is in the dock at the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” said Dr. Fawzi Ismail, president of the Union.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is dedicated to continuing to organize in Greece and internationally against the Greece/Cyprus/Israel gas deal and attempts to extract the wealth of the Palestinian and Greek people for exploitation by U.S. imperialists, oligarchic captialists and Israeli colonialists. The large turnout in Athens and Thessaloniki makes clear that Greek people support justice for the Palestinian people, not war deals with apartheid settler-colonial states.
Video from Thessaloniki:
Video from Athens:
Photos from Athens:
Photo: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Nikolas Joao KokovlisPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Workers’ Revolutionary PartyPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Workers’ Revolutionary PartyPhoto: Athens, 15 June – Workers’ Revolutionary Party
New Yorkers protested in support of Palestinian political prisoners on Friday, 16 June outside the Best Buy electronics store in Union Square. Organized by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, the protest focused on three recent administrative detention cases – those of Rami Fadayel, Hasan Safadi and Hassan Karajeh.
Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace
The rally also demanded that Hewlett Packard companies end their contracts with Israel’s prisons and detention centers, military and security forces, and other occupation infrastructure. Best Buy sells a number of HP products, including laptop computers, printers, ink and printer accessories. HP is subject to a global boycott campaign due to its profiteering from the imprisonment, occupation and colonization of Palestinian land and people. A growing number of churches, labor unions and other organizations are becoming HP-free zones in response.
Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace
New York organizers distributed information to passers-by about the situation of Palestinian political prisoners as well as HP’s complicity in Israeli apartheid, urging Best Buy shoppers to choose alternative options to HP products. They engaged in lively discussions and received a great deal of support from people passing by on the street.
Hasan Safadi, 26, the Arabic media coordinator of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, is a Palestinian journalist and human rights defender who has been imprisoned without charge or trial since 1 May 2016 as he returned from an Arab youth conference in Tunisia. After 40 days of interrogation, he was ordered to administrative detention which has now been repeatedly renewed, most recently for an additional six months on 8 June. The call for his release has been joined by Amnesty International, among others.
Rami Fadayel, 37, has been held without charge or trial for 18 months and was ordered on 7 June to another four months of arbitrary imprisonment under administrative detention. Fadayel is well-known in Ramallah as a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian leftist political party. His detention has been repeatedly renewed under the pretext of a “secret file.”
Hassan Karajah, a youth activist with the Stop the Wall campaign who is actively involved in the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, has been imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 12 July 2016, when he was seized by Israei occupation forces at a military checkpoint west of Ramallah. His administrative detention was renewed for another four months on 7 June.
Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace
The three are among nearly 500 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention, out of a total of approximately 6,300 Palestinian political prisoners. Administrative detention orders last from one to six months, but are indefinitely renewable; Palestinians can spend years at a time imprisoned with no charge and no trial on the basis of “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.
Israel’s use of administrative detention comes in violation of international law; unlike the detention permitted under international law, it is systematic, prolonged and applied repeatedly over years against large numbers of Palestinians.
Photo: Bud Korotzer/Desertpeace
New Yorkers are continuing to protest for freedom for Palestinian political prisoners and building the boycott of HP. On Friday, 23 June, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will join many Palestine organizations for the International Day of Al-Quds demonstration at 4:30 pm at the corner of 42nd St and 7th Avenue in Times Square. Following the demonstration, Samidoun will join NYC Students for Justice in Palestine at its Al-Quds Day Iftar at 7:30 pm at 147 W. 24th Street in Manhattan.
The following week, on 30 June, weekly demonstrations will resume at Best Buy in Union Square at 5:30 pm. On 30 June, the protest will focus on the call for freedom for Nael Barghouthi, the longest-held Palestinian prisoner who has spent 36 years in Israeli jails. Re-arrested in June 2014 after his release in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange in 2011, his original life sentence was reimposed on the basis of so-called “secret evidence.” All supporters of justice, freedom and liberation for Palestine and the Palestinian people are invited to participate.
The three Palestinians executed at Akka prison – Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum
17 June marks the anniversary of the execution of three of the earliest martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement – Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum – by British colonial occupiers, in Akka prison.
The execution of these Palestinian strugglers has remained for years an ongoing story of resistance that continues to inspire strugglers through 100 years of resistance to colonization and occupation. Indeed, the song written to commemorate Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum, “From Akka Prison,” today remains one of the most well-known and powerful poems of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.
Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum were seized by the British colonizers for their role in Al-Buraq Revolution of 1929, named for the al-Buraq Wall in Jerusalem. The uprising was sparked after Zionist groups came to the wall and planted Zionist flags, declaring that “This wall is ours.”
In Jerusalem, Haifa, Yafa and Safad, Palestinians rose up against British colonization and the declared Zionist plans to colonize Palestine and declare it a “Jewish state.” Hundreds of Palestinians were seized by British forces and 26 sentenced to death by hanging; there was such an outcry by the Palestinian people that most of these sentences were converted to life imprisonment, with the exception of Hijazi, Jamjoum and al-Zeer.
Photo from the 1929 Buraq Revolution
Fouad Hijazi was 26 years old, from Safad; Mohammed Jamjoum was 28, from al-Khalil, as was Atta al-Zeer, 35.
Born in Safad in 1904, Hijazi received his primary education in his hometown; his university education was completed at the American University of Beirut. He actively participated in the Buraq Revolution and wrote a message to his family the day before his execution, which was published in the newspaper on 18 June 1930. In the message, he said, “On 17 June of each year, this should be a historic day in which speeches are made and songs are sung in the memory of our blood spilled for the sake of Palestine and the Arab cause.”
Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum was born in 1902 in al-Khalil; like Hijazi he attended university at the American University of Beirut. Atta al-Zeer was born in al-Khalil also, in 1895. Throughout his life he worked as a farmer and a manual laborer and was known from his earliest days for his courage and physical strength.
On 17 June 1930, Palestinians organized a general strike throughout Palestine as large crowds gathered in major Palestinian cities across the country – in Yafa, Haifa, al-Khalil and Nablus. After the executions, their bodies were handed to the men’s families, who had been denied the right to bury them in their home cities. Thousands of Palestinians streamed through the streets of Akka in honor of Jamjoum, Hijazi and al-Zeer, figures and symbols of Palestinian resistance to British and Zionist colonization. The three revolutionaries were executed on that day, but their anti-colonial message and commitment has continued to resonate through generations of Palestinian struggle for national liberation.
Abu Maher al-Yamani, co-founder of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Palestinian labor leader and historical leader of the Palestinian national movement, left his village of Suhmata for the first time at the age of six with his father. There, he “was surprised to encounter the execution of three Palestinian martyrs by British colonial authorities on that day, June 17, 1930 – Fouad Hijazi, Mohammed Jamjoum and Atta al-Zeer. The awareness of the child Ahmed al-Yamani was awakened, viewing the executions and the bodies of the martyrs in the gallows of the courtyard of Akka central prison; this incident greatly affected him and remained an image in his mind that could not be forgotten.”
Their story has been embedded as well in the Palestinian culture of resistance. Palestinian poet Ibrahim Tuqan’s poem, “Red Tuesday,” commemorates the three, noting “their bodies in the homeland’s graves/their souls in the reaches of heaven.”
The popular song, “Min Sijjin Akka,” or “From Akka Prison,” continues to be sung and celebrated throughout Palestine. The origin of the poem is not precisely clear; some say that it was written on the walls of Akka prison by a revolutionary named ‘Awad, himself awaiting execution by the British colonial rulers. Other scholars note that the poem was likely composed by a working-class popular poet and in Haifa, Nuh Ibrahim, perhaps the most famous Palestinian poet of his time and carrying his own legacy of resistance. “He was not a poet of the elite and he did not write poetry for social occasions or holidays. Instead Ibrahim is known for composing for the 1936-1939 Palestinian Revolt and to peasants working their grapevines, orchards and wheat fields. He spoke and wrote in everyday language, as a provocateur and broadcaster for the revolt, in which he also participated as a fighter,” wrote Samih Shabeeb.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ANSDXXaORQ
The lyrics of the song are known today throughout Palestine and continue to be sung at national events, weddings and cultural celebrations. Ibrahim himself died struggling for Palestine eight years later, as a fighter in the movement of Izzedine al-Qassam in the 1936-39 revolution in Palestine. After being imprisoned in Akka prison himself, he was killed by the British colonial army in a battle in the Westen Galilee.
The ongoing relevance of the Buraq Revolution and the legacy of the execution of the three martyrs of 17 June 1930 is not limited to its cultural resonance. Just weeks ago, Palestinian Authority official Jibril Rajoub was widely criticized by Palestinian organizations and strugglers inside and outside Palestine for his statements on Israeli TV about the al-Buraq Wall being under “Israeli sovereignty.” Indeed, Palestinian youth activists and journalists like Nassar Jaradat and Zaher al-Shammali are currently politically detained by the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, seemingly for their publicly posted critiques of Rajoub’s avowed willingness to abandon the same Palestinian national site and symbol struggled for by generations of Palestinians.
Three Palestinian youths from Deir Abu Mashaal – Adel Ankoush, Bara’a Atta, Osama Atta
Days later, on 16 June, the eve of the anniversary of the execution of Hijazi, Jamjoum and al-Zeer, three young Palestinians from the village of Deir Abu Mashaal, Bara’a Ibrahim Saleh Atta, Osama Ahmed Mustafa Atta and Adel Hassan Ahmed Ankoush, were shot down by Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem after they stabbed several Israeli occupation military Border Police officers, killing one and wounding several, only meters from al-Buraq Wall itself. Bara’a Atta and Osama Atta, both active in the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, were both former prisoners in Israeli prisons, imprisoned as young teens; Osama Atta was the leader of the PFLP child prisoners during his imprisonment. The third Palestinian youth, Adel Ankoush, was active with Hamas.
In statements by the PFLP, the leftist Palestinian party referred to the Palestinian resistance action as the “Promise of Al-Buraq,” explicitly recognizing the action not only as a refutation of U.S. and Zionist attempts to confiscate Palestinian land and rights, but also recalling the Buraq Revolution martyrs of 87 years prior.
The three hunger striking martyrs of 1980 – Izhaq Maragha, Ali Ja’afari, Rasim Halawa
Today, in 2017, over 200 Palestinian prisoners have died in Israeli occupation prisons since 1967. 72 of them were killed as a result of Israeli torture, including three hunger strikers, Izhak Maragha, Ali Ja’afari and Rasim Halawa, killed by torturous forced feeding in 1980. The Israeli state constantly threatens the reimposition of the death penalty, while putting it into practice in reality, with escalating extrajudicial executions – particularly against Palestinian youth; “arrest raids” that are in fact assassination raids as in the targeting of Basil al-Araj (for whom this anniversary marks 100 days after his assassination and three months exactly following his funeral) and Moataz Washaha; and the policy of “slow death” of medical neglect and mistreatment inside occupation prisons.
On this anniversary, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network remembers and honors the martyrs of 1930 and their ongoing legacy and role as a symbol of resistance and anti-colonial revolution that reverberates through generations to defend Palestinian land and Palestinian rights, in Jerusalem and throughout occupied Palestine, from Zionism, imperialism and colonization.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah from Lannemezan prison in solidarity with the Traore family
Protests are being organized in multiple cities on 17 June to demand the release of imprisoned Lebanese Communist struggler for Palestine, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. Called by the Unified Campaign to Free Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a national demonstration bringing participants from across France will take place in Paris at 3:00 pm on Saturday, 17 June to demand the release of Abdallah, imprisoned for 33 years in French prisons.
Abdallah, sentenced to a life sentence on allegations of complicity with acts of resistance against the Zionist occupation of Lebanon, has been eligible for release since 1999. Despite two orders for release by parole tribunals to return home to Lebanon, his release has been blocked by intervention at the highest political levels, including by former Interior Minister Manuel Valls in response to the requests of then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Abdallah plays an ongoing role in the liberation movement, even behind bars. A photo of him wearing a shirt in support of the movement for Justice for Adama Traore, killed by French police – and his family, facing persecution – was recently sent out from Lannemezan prison. He has repeatedly joined in hunger strikes with other Palestinian prisoners, including joining with the recent Strike for Dignity and Freedom and participating in a solidarity hunger strike with Palestinian prisoner Bilal Kayed. During all of these strikes, he has organized the participation of fellow Arab and Basque prisoners behind bars.
The Unified Campaign to Free Georges Ibrahim Abdallah declared that “This fight of a lifetime is also ours! He is part of our struggle and we are with his struggle! That is why we call upon all who stand with the Palestinian resistance to fight capitalism, imperialism, Zionism, colonialism and the Arab reactionary regimes to join us.” Protesters will gather at 3 pm at the Place du Colonel Fabien in Paris.
In Brussels, Secours Rouge organized a group of people to travel together by car to join the protest in Paris; meanwhile, Mouvement Citoyen Palestine and other groups have called for a solidarity protest in the Belgian capital, outside the Consulate General of France. Demonstrators are invited to gather at 3 pm at 42 Boulevard de Regent to stand in solidarity with the Paris demonstration and call for the immediate release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
Another event is being organized on Monday, 19 June in Milan, Italy, with a march to the French, Indian and Peruvian consulates. The protest, which will gather at 5:30 pm at Metro Pasteur in the city, will call for the release of Abdallah, Indian intellectual G. N. Saibaba and imprisoned Peruvian communist Chairman Gonzalo (Abimael Guzman.)
The demonstrations are being organized in advance of 19 June, the International Day of Revolutionary Prisoners. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes these demonstrations and urges all to participate in building the campaign to free Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a prisoner of the Palestinian struggle inside French jails.
Photo: Toulouse protest to free Mohammed Abu Sakha
The imprisonment without charge or trial of Palestinian circus performer Mohammed Abu Sakha was extended for three months by Israeli occupation forces. Abu Sakha, who trains Palestinian children in circus performance at the Palestinian Circus School, has performed around the world with Festiclown and PCS, with which he has been affiliated since 2007. He has been imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces since December 2015, held without charge or trial under administrative detention.
Abu Sakha has received global widespread support from artists, circus groups, human rights advocates and Palestine organizers. His detention order expired on 11 June 2017; his lawyers from Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association had obtained an order limiting the renewal of his detention to a three-month period.
Solidarity efforts have continued for Abu Sakha; most recently, Pallasos en Rebeldia (Clowns in Rebellion) organized a solidarity action for Abu Sakha called #PeregrinaClown in which spokesperson Ivan Prado walked from Gijon to Santiago de Compostela, performing from city to city in support of Abu Sakha’s release. This followed a circus-themed solidarity hunger strike during the strike of Dignity and Freedom in May 2017, in which Abu Sakha refused food for more than 40 days with 1,500 fellow Palestinian prisoners.
Qatamesh was last released from imprisonment without charge or trial in December 2013 after two and a half years in Israeli jails. He was first seized by Israeli occupation forces in 1969 and again in 1972. After four years of imprisonment, he was living “underground” in occupied Palestine to avoid arrest. In 1992, he was seized once more by Israeli occupation forces and subjected to over 100 days of interrogation and torture. He was held for five and a half years in administrative detention without charge or trial. Amnesty International has joined numerous Palestinian and solidarity organizations in demanding freedom for this prisoner of conscience.
Meanwhile, Israeli occupation military courts issued 27 administrative detention orders since the beginning of the month of June, reported Palestinian lawyer Mahmoud Halabi on 15 June. The orders ranged from three to six months in length and included both new orders and renewals. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable; Palestinians can spend years in prison without charge or trial under renewed administrative detention orders. There are approximately 500 Palestinians currently imprisoned under administrative detention orders out of a total of 6,300 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Since 1967, 50,000 administrative detention orders have been issued against Palestinians.
The orders included the following:
1. Ibrahim Jak Abdel-Mohsen, from Ramallah, 4 months, extension
2. Ahmed Abdel-Basit Abu Raya, from al-Khalil, 6 months, extension
3. Nadim Ibrahim Sabarneh, from al-Khalil, 6 months, new order
4. Ali Taqi Tawfiq, from Tulkarem, 4 months, extension
5. Sa’adi Mahmoud Khdeirat, from al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
6. Mohammed Ghassan Najdi, from Tulkarem, 4 months,extension
7. Hasan Hassanein Shawkah, from Bethlehem, 3 months, extension
8. Yazan Mohammed Shalbayah, from Ramallah, 3 months, extension
9. Oreib Walid Salem, from Ramallah, 4 months, extension
10. Ahmed Fayez Saadi, from Jenin, 4 months, extension
11. Abdel-Aziz Mahmoud Mubarak, from Ramallah, 4 months, new order
12. Mahmoud Kamal al-Razi, from Jenin, 3 months, extension
13. Omar Mohammed Baraka, from Jericho, 4 months, new order
14. Louay Sami Ashqar, from Tulkarem, 3 months, extension
15. Majdi Abdel-Qader Oweidat, from Jericho, 2 months, extension
16. Mohammed Faisal Abu Sakha, from Jenin, 3 months, extension
17. Osama Khaled Yamin, from Nablus, 3 months, extension
18. Awad Mahmoud al-Sakhra, from Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
19. Nasim Fadel al-Rifai, from al-Khalil, 6 months, new order
20. Khalid Mansour Abdel-Nabi, from al-Khalil, 3 months, extension
21. Muath Mohamed Saman, from Bethlehem, 6 months, new order
22. Bassam Abdel-Rahim Hamad, from Silwad, 4 months, new order
23. Hamoudeh Akram Jaber, from al-Khalil, 6 months, new order
24. Eyad Salameh Dabis, from Bethlehem, 6 months, extension
25. Sami Fayez Sirhan, from al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
26. Ahmad Sami Wardah, from Ramallah, 4 months, extension
27. Naji Hamdi Abu Khalaf, 3 months, extension
Re-arrested former Palestinian prisoner and long-term hunger striker Muhammad Allan was transferred to isolation in Megiddo prison on his tenth day of hunger strike, Saturday, 17 June. The Palestinian lawyer from the village of Einabus launched the strike on 8 June following his seizure by Israeli occupation forces during a pre-dawn raid on his family home. Mohja al-Quds reported that he had been held in the Jalameh/Kishon interrogation center since that time before being moved into isolation.
Allan’s detention was extended on Thursday, 15 June by an Israeli military court; Ma’an News reported that he is now being accused of “incitement” for posting his political opinions on Facebook. Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested and charged by Israeli occupation forces with “incitement” for posting their political opinions or honoring Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces.
He was last released from Israeli prison in November 2015 following a 66-day hunger strike in which he secured an end to his year-long administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. Allan, 33, won worldwide support and solidarity from lawyers’ organizations and supporters of Palestinian rights during his hunger strike. He had previously been detained twice in Israeli occupation prisons and had previously been sentenced to imprisonment for affiliation with Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Allan is not the only long-term hunger striker recently re-arrested by Israeli occupation forces. Anas Shadid, 20, who was released only 20 days prior on 24 May 2017, conducted a 90-day hunger strike alongside Anas Abu Fara to win his release from imprisonment without charge or trial. He was seized by Israeli occupation forces in a pre-dawn raid on 15 June after being summoned to interrogation with Israeli occupation intelligence.
Khader Adnan, former long-term hunger striker, noted that Allan’s strike is coming in rejection of the policy of re-arrest of former hunger strikers and released prisoners, denouncing the ongoing seizures of released prisoners.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the ongoing re-arrests and attacks on released Palestinian prisoners. We express our strongest solidarity with Muhammad Allan’s struggle for freedom and urge the immediate release of Palestinian lawyer Muhammad Allan and all Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons.
Palestinian resistance figure Leila Khaled has issued a call to join protests today, 15 June, in Thessaloniki and Athens, against the visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network in Greece is mobilizing for these demonstrations along with a number of Left organizations, anti-war and anti-imperialist groups and movements, Palestinian community and solidarity groups and the Friends of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Greece.
Watch the video:
The Netanyahu visit is coming in the context of a tripartite summit between Greece, Israel and Cyprus. The summit aims to discuss the creation of natural gas pipelines to ship stolen Palestinian gas to Europe by connecting it with Greek and Cypriot gas resources; it will also focus on the intensified military cooperation and joint military exercises between the countries. These military exercises and extractive plans are designed to benefit the Israeli occupation and large multinational corporations at the expense of the people of Palestine, Greece and Cyprus; they pose a threat to the safety of people in the region as well as people’s control over their own wealth and resources.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network calls on all to participate in the demonstrations and actions to say NO to NETANYAHU and make clear that this war criminal is not welcome!
Protests will take place:
Thursday, 15 June – Athens, Greece – 7 pm, Israeli Embassy – march to Ministry of Defense
Many Greek organizations have joined the calls to protest.
The Communist Organization of Greece (KOE), said that “The zionist Israeli state is also one of the protagonists in Trump’s war campaign against Iran and anyone else blocking US plans in the region. With the head of this state-terrorist, the Tsipras-Kammenos government allies, further deepening an adventurous choice that engulfs our country and our people in major adventures and jeopardizes Greece’s real interests.”
“An anti-imperialist alarm has been risen in Athens and Thessaloniki by anti-war and anti-racist movements, unions, political organizations and movements, the friends of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network to confront the dangerous developments in the region confronting us,” said the New Left Current (NAR) as it joined with ANTARSYA, the Network for Social and Political Rights, Popular Unity (LAE) and KKE (ml) to call for participation in the actions.
The Greek Front of Resistance and Solidarity for Palestine “Ghassan Kanafani” denounced the actions of the Greek government of SYRIZA and ANEL. “The Greek goverment seeks to turn Greece into a transit energy center from which the natural resources, stolen by the Palestinian people, will be passed. The United States and the EU approve this deal by all means, because strengthening their strongest policeman in the region, is their main pursuit…” said the organization.
Meanwhile, the Workers’ Revolutionary Party (EEK), denounced the summit, calling to kick out Netanyahu from Greece. “Only oil companies such as Exxon Mobile of the US Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Tillerson or the French Total, or the Italian ENI hope to see their profits skyrocketing. At the same time war tensions will exacerbate as well as an armaments race. The Greek people as well as the people of the area will be forced to pay for these deals, through the armaments race and perhaps their blood.”
Text of Leila Khaled’s video call to action:
Comrades and friends, sisters and brothers
On behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, I extend our warm greeting to the Greek parties and the Greek people who responded to the call of the PFLP to unite against the visit of a war criminal Netanyahu to Greece.
He will attend a trio summit with Cyprus and the Greek Government. We extend our solidarity to your strong stand against such summits which benefit the apartheid state of Israel who occupies our homeland Palestine, since 69 years. This state which denies the Palestinian rights – right for return, self-determination and establishing an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital in Palestine.
Instead of taking Netanyahu to the court for his crimes against us and not abiding by international law, he is to be received on the Greek land to sell the stolen Palestinian gas and to build a coalition against you and us.
This message is to call on all progressive, socialist, democratic, anti-imperialist, anti-apartheid forces to firmly stand strongly against this visit and this summit. Our mutual struggle is based on common interests for our peoples.
On behalf of the martyrs, the prisoners and their families, I call upon everyone to participate in the demonstration. Let Netanyahu hear our voices, from Palestine to Greece via Cyprus, that he is not welcome anywhere.
Comrades and friends, let this stand be towards the unity of the left in Greece. Our enemies – on top of them the imperialist Americans – are doing their best to keep the progressive forces to be shattered and not united. They are igniting wars in our region. They can ignite other wars in other countries as well to silence the voice of the people.
Comrades and friends, together in struggle we can prevent them from implementing their plans against us. Raise your voices! Netanyahu out of Greece! Long live people’s struggle! We are united against imperialism. We are united against apartheid Israel. Boycott, divest, sanctions against Israel!
On Friday, 17 June, outside the consulate general of France in Brussels, we will join to support the call of the national demonstration to Free Georges Abdallah in Paris, organized by the Unified Campaign to Free Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
19 June is the international day of revolutionary prisoners.
An occasion that is very important for us to express our solidarity with Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Arab revolutionary Communist, struggler for the national liberation movement of Palestine, jailed in the French state prisons for 33 years. He was condemned to a life sentence for complicity in acts of resistance claimed by the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Fraction (LARF) while his country of Lebanon was invaded by Zionist forces.
He has been eligible for release since 1999. Despite two orders for release by a sentencing tribunal, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah remains imprisoned in France at the impetus of the US government. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah is a political prisoner who has no regrets for the struggle he has always led and which he pursues today, for freedom, justice and the emancipation of oppressed peoples. This struggle is fully part of the current struggle. It is the just and legitimate struggle of those who oppose the capitalist offensive and its wars of plunder. It is the struggle of all of those who confront repressive state violence which attempts to gag them, in the streets, the working-class neighborhood, or is the political and trade union context.
This fight of a lifetime is also ours! He is part of our struggle and we are with his struggle! That is why we call upon all who stand with the Palestinian resistance to fight capitalism, imperialism, Zionism, colonialism and the Arab reactionary regimes, to join us on Saturday, 17 June, to affirm the demand for his release.
Unified Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
Le 19 juin est la journée internationale des prisonniers révolutionnaires.
Une occasion de plus pour exprimer notre solidarité à Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, militant communiste révolutionnaire arabe, combattant pour la lutte de libération nationale de la Palestine et incarcéré dans les geôles de l’État français depuis 33 ans. Condamné à perpétuité pour complicité dans des actes de résistance revendiqués par les Fractions armées révolutionnaires libanaises, alors que son pays, le Liban, était envahi par les troupes sionistes, il est libérable depuis 1999. Malgré deux libérations prononcées par le tribunal d’application des peines, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah est maintenu en prison en France, sur injonction du gouvernement étatsunien.
Georges Ibrahim Abdallah est un prisonnier politique qui n’a ni regrets ni remords pour le combat qu’il a toujours mené et qu’il poursuit aujourd’hui pour la justice, la liberté et l’émancipation des peuples opprimés. Ce combat s’inscrit pleinement sur le terreau des luttes actuelles. C’est le combat des révoltes justes et légitimes de celles et ceux qui s’opposent à l’offensive capitaliste et à ses guerres de pillage. C’est le combat de tous ceux qui font face à la violence répressive d’Etat, qui s’abat sur eux pour tenter de les bâillonner, que ce soit dans la rue, dans les quartiers populaires ou pour les militants politiques et syndicaux. Ce combat de toute une vie est aussi le nôtre !
Il est de nos luttes, nous sommes de son combat ! C’est pourquoi nous appelons tous ceux qui comme nous, sont aux côtés des peuples en lutte, au côté de la résistance Palestinienne, qui combattent le capitalisme, l’impérialisme, le sionisme, le colonialisme et les États réactionnaires arabes, à se joindre à nous samedi 17 juin pour affirmer l’exigence de sa libération.
Featuring:
On Friday, 17 June, outside the consulate general of France in Brussels, we will join to support the call of the 