All Out for Rasmea’s April 25th plea hearing in Detroit!

7 April 2017

The following statement is recirculated from the Rasmea Defense Committee. Videos below are from Jewish Voice for Peace, from the National Membership Meeting where Rasmea Odeh was a featured keynote speaker.

WHEN: Tuesday, April 25, 1:00 PM
Rally at 1:00 PM, hearing starts at 2:30 PM
(Eastern Time)

WHERE: U.S. District Court, 231 W. Lafayette Blvd., downtown Detroit, Michigan

The Rasmea Defense Committee is calling on everyone to mobilize for Rasmea’s final court appearance in Detroit on April 25^th, and tell us here that you’re attending, or if you need a ride or can provide transportation!

It is essential that we fill the courtroom one final time, in support of our leader and shero Rasmea Odeh, who accepted a plea agreement two weeks ago (statement below), and will be forced to leave the United States soon.

Supporters from Chicago and other parts of Illinois, as well as from Milwaukee, Detroit / Dearborn, Grand Rapids, Ann Arbor, Minneapolis / St. Paul, Cincinnati, Indiana, and other Midwest areas are already committed to attend.

Continue to support #Justice4Rasmea, and stay in touch through www.justice4rasmea.org and justice4rasmea@uspcn.org.
The Rasmea Defense Committee is led by the U.S. Palestinian Community Network and the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.

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I will continue my struggle
– Rasmea Odeh, April 5, 2017

(This essay is adapted from speeches delivered by Rasmea Odeh at the Crossroads Fund Seeds of Change event on 31 March 2017 and at the Jewish Voice for Peace national conference on 2 April 2017.)

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I was an infant during the Nakba, the 1948 catastrophe in Palestine. Growing up I heard many stories of pain and bitterness from my family, who were forced, along with 750,000 other Palestinians, to leave the homes, lands, lives and memories they had built for generations.

Now I face a similar Nakba, forced to leave the country and the life that I built for myself over 23 years in the US – the relationships, the memories and all the people I know and love, especially the women of Chicago’s Arab community.

But I will continue my struggle for justice for my people wherever I land. I will continue the struggle for the right of return, for self-determination and for the establishment of a democratic state on the entirety of the historic land of Palestine.

When I immigrated to this country and found myself in Chicago, after many years of working on women’s rights and other legal advocacy issues in the Arab world, I found psychological tranquility and stability amongst family and new friends, far away from any kind of fear or threats. I determined that this would be my second home, where I would build a life amongst a Palestinian community that I love and respect so dearly.

Community and struggle

I have been a community organizer for the past 13 years with the Arab Women’s Committee, a project of the Arab American Action Network. I have spent the best years of my life with these Arab immigrant and refugee women. We protect each other, and struggle for justice together through our organizing work. They are all helping me to live a generous and simple life, and forget a lot of my personal pain.

We created this committee from scratch; it now has over 700 members. The committee promotes leadership by and for Arab women, to build their

capacity to fight for social change, and to challenge systems of oppression like racial profiling, sexism and patriarchy. We built a formation of immigrant and refugee women who fight for their own rights and the rights of all oppressed peoples.

We all have a role to play in our own cities, our own neighborhoods. Organizing is difficult. It’s hard work, but it’s the only thing that is guaranteed to make change in this world.

White people didn’t just decide to give up their power and allow people their civil rights. It was fought for in a Black-led movement that inspired the whole world, and it is still being fought for. Mubarak in Egypt didn’t just walk away quietly from his presidency. It took 10 million workers on strike to push him out, and that revolution is still not complete.

The Arab American Action Network was one of the leaders of the shutdown of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago the day after Trump’s Muslim Ban was announced. We helped get 5,000 people to that airport over two days, and thousands more shut down a number of other airports in the US.
Later that same weekend, a federal court froze that executive order, but it wouldn’t have happened without the mass movement in the streets. Trump lost Muslim Ban 2.0 as well, and the Republican bill to take healthcare away from millions, and he will lose many times more. Even though he said he was going to win more than any other president, he keeps losing because people in the US are in the streets resisting every single day.

Our role in Palestine’s liberation

Of course, Zionists aren’t going to stop their land grab in Palestine either. The Palestinians there — and the Palestinians and our supporters here — have to stop them with our resistance and our organizing. With boycott, divestment and sanctions – including the cultural and academic boycott of Israel. With challenging the Jewish United Fund in Chicago, and with shutting down Zionists when they try to defend their war crimes. With defending our students and our community-based institutions and our organizers and our allies when they get attacked.

Many hundreds of Palestinians and our supporters in the US have had to face government repression because of our organizing for peace and justice, and it is important that all of you continue your activism despite the attacks, because we are doing effective work in this country that is having an impact. Our community organizations, our student organizers, our academics, our solidarity activists — all exposing Israel for the criminal, apartheid state that it is.

There is a long history of repression against oppressed communities in this country. Law enforcement goes after those, like the Black liberation movement and so many others, who are fighting for social justice, those who want to make a difference in the world.

We are those people, and we will be targeted, but we should understand that we have the support of millions of others around the world who share our vision of historical Palestine liberated from Zionism, where all Palestinian refugees can return to their original homes, and where everyone there can live together with dignity and equal rights.

I am going to have to leave the life I have built for more than a decade at some point in the next few months. I am going to have to leave Chicago and all the beautiful people who have welcomed me so warmly to this country and this city. But I will still be organizing wherever I end up.

And I’ll be watching developments in the US very closely, because besides Palestine, this is the main front of the battle for the liberation of my homeland. And liberation we will win.

Ten days before his release, imprisoned journalist Al-Qeeq hit with new military court charges

6 April 2017

Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq was suddenly slapped with new charges before an Israeli occupation military court on 4 April, 10 days before his scheduled release from three months of imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Al-Qeeq ended a 33-day hunger strike on 10 March after an agreement that his administrative detention would not be renewed when it expired on 14 April, three months after he was seized on 15 January by Israeli occupation forces as he returned home from a demonstration in Bethlehem.

Fayha Shalash, al-Qeeq’s wife and a fellow journalist, described the charges as “a dirty attempt to keep him in detention for as long as possible,” saying that new charges could be related to her husband’s participation in demonstrations in solidarity with prisoners and demanding the return of the bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces.

Shalash said that this action by the Israeli occupation “aims to break the will of the Palestinian prisoners and circumvent the hunger strike and send a message that strikes are useless, attempting to suppress the next strikes of prisoners in defense of their freedoms.”

Al-Qeeq previously won his release from imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention in 2016, after a 94-day hunger strike. He was released in May 2016 and has been a frequent participant in protests for Palestinian prisoners’ rights since that time. Al-Qeeq will once again be brought back before the Ofer military court on Thursday, 6 April.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network strongly condemns the filing of new, unjust charges against Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq in a transparent attempt to keep him imprisoned only ten days before his release, secured through 33 days of hunger strike. We urge actions and protests by people of conscience around the world to immediately demand the release of Mohammed al-Qeeq and his fellow Palestinian prisoners.

24 Palestinian journalists imprisoned; freed journalist Omar Nazzal barred from Jerusalem, travel and banking

6 April 2017

Palestinian journalist and former prisoner Omar Nazzal recently reported on his Facebook page about a series of restrictions that have been issued by Israeli occupation forces against him through military orders. Nazzal was released from administrative detention on 20 February after 10 months of imprisonment without charge or trial; since that time, he has been slapped with a two-year travel ban preventing him from leaving occupied Palestine; banned from Jerusalem and Palestine ’48 for 99 years; and forbidden from opening bank accounts until further notice.

Nazzal was seized by Israeli occupation forces in April 2016 as he attempted to enter Jordan through the Karameh/Allenby crossing en route to the European Federation of Journalists conference in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is a member of the Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate and president of the Assembly of Democratic Journalists. His detention was internationally condemned by the EFJ, the International Federation of Journalists and other international associations.

There are currently 24 Palestinian journalists imprisoned in Israeli jails, the Palestinian Media Assembly reported on 2 April on March violations of the rights of journalists by the Israeli occupation. They include the five journalists of Sanabel Radio, who have been imprisoned since August 2016, when occupation forces invaded the radio station, abducting all of the staff present. Nine journalists were arrested in March, including Samah Dweik, Hassan Sawan, Mohammed Abed Rabbo, Khaleda Ghosheh, Raed Abu Remaileh (since released) and Mohammed Batrakh, Ayoub Sawan, Asim Mustafa and Musab al-Said (all still detained.)

Palestine TV correspondent Ahmed Shawar was injured by rubber-coated metal bullets as he covered a demonstration against settlements and the apartheid wall in Kufr Qaddoum. In addition, multiple photographers were injured in Nabi Saleh by Israeli occupation forces, including Rasha Herzallah, Hamza Shalash, Essam Rimawi, Mohammed Turkman, Majdi Shtayyeh, Abbas Momani and Saleh Hamad. In Kafr Malek, Nasser Shyoukhi and Abdel-Kader Bilbeisi were injured after inhaling tear gas. In addition, Israeli occupation forces attacked and confiscated several print shops, including Nahda in Tulkarem, Ibn Khaldoun in Tulkarem and Dozan in Bethlehem.

Israeli occupation forces stormed the home of Palestinian cartoonist Osama Nazzal on 27 March, smashing his paintings on the wall and drawing tools as well as confiscating other artwork.

Israeli minister Gilad Erdan threatens to force hunger strikers to a “field hospital,” isolation in Negev desert prison

6 April 2017

Israeli Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan – who also leads the Israeli occupation’s anti-BDS efforts, in addition to overseeing the Israeli national police, prison and security agencies responsible for the killing, torture and imprisonment of thousands of Palestinians – announced on 5 April via Channel 2 that hunger-striking prisoners will be moved to the Negev desert prison where a field hospital will be established.

Erdan announced this action in advance of the large hunger strike announced to begin on 17 April by Fateh prisoners. According to Asra Voice, Channel 2 reported that this step is meant to keep hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners out of Israeli hospitals, where their presence has sparked protest and solidarity actions throughout occupied Palestine ’48.

In addition, it should be noted that traditional Israeli hospitals have so far refused to engage in force-feeding through the use of a nasogastric tube against Palestinian hunger strikers in recent years (although a recent High Court decision has once again “legitimized” the torturous and unethical practice), although they have engaged in multiple occasions in forcible treatment of Palestinian prisoners including the forced administration of nutrition, which is also a clear violation of medical ethics principles. It is highly possible that this “field hospital” is an attempt to impose mass force feeding on striking Palestinian prisoners outside the civilian medical framework. Erdan, who was one of the proponents of 2015’s “Law to Prevent Harm Caused by Hunger Strikers,” has compared Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike for their rights to “terrorists.”

Erdan’s announcement came as the Palestinian prisoners’ movement continues to discuss plans for the announced 17 April strike. Originally discussed by prisoners from all political organizations in Israeli prisons, in March, Fateh prisoners announced their demands and their plans to strike on 17 April in a statement from imprisoned Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi. In some prisons, including Gilboa and Hadarim, where the large majority of prisoners are Fateh prisoners, Palestinian prisoners across factional lines have announced they will participate in the strike.

Demands of the strike include a strong focus on family visits, including the denial of family visits to Palestinian prisoners by various Israeli agencies, including the Israel Prison Service and the Shin Bet, as well as the cuts to these visits implemented by the International Committee of the Red Cross. In addition, prisoners’ demands also focus on achieving proper medical treatment for sick prisoners, an end to the abuse of prisoners during transfer via the “bosta” and an end to solitary confinement and administrative detention.

However, the prison branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said that it greeted the announcement with “appreciation and high regard for the declaration of the brother, struggler and Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi and a group of Fateh prisoners to launch a strike on 17 April,” the strike was not launched as a collective and unified step with the participation and voice of all political forces. It urged that national and collective actions should be organized to strengthen unity, built on a national consensus of the prisoners’ movement and involve all factions; the statement declared that the PFLP prisoners are not officially participating in the strike, but that PFLP prisoners in joint sections with Fateh prisoners will join in the strike.

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Center for Studies reported that the prisoners’ movement is carrying out intense discussions within all the Israeli prisons to identify priorities and work to build success for the prisoners’ struggles, including the 17 April strike, particularly in light of attempts to suppress prisoner organizing like Erdan’s “field hospital” plans.

8 April, Derry: Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners

6 April 2017

Saturday, 8 April
2:00 pm
Guildhall, Derry, Ireland
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1310687462344813/

Derry Branch of Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign is holding a protest in Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners. Recent arrests of 4 Human Rights Defenders from Hebron and Palestinian student Kifah Quzmar ordered imprisoned for six months without charge or trial on Monday 3rd April highlights the brutal oppression that Palestinians are living under 24/7. Join with us to stand in Solidarity with our Palestinian comrades.

Palestinian youth activist Seif al-Idrissi and former hunger striker Ayed Heraimi ordered to six more months in administrative detention

6 April 2017

Imprisoned Palestinian youth activist Seif al-Idrissi, a comrade of assassinated organizer Basil al-Araj, was ordered to an additional six months in administrative detention, indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial, on 5 April.

Idrissi, 28, from Tulkarem, was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 10 October, only weeks after his release from Palestinian Authority prisons, where he was jailed for over five months with al-Araj, Mohammed Harb, Mohammed al-Salameen, Haitham Siyaj and Ali Dar al-Sheikh. The six youth were released after they launched a hunger strike with widespread Palestinian support; their case had earlier been trumpeted as an example of the success of PA security coordination with Israel.

Mohammed Harb‘s administrative detention was earlier renewed for an additional six months. Al-Salameen and Siyaj are also both imprisoned under administrative detention orders; jailed since they were seized and beaten by Israeli occupation forces on 24 October 2017, both are also threatened with the renewal of their administrative detention orders.

Al-Araj was assassinated by Israeli occupation forces on 6 March 2017 when they invaded the home where he was staying in el-Bireh. They had previously invaded and ransacked his family home in Walaja near Bethlehem over 10 times. Al-Araj resisted the occupation forces until his last breath. Well-known for his involvement in all forms of community and youth organizing and his dedication to Palestinian history and struggle, al-Araj’s assassination sparked protests across Palestine and internationally, demanding an end to Palestinian Authority security coordination with Israel. On 17 April, Palestinian youth will also take to the streets to commemorate both Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and the 40th day on the assassination of al-Araj, demanding justice and freedom for Palestinian prisoners and an end to security coordination.

Also ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial was Ayed Heraimi, 24, of Bethlehem, a former hunger striker who was re-arrested by Israeli occupation forces on 20 March 2017, only two months after his release from Israeli prisons in January 2017. Heraimi previously launched a hunger strike for 45 days, securing his release in January at the end of his six-month detention order; he had held in administrative detention without charge or trial for 14 months in total, re-arrested less than 10 days after serving a three-year prison sentence for membership in Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.

Idrissi and Heraimi are among nearly 600 Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable and Palestinian prisoners can be held for years at a time with no charge and no trial.

Military court hearings continued for student Istabraq Tamimi, parliamentarian Samira Halaiqa

6 April 2017

The Ofer Israeli occupation military court again adjourned the hearing of Palestinian student Istabraq Yahya Tamimi on Wednesday, 5 April. Her military court hearings have been repeatedly adjourned since her arrest on 20 March when Israeli occupation soldiers invaded the female students’ dormitory at Bir Zeit University.

Tamimi, 22, a broadcast journalism student, is formerly the secretary of the cultural committee of the Bir Zeit University student council. She is held at HaSharon prison and faces a potential transfer to Damon prison. Her case is one of 60 Bir Zeit students – and hundreds of Palestinian students overall – who are imprisoned in Israeli jails. In particular, active students who are involved with student council and student election activities have been targeted by Israeli occupation forces in an attempt to undermine student organizing. Fellow Bir Zeit student Kifah Quzmar was recently ordered to six months without charge or trial in administrative detention.

Meanwhile, the Ofer military court also adjourned the hearing of Palestinian Legislative Council member Samira Halaiqa of al-Khalil, one of 12 PLC members imprisoned by the Israeli occupation. She has been imprisoned since 9 March, when her family home was invaded by Israeli occupation forces. On 3 April, the Ofer military court ordered her release on 20,000 NIS bail (approximately $5,000 USD) and the imposition of a travel ban; however, the military prosecution filed an objection against her release, keeping her imprisoned in HaSharon prison.

Two Palestinian prisoners continue hunger strikes for freedom

6 April 2017

Palestinian prisoner Fouad Bisharat is currently on his ninth day of hunger strike, reported Ma’an News. Bisharat, 28, from the village of Tamoun near Tubas, is on hunger strike in protest of the renewal of his Israeli administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial under Israeli occupation military order – for the third consecutive time. Bisharat has been imprisoned since September 2016; he was first ordered imprisoned without charge for four months, then three additional months, and now once again for four months; his detention will be once again renewable at the end of that period.

Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable and are issued for periods of one to six months at a time. There are nearly 600 Palestinian prisoners out of a total of 7,000 held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Among Palestinian administrative detainees are eight members of the Palestinian Legislative Council out of 12 total imprisoned PLC members; on 3 April, PLC member Ibrahim Dahbour of Arraba near Jenin, was ordered to administrative detention.

Also on hunger strike is Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Mahmoud Abu Shawka, 23, from Gaza City, who was seized on 8 March at the Container checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jericho despite having a valid permit for study in the West Bank after receiving a grant from the Arab League. Abu Shawka is active with the Fateh youth at Al-Aqsa University in Gaza. Abu Shawka has been on hunger strike for 10 days in protest of his imprisonment.

On Monday, 3 April, Palestinian prisoner Mahmoud Saada, 41, suspended his open hunger strike which he conducted for 24 days in protest of his ongoing interrogation and detention in Jalameh interrogation center since his arrest in February 2017. He suspended his strike after an Israeli occupation military court hearing at the Salem military court. His detention was extended for seven more days, after which Palestinian lawyer Saleh Ayoub said he will be indicted before a military court or released; Ayoub said further that he will be transferred from Jalameh no later than Thursday.

Former hunger striker Raafat Shalash, 34, will be released in July of this year after the Israeli occupation Supreme Court issued a “fundamental” administrative detention order against him. A re-arrested former prisoner who has spent a total of seven years in Israeli jails, Shalash has been imprisoned since 17 January 2016 without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Samidoun organizer Mohammed Khatib denied visa to United States

3 April 2017

Palestinian organizer Mohammed Khatib, the Europe coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, was denied a visa to the United States, where he had been invited to speak at the Jewish Voice for Peace National Membership Meeting, which took place in Chicago from 31 March to 2 April. Along with Black4Palestine organizer Kristian Davis Bailey, Mohammed is working on a project to build Black-Palestinian transnational solidarity between liberation movements, focusing on youth organizing.

Additional events in the United States, focusing on Palestinian political prisoners, the struggle for justice in Palestine, Black/Palestinian transnational organizing and liberation struggle and the struggle of refugees – from the urgent need to fight racism in Europe today to Palestinian refugees’ right to return – were also being planned for Mohammed.

Mohammed is himself a Palestinian refugee from Ein el-Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon. A Convention-recognized refugee, the mere sight of his Belgium-issued refugee travel document led visa processing staff members at the U.S. Embassy in Athens, Greece to deny his travel to the US, rejecting even a review of his invitation letters and travel program scheduled in the United States.

As Davis Bailey spoke at the JVP plenary on Sunday, 2 April, he said:

I would like to start by bringing into the room my dear friend and comrade Mohammed Khatib, who was scheduled to join us in person on this panel. Mohammed is the European coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon. It is explicitly because of his status as a refugee that he was refused the opportunity to even interview for a visa to the US. “There is nowhere to deport you to,” the embassy told him.

This would have been Mohammed’s first time to the US and he was very eager to engage the membership of Jewish Voice for Peace as a refugee in exile, and as a descendant of survivors of the Nakba. He was subject to the double violence of being denied access to his homeland by Israel and being denied the ability to travel because of his status as a refugee by the US.

Next year marks 70 years since the Nakba. As a solidarity movement we have to take seriously that the majority of Palestinians are refugees in exile and that the end of the occupation or even creation of a Palestinian state does not resolve the fundamental injustice they experienced. We need broad and massive commemorations of the Nabka and to expose the crimes and outcome of the Nakba as the fundamental root of this conflict. We need campaigns and demonstrations to end Israel’s “Palestinian ban” with the same amount of fervor as we rallied at airports against the US’s “Muslim ban.” We cannot abandon the right of return.

The denial of Mohammed Khatib’s visa is, of course, not at all an individual case, but part and parcel of long-time United States policies of ideological exclusion and racist profiling as well as refusal to recognize the rights of refugees. Palestinians traveling to the United States for public events or speaking tours have long faced the threat and the reality of visa denial based on ideological exclusion or racist categories of “suspicion.” The recent intensification of the “Muslim Ban” and promotion of anti-refugee, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim propaganda in order to justify the exclusion of peoples – often not people coming for events or speaking engagements, but people being denied access to their families, their education or simply a place of refuge from war and occupation – only underlines this ongoing and long-term policy of exclusion and deportation.

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Of course, this form of racist exclusion is also part and parcel of the U.S.’s imperial invasions, occupations and policies of hegemony and domination around the world. U.S. support for Israeli apartheid and colonization in Palestine comes hand in hand with its destruction, bombing and invasion of countries throughout the region. This year, we are marking the 14th anniversary of only the most recent U.S. invasion of Iraq and the intense misery and devastation it has unleashed upon the Iraqi people, as the U.S. bombs Syria, arms and applauds the destruction of Yemen and threatens war with Iran. Policies of exclusion are operating hand in hand with those of exploitation and destruction.

The denial of a visa to Mohammed also represents the blows suffered by the growing U.S. movement for justice in Palestine due to the constant barriers erected by the U.S., Israeli and other states designed to prevent interaction among Palestinians across national borders, and between Palestinian, Arab and international movements for justice and liberation, from denial of entry to deportation to so-called “anti-terror” laws that terrorize communities and movements. While Skype and video links allow communication to continue across borders, they are not a replacement for the benefit of face-to-face interaction and movement-building.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the denial of a visa to Mohammed Khatib, as part and parcel of the racist U.S. visa and entry policy that has impacted millions of people around the world – not only since the beginning of the Trump administration, but as a long-term policy stretching over decades. This visa denial is far from an individual case and represents an ongoing aspect of a policy of racism, ideological exclusion and separation and fragmentation of Palestinians from one another and from their national liberation movement.

Mohammed Khatib is available for Skype discussions or video presentations to organizations in the United States and elsewhere who would like to hear his perspective on the Palestinian struggle today, Palestinian political prisoners and Black/Palestinian solidarity. To arrange a video presentation, please email samidoun@samidoun.net or contact us on Facebook.

Palestinian student Kifah Quzmar ordered imprisoned for six months without charge or trial

3 April 2017

Palestinian student Kifah Quzmar was ordered to administrative detention for six months by the Israeli occupation’s Ofer military court on Monday, 3 April. Quzmar is an active student at Bir Zeit University, where he is in his final year of study for his degree in business administration. He is scheduled to be brought back before the Ofer military court on Thursday, 6 April to “confirm” his indefinitely-renewable imprisonment without charge or trial.

Quzmar was seized by Israeli occupation forces on 7 March as he returned from Jordan via the Karameh/Allenby crossing. He was then subjected to interrogation for 20 days and denied access to his lawyer, sparking a four-day hunger strike demanding an end to his interrogation before he was moved to Ofer prison.

Over 70 international organizations signed on to a collective statement initiated by student groups in Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada, the United States and Palestine demanding Quzmar’s immediate release. The statement highlights the ongoing targeting of Palestinian students for arrest and persecution, especially for involvement in student activities, including annual student council elections. It also urges the academic boycott of Israel, particularly in response to the ongoing denial of Palestinians’ right to education.

Kifah Quzmar is one of nearly 600 Palestinians – out of 7,000 total Palestinian prisoners – imprisoned without charge or trial under so-called “administrative detention.” Administrative detention orders are issued from one to six months at a time – Quzmar’s is the maximum length – but are indefinitely renewable, and many Palestinians have spent years at a time imprisoned without charge or trial with repeatedly renewed administrative detention orders.

At the Jewish Voice for Peace National Membership Meeting in Chicago, in the United States, Kristian Davis Bailey of Black4Palestine spoke at the plenary on Sunday, 2 April. Over 75 solidarity activists gathered for a group photo to express their solidarity and send their support to Quzmar, demanding his release and that of fellow Palestinian prisoners. Mohammed Khatib of Samidoun was invited to address the same plenary, but was denied a visa to the United States due to his status as a Palestinian refugee in Europe.

Davis Bailey closed his presentation by speaking about targeted Palestinian youth, including assassinated youth organizer Basil al-Araj and imprisoned youth and students like Quzmar, alongside Black youth targeted for imprisonment and repression. “I’d like to close by paying homage to the martyrs and prisoners of the Black and Palestinian struggles. It is these groups that have borne the brunt of state violence. Specifically I would like to honor the life of Basil Al-Araj, a popular leader and participant in the youth movement in Palestine, initially targeted and imprisoned by the PA last year and finally assassinated by the Zionist military at the beginning of this month.”

“As I speak to you, a dear friend and comrade, Kifah Quzmar a popular student organizer at Birzeit University…is one of 7,000 Palestinians currently imprisoned by Israel. Roughly 700 of these prisoners are being held without charge or trial. It is our responsibility as a solidarity movement to organize for their release,” Davis Bailey said.

“What unites all of these prisoners is that they have been suspected or convicted of supporting, engaging, or intending to engage in resistance against an unjust colonial order. There is no action Palestinians take that Israel does not consider threatening or illegal. And whether or not Palestinians actually engage in any of these acts, the accusation is justification enough for their imprisonment, torture, indefinite detainment, extrajudicial assassination, the surveillance and harassment of their families, and the condemnation of the West. Yet for some of us coming to terms with our current administration, the word resistance suddenly takes on a new light. We see very clearly a regime of violence and injustice and understand it is our duty to organize for something better. This is no different in Palestine,” concluded Davis Bailey.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all supporters of Palestinian rights – including Palestinian students and their right to education – to take action in solidarity with Kifah Quzmar and his fellow imprisoned Palestinians.

1) Sign up your organization to this statement: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1BzCD9_hJeGFgQiJqxNC7OFjAfn1my0x4TXcYUq7ZI0g/viewform

2) Organize a protest or action at an Israeli consulate and/or university/community square, urging freedom for Kifah Quzmar and Palestinian student prisoners. Highlight Kifah Quzmar and fellow Palestinian students in actions for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, 17 April, and the Week of Action, 14-24 April.

3) Organize a table in a student center or a one-day hunger strike in support of Kifah Quzmar. Fellow students must know about the persecution faced by Palestinian students.

4) Organizations, associations and student unions and groups: write a letter or a statement in support of Kifah, or take a group photo with a sign that says, “Free Kifah Quzmar!” and use #FreeKifahQuzmar on social media. Share your statements and photos on Facebook, or email samidoun@samidoun.net.

5) Join the Boycott, Divest and Sanction Campaign to build the boycott of Israel, including the academic boycott of Israeli institutions. Israeli academic institutions are complicit in the system of imprisonment and occupation, while Palestinian students are denied their normal functioning and right to education by ongoing arrest campaigns.

I will continue my struggle – Rasmea Odeh, April 5, 2017

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I will continue my struggle
– Rasmea Odeh, April 5, 2017