On April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Palestinian political prisoners plan to launch a collective hunger strike to secure their dignity and win their freedom.
Stand with them to demand that Israel release 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners immediately, and that Hewlett Packard companies end their contracts with Israeli prisons and detention centers, occupation and security forces, and checkpoints and settlements now.
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.
Thursday, 13 April 6:30 pm Emerson Hall 305 Harvard Yard, Harvard University
As part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2017, the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee presents a panel on the racialized mass incarceration and criminalization of communities from the United States to Palestine. Co-sponsored by Consilio Latino.
Panelists:
Gabriel Camacho, American Friends Service Committee – Immigration program coordinator
Randa Wahbe, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, PhD student in Anthropology at Harvard
Nadia Ben Youssef, USA rep for Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel
Five protesters attacked by police in Jacksonville, Florida as they protested U.S. bombings against Syria are now facing charges, amid a growing #JusticefortheJax5 campaign demanding all charges be immediately dropped.
On 7 April, a peaceful demonstration was organized to call for an end to U.S. intervention in Syria; protesters held signs and chanted against bombing. The demonstration was disrupted by right-wing Trump supporter Gary Snow. As the change.org petition supporting the five demonstrators notes: “Despite the demonstrators committing no crimes according to dozens of witnesses and extensive video footage, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office (JSO) beat and arrested 5 prominent union and community activists in Jacksonville.”
The Jacksonville Five who were arrested and charged are:
Connell Crooms, disabled Black man and Teamster union activist
Willie Wilder, a 74 year old Vietnam Veteran and leader of Vets for Peace
Christina Kittle, a Queer Black woman and advocate for women & children who face domestic violence
Tom Beckham, a Trans rights activist and student activist
Dave Schneider, a Teamster Shop Steward and community leader
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has charged the five protesters with multiple felonies on the basis of false allegations. A campaign is urging the immediate dismissal of these charges as well as further investigation:
1. Drop all Charges Against the #Jax5
2. Demand the protection of the right to free speech and to peacefully assemble.
3. Full Investigation of JSO Misconduct, brutality & any ties to White Supremacist Groups/Individuals
4. Full Investigation of Surveillance and Spying on union leaders & Community Organizers
Photo via Justice for the Jax5
In the days since the attack on the protesters, Facebook photographs have revealed that Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams posed for photos with the right-wing rally disruptor, Gary Snow, at a local Trump rally, despite Williams earlier denying any connection to Snow. In addition, just a week before the rally, it was revealed in local media that the Sheriff’s Office had been spying on protesters and contracting with private corporations to do so; those subject to this spying included Black Lives Matter and labor activists including Schneider, Crooms and Kittle.
Crooms, a Deaf Black labor activist, was particularly heavily attacked by the police, beaten and Tasered; he was hospitalized due to his injuries at the hands of police. Crooms’ mother spoke to a large rally of over 200 people against the police attack on peaceful demonstrators:
2. Join the call-in campaign; call State Attorney Melissa Nelson‘s office at +1 904-255-2500 and demand she drop all charges against the Jacksonville 5.
Attoun, 52, is a Jerusalemite Palestinian who was forced out of Jerusalem and his residency in his home city stripped from him by the Israeli occupation in 2010, along with fellow imprisoned parliamentarian Mohammed Abu Teir and PLC member Mohammed Totah, as well as former PA Jerusalem minister Khaled Abu Arafa. He was seized at his home in El-Bireh, which was invaded and ransacked by occupation forces, damaging and upending furniture.
Attoun is a member of the Change and Reform bloc in the PLC, associated with Hamas. He has spent over 12 years in Israeli jails, including in 2013, when he was seized and held in administrative detention without charge or trial for 20 months. He has been prohibited from even entering his home city of Jerusalem.
Also seized by Israeli occupation forces was Hamas spokesperson Fayez Abu Warda of el-Bireh, Bashar Sabatin and Amir Zaoul of Husan near Bethlehem, Moatassem Samer Brigheith of Beit Amr near al-Khalil, and Mustafa Abu Armelah, Ahmad Joudah, Sbeih Abu Sbeih, Noor al-Shalabi, Jihad Qous and Rawhi Koulghasi, all of Jerusalem. In addition, Mohammed Ma’an Fuquha, 32, the brother of Mazen Fuquha, the former prisoner and prominent Hamas leader recently assassinated in Gaza, was seized by Israeli occupation forces in Tubas. Mazen Fuquha had been forcibly displaced to the Gaza Strip following his release in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange of 2011.
Mohammed Fuquha. Photo: Asra News
The seizure of Attoun comes amid a recent escalation against PLC members; seven members of the PLC have been seized so far this year. PLC member Samira Halaiqa, seized by Israeli occupation forces on 9 March from her home in al-Khalil, is being charged in Israeli military court for her public political activities, including activities in support of Palestinian political prisoners. While the Ofer military court ordered Halaiqa, 53 and a representative of the Change and Reform bloc, released on a bail of 40,000 NIS (approximately $10,000) during the military trial, the military prosecutor appealed the order and Halaiqa remains imprisoned.
It also comes one day after the renewal of the administrative detention order against PLC member Hassan Yousef, 61, of the Change and Reform bloc, ordering him to another three months of imprisonment without charge or trial. This is the fifth time consecutively that he has been ordered to administrative detention since his seizure by Israeli occupation forces on 20 October 2015. In addition, the military prosecutor rejected Yousef’s lawyer’s petition to declare this his final period in administrative detention.
Also recently ordered to administrative detention were PLC members Ibrahim Dahbour and Mohammed al-Tal, both seized in March by occupation forces and ordered to administrative detention. Ahmad Mubarak, seized in January 2016, Azzam Salhab, arrested in November 2016, and Mohammed Jamal Natsheh, arrested in September 2016, are also imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention. All are members of the Change and Reform bloc, as are Khaled Tafesh and Anwar Zboun, currently imprisoned since they were seized by Israeli occupation forces on 6 March.
They join Abu Teir, fellow Jerusalem deportee with Attoun, currently serving a 17-month sentence in Israeli prison, as well as Ahmad Sa’adat, 63, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine serving a 30-year prison sentence after he and his comrades were abducted by Israeli forces attacking a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho in 2006, and Marwan Barghouthi, prominent Fateh leader serving five life sentences and imprisoned since 2002.
In Nafha prison, Palestinian detainees associated with Fateh, the Islamic Jihad movement and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced that they would participate in the strike to achieve its demands, including proper health treatment for sick prisoners, an end to the denial and cutbacks on family visits, and an end to administrative detention and solitary confinement. The prisoners in sections 3, 4, 10, 13 and 14 in Nafha prison – approximately 530 prisoners – announced they were joining the strike.
Nashaat al-Wahidi, the spokesperson for Fateh in the National and Islamic Forces’ prisoners’ committee in Gaza, said that 1,500 Palestinian prisoners will participate in the strike, including 120 Palestinian prisoners in Gaza. Marwan Barghouthi, the imprisoned Fateh leader, is the spokesperson and representative of the striking Fateh prisoners.
Palestinian prisoners from all factions held in Gilboa and Hadarim prisons will join the strike, as well as two sections in the Ofer prison (approximately 240 prisoners), 30 prisoners in Ashkelon prison, 120 prisoners in Ramon prison and 150 prisoners in the Negev desert prison, in addition to the participants held in Nafha prison.
Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan has threatened to deny prisoners on hunger strike access to standard hospitals in an attempt to thwart the strike and block popular solidarity in Palestine ’48. Instead, he has ordered the creation of a “field hospital” in the Negev desert prison, planning for the transfer of hunger strikers, and potentially threatening hunger strikers with forced feeding.
Fadwa Barghouthi, Palestinian lawyer and the wife of Marwan Barghouthi, urged solidarity for the prisoners’ demands and their hunger strike. A number of Palestinian organizations and institutions have organized events for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and the coming weeks.
Four Palestinian institutions concerned with prisoners and human rights, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Al-Mezan Center for Human Rights, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and the Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, issued their monthly report on Sunday, 9 April covering the situation in March 2017. The following translation is provided by Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
Occupation authorities arrested 509 Palestinians during the month of March 2017 from the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, including 75 children and 13 women, including two minor girls and 5 Palestinian Legislative Council deputies.
During March, 160 Palestinians from Jerusalem were arrested, 80 from al-Khalil, 73 from Bethlehem, 35 from Ramallah and el-Bireh, 34 from Tulkarem, 33 from Nablus, 31 from Jenin, 21 from Qalqilya, 15 from Jericho, 11 from Tubas, 11 from the Gaza Strip and five from Salfit.
Israeli occupation authorities issued 111 administrative detention orders in March, including an order for imprisonment without charge or trial against re-arrested released prisoner Ihsan Dababseh and PLC member Mohammed Ismail al-Tal.
The total number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails is approximately 6,500; among them are 62 women prisoners, including 14 minor girls. There are approximately 300 children detained in Israeli prisons, and 500 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention.
Last month also saw the continued arrest of Palestinian leaders and the prosecution of political activists and journalists by the occupation, in an attempt to prevent them from performing their role in educating the community and organizing the Palestinian people, and to prevent journalists from covering and exposing the practices of the occupation. This policy is intended to suppress and gag their voices, particularly in occupied Jerusalem, During March, five deputies of the PLC were arrested including MP Samira Halaiqeh, while five journalists working in various media were seized.
In addition, Palestinian prisoners experienced a continued policy of invasions of sections and rooms of detainees and ransacking their belongings, as well as continued medical neglect of hundreds of jailed patients and high rates of administrative detention, solitary confinement and isolation, the detention of children and the imposition of exorbitant monetary fines, and denial of family visits to hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.
The four institutions expressed their strong condemnation of the gross and systematic Israeli violations of international law against Palestinian prisoners, and also condemned the continuing arrest and systematic targeting of journalists by the occupation, which hinders their work in disseminating information about human rights violations to which Palestinians are continuously exposed. Such repression violates freedom of the press and freedom of expression and also violates international conventions and humanitarian law, which provide special protection for journalists through the additional Protocol I of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1977, and Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, and Article 19 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, which uphold the right to receive and impart news and ideas, which applies to journalists. The institutions also note the continuing arrests by the Israeli occupation of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council by the Israeli occupation despite international law barring the arrest of individuals for their political views.
The four institutions also call upon the international community and international bodies to respect their legal and moral obligations toward the ongoing crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territory, and to take effective measures to compel the occupation to respect international humanitarian law and international human rights law. They urged action and playing an active role to hold the occupying power accountable, as well as holding accountable the perpetrators of crimes against Palestinian civilians to ensure that they do not enjoy impunity.
Imprisoned Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, originally scheduled for release on 14 April after three months of administrative detention, is now facing new charges from an Israeli occupation military court, all for public political activity, in an attempt to deny his release secured through a 33-day hunger strike.
Palestinian lawyer Khaled Zabarqah told Wattan that the Israeli occupation military court stated on Sunday, 9 April that it would issue a ruling after 18 April on al-Qeeq’s appeal against his imprisonment, ordered to continue until the end of the military court proceedings against him. He said that the court refused to hear his legal arguments on Thursday and then held an appeal hearing on Sunday at the Ofer military court; al-Qeeq was not present.
Zabarqah emphsized that the Israeli military authorities have proved time and again that the people should have no confidence in any rulings issued by the court, and that this indictment issued against al-Qeeq is yet another proof of their complete disrespect to any commitments made, even before the judicial apparatus. Al-Qeeq ended his hunger strike on the basis of an agreement to not renew his administrative detention – and therefore release him – following the three-month order. He noted that the refusal to hear evidence from the defense was further evidence of the political attack on al-Qeeq.
Al-Qeeq, 35, a Palestinian journalist, was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 15 January as he returned home from a demonstration in Bethlehem demanding the release of the captive bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces. He was previously arrested in 2015 and ordered to administrative detention; he won his release in May 2016 with a 94-day hunger strike that received significant Palestinian and international support.
Israeli occupation authorities issued 24 administrative detention orders against Palestinians between 1 April and 8 April, reported Palestinian lawyer Mahmoud Halabi of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club. These administrative detention orders are used to jail Palestinians without charge or trial on the basis of so-called “secret evidence.”
There are approximately 500 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention out of a total of nearly 6,500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Administrative detention orders are issued for one to six months at a time, but are indefinitely renewable; many Palestinians have spent years on end imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention.
The use of administrative detention as a systematic policy by the Israeli occupation violates international law and has sparked strong resistance from Palestinian prisoners, including a series of hunger strikes. On Sunday, 9 April, Fouad Bisharat, a Palestinian prisoner held since 17 September 2016 under administrative detention without charge or trial, suspended his open hunger strike which he had carried out for 11 days on the basis of a commitment to not renew his administrative detention again. His mother, Mazzouzah Bisharat, told Asra Media that Bisharat, 28, was preparing for his wedding when he was seized and held under administrative detention, the first time he was arrested.
Among the Palestinian prisoners issued administrative detention orders in early April is Kifah Quzmar, the Palestinian student at Bir Zeit University who was seized as he returned to Palestine at the Karameh/Allenby crossing on 7 March. Over 70 international organizations have signed on to a student-initiated demand for his release and an end to the persecution of Palestinian students.
The 24 prisoners issued administrative detention orders are:
1. Mohammed Nasser Alaqimah, from Jenin, 4 months, extension
2. Yousef Abdel-Rahim al-Khatib, from Jerusalem, 6 months, new order
3. Omar Nasser Barghouthi, from Ramallah, 3 months, extension
4. Mustafa Ismail Safi, from al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
5. Itaf Ahmad al-Atrash, from al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
6. Mohammed Ahmed al-Najjar, from al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
7. Mazen Jamal Natsheh, from al-Khalil, 6 months, extension
8. Bajis Khalil Nakhleh, from Ramallah, 3 months, extension
9. Obeida Ahmad Marei, from Qalqilya, 4 months, new order
10. Ibrahim Mohammed Dahbour, from Jenin, 6 months, new order
11. Afif Salameh Awawdah, from al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
12. Kifah Mohammed Quzmar, from Ramallah, 6 months, new order
13. Murad Mohammed Zaghari, from Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
14. Jamal Ibrahim Maslamani, from Tubas, 4 months, new order
15. Mahmoud Hassan Nimr, from Ramallah, 6 months, new order
16. Musa Salem Sawarka, from Bethlehem, 6 months, new order
17. Yahya Hani Jaddo, from Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
18. Mohammed Sahib Kufaisheh, from al-Khalil, 4 months, new order
19. Hamdi Ali Khatatbeh, from Nablus, 4 months, extension
20. Salman Khaled Nassar, from Jenin, 4 months, extension
21. Bajis Mahmoud Suweyta, from al-Khalil, 3 months, extension
22. Abdel-Jaber Mohammed Jarrar, from Jenin, 3 months, extension
23. Sharif Taher Tahayna, from Jenin, 4 months, extension
24. Fadi Mohammed Srour, from al-Khalil, 6 months, extension
Palestinian child prisoner Natalie Shokha was released on Sunday, 9 April after a year in Israeli prison. Natalie, 15, from the village of Rammon near Ramallah, has been imprisoned since April 2016.
Her release came after a higher court rejected an appeal by the Israeli occupation against a decision to release her after completing two-thirds of her 18-month sentence. She was welcomed warmly by her family and friends upon her release.
Natalie was imprisoned alongside her friend, fellow child prisoner Tasneem Halabi. She was repeatedly denied family visits, even while she was severely wounded by Israeli occupation forces.
My greetings to all of the generous people of my beloved village, Rammun. My greetings to the council of the village and to everyone who supports its development.
Mother, I am in now in prison a member of the cultural committee. I have also become a member of the magazine. I discuss novels and I am the fourth in reading. 🙁 Thank God at any rate.
Mom, Dad, everyone here is proud of your raising of me. Have your head held high. And I am living in the room with six other girls. We are the twelve flowers (security prisoners who are minor girls). We live together through bad and good times. Mom, please say hello to all and tell them I miss them so much and that I am sorry if I forgot anyone. May God bring us together, united, soon. God, bring us freedom now!
They will not imprison the scent of jasmine in a flower!
The prisoner Natalie Shokha
HaSharon Prison
Division 14
Also released on Sunday was Bashar al-Khatib, 45, from Jerusalem, after serving 15 years in prison. He was seized by undercover Israeli occupation forces on 10 April 2002 in Jerusalem and imprisoned for participation in the Palestinian resistance with Fateh.
In addition, Thamer Sa’abaneh, writer and activist for Palestinian prisoners, from the town of Qabatiya near Jenin, was released on Sunday from the Negev desert prison after six months of imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention; he has been imprisoned on multiple occasions for his political activity.
Palestinian and solidarity activists in New York City, including organizers with Samidoun, New York City Students for Justice in Palestine, the ANSWER Coalition, Workers World Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Peoples Power Assembly and SPARC, were arrested on Friday, 7 April by the NYPD as their demonstration against U.S. bombing of Syria was attacked by police. Nine activists were arrested and two more were detained – one seriously attacked physically by police – before being released. The nine arrestees are now all released after several hours of jail support and advocacy by fellow organizers.
Photo: Detainees and jail supporters moments following their release by David Jamesnovitch
The activists were seized by police after about thirty minutes of marching, near 23rd Street and Fifth Avenue. They had marched north after gathering in Union Square. The anti-war rally, with a large contingent of youth, had grown to number in the high hundreds before taking the streets.
John Fletcher, one of the arrested activists and a Samidoun organizer, noted that he had earlier been pushed by NYPD while marching and that he and another comrade, Dan Cione of NYC Students for Justice in Palestine, were two of the first to be grabbed from the demonstration as police pried the Palestinian flag from his hands. At the same time, approximately eight to ten police surrounded NYC Students for Justice in Palestine organizer Nerdeen Kiswani, slamming her violently into the concrete, grabbing her by her hijab and choking her to the extent that it was ripped from her head as she was cuffed by police. Nerdeen was clearly singled out from the crowd by police as she was leading chants and targeted for particularly violent assault and repression.
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NYC SJP has been a leading organizer of events and actions for Palestinian prisoners in New York City, and it was one of the initiators of the recent student statement in support of Kifah Quzmar and fellow Palestinian student prisoners as well as a major organizer of the international student day of solidarity with Bilal Kayed and Palestinian prisoners in 2016. NYC SJP activists organize on a range of campuses as well as within the community in New York to build actions and mobilizations in support of the Palestinian liberation struggle.
More organizers were detained or arrested by police, including Angela Firestone of NYC SJP, Michael Bellamy of SPARC, Collin Ashley of Peoples’ Power Assembly, Stephen Millies of the Workers World Party and International Action Center, Brendan O’Brien of ANSWER and the Party for Socialism and Liberation and Jonah Quest. Stephen Millies is also the designer of many of the protest signs and placards of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Two of the organizers, including Nerdeen, were released after their detention, while the other nine were issued tickets and finally released after hours of jail solidarity by fellow activists. John Fletcher, one of the Samidoun arrestees, noted that this march was targeted by the police nearly as soon as it left Union Square, and in particular highlighted the large youth participation in this anti-war rally.
The protest gathered numbers in the high hundreds and began immediately following Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network’s weekly protest in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners, which focused on the case of Kifah Quzmar, Palestinian student activist currently held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Samidoun activists gathered outside the Best Buy in Union Square to demand freedom for Quzmar and his fellow imprisoned Palestinian students; they also highlighted the growing international campaign to boycott Hewlett-Packard (HP) because of the corporation’s involvement in profiteering from the Israeli occupation, including providing technical services and systems to Israeli checkpoints, the Apartheid Wall and the Israel Prison Service.
Kifah Quzmar’s case has seen support from over 70 organizations around the world in a statement initiated by international student organizations demanding his release and that of fellow Palestinian students, often targeted for any form of political involvement or student activism on campus. Participants in the Samidoun protest distributed materials and information about Quzmar’s case and fellow Palestinian prisoners, while urging Best Buy shoppers to refrain from purchasing HP goods and demanding the corporation get out of the business of repressing Palestinians living under occupation, apartheid and settler colonialism. They chanted for the freedom of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and liberation for the land and people of Palestine.
The Samidoun demonstration also served as the gathering point for the International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS) contingent for the anti-war demonstration gathering in Union Square. Following US President Donald Trump’s military strikes with 59 missiles against a Syrian air force base near Homs, emergency demonstrations were organized in New York City to demand an end to all forms of US intervention in Syria, including bombing raids, missile strikes and the presence of US military personnel in Syria. Two demonstrations, one organized by the International Action Center and one by the ANSWER Coalition, united together in Union Square to form a unified march in the high hundreds against US wars, invasions and bombing.
ILPS organizations involved in organizing the contingent and the rally included Samidoun, NYC SJP, BAYAN USA, the Committee to Stop FBI Repression and the International Action Center. Participants carried signs, banners and Palestinian flags denouncing US wars and imperialism in Syria and throughout the region. Michela Martinazzi of Samidoun and the Committee to Stop FBI Repression led numerous chants at the demonstration while Nerdeen Kiswani and Noura Farouq of NYC SJP emceed the rally and continued leading chants throughout the march.
The protest was not the only march against US war and imperialism attacked by police yesterday. In Jacksonville, Florida, one demonstrator, Connell Crooms, was severely injured and hospitalized after being hit in the kidneys and tasered. The police attacked the protesters after a group of about six pro-Trump, pro-war supporters began hitting the demonstrators with a Trump flag. Despite his injuries, Crooms is still facing charges at the hands of the police.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwTYulcSX0w
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the attack by the police on protesters in NYC, Jacksonville and elsewhere, despite the fact that such attacks come as no surprise from the same police forces that terrorize Black communities and other oppressed communities on a daily basis in the cities and towns of the United States. We stand in solidarity with all those arrested and targeted and urge the organizing of more protests and actions to confront US and Zionist imperialist war, aggression, racism, colonialism and imprisonment.
On April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Palestinian political prisoners plan to launch a collective hunger strike to secure their dignity and win their freedom.
Five protesters attacked by police in Jacksonville, Florida as they protested U.S. bombings against Syria are now facing charges, amid a 
Palestinian prisoners associated with Fateh are building plans for their 
Imprisoned Palestinian journalist 
Israeli occupation authorities issued 24 administrative detention orders against Palestinians between 1 April and 8 April, reported Palestinian lawyer 
Palestinian child prisoner 
In addition, 
