18 March, Berlin: Freedom for all Political Prisoners

18 March 2017

Saturday, 18 March
12:00 pm
Hermannplatz
10967 Berlin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/389878974730824/

Organized by Jugendwiderstand

Join us to demonstrate against class oppression and imperialist oppression. Freedom for all political prisoners!

This protest is organized to defend political prisoners around the world and confront capitalism and exploitation. The demonstration will address repression in Germany, including against the ATIK association, of which 10 members have been detained since 2015, as well as the trial of Musa Asoglu and Kurdish prisoners in German jails. Activists in Berlin, Magdeburg and Stuttgart are also facing political charges in Germany.

The proest will also support Turkish and Kurdish political prisoners in Turkish jails, revolutionary activists and imprisoned wokers in India, and prisoners in the Philippines and Peru. The protest will also highlight thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, including PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat. Protesters will also demand freedom for Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, held for 32 years in French prisons, as well as Basque and Irish prisoners and imprisoned Greek activists. The protest will also rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier and other political prisoners in US jails.

This protest is organized in support of revolutionary prisoners and for anti-imperialist and revolutionary struggle, in solidarity with the international resistance movement and international working class.

Mass funeral for Basil al-Araj today in Palestine; protests in solidarity in New York City, elsewhere

17 March 2017

Slain Palestinian youth leader Basil al-Araj will be buried today in his hometown of al-Walaja near Bethlehem in a mass funeral. His body has been held captive by Israeli occupation forces since 6 March, when they killed him as he resisted their invasion of the home where he was staying in El-Bireh.

Al-Araj’s family announced that occupation forces will turn over his body at 4:00 pm local time in Palestine and that his funeral ceremony will begin the moment that his body is returned. Prayers will be held adjacent to the family home in the street, and only Palestinian flags will be carried in the funeral procession to the cemetery, where he will be buried. Condolences will be accepted by the family in al-Araj’s parents’ home. His body will be returned without conditions, after an ongoing struggle for 11 days to demand the return of the captive body as occupation forces attempted to impose numerous conditions upon the funeral.

Palestinians called for broad participation in the funeral and organizers throughout Palestine planned to travel to join in the mass tribute to al-Araj’s life and confrontation of the occupation.

Additional organizations, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Palestinian leftist political party, urged simultaneous mobilizations and the organizing of symbolic funerals, saying that “the organizing of symbolic funerals in Palestine and in exile represent a tribute to the martyr, upholding his values and principles as a leader among young Palestinians, dedicated to the culture of resistance as a way of life and as a means of resisting the occupation and all of its projects.”

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is organizing a protest in New York City today, Friday, 17 March, to protest the murder of Basil al-Araj and Israeli policies of imprisonment and assassination. Protesters will gather at 5:30 pm at Union Square Best Buy, 52 E. 14th Street, in New York City. All are welcome to attend the protest, participate in the demonstration and demand justice for Basil al-Araj.

Al-Araj was shot down by Israeli occupation forces on Monday morning, 6 March, resisting until the end. The prominent youth activist had gone underground following his release from a Palestinian Authority prison after a hunger strike; al-Araj and five of his comrades had been arrested by PA security forces in April 2016 in a case touted at the time by PA President Mahmoud Abbas as an important achievement for PA/Israel security coordination. They were tortured and imprisoned for five months without charges before being released after a hunger strike. Four of Basil’s comrades, Haitham Siyaj, Mohammed Harb, Mohammed al-Salameen and Seif al-Idrissi, have now been seized by Israeli occupation forces and are held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Following his assassination, Palestinians have taken the streets in Palestine and internationally to demand justice for al-Araj and an end to PA security coordination with Israel, including in New York, Washington, Brussels, Berlin, London, Vienna, Gaza City, Haifa, Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, Dheisheh refugee camp and Ramallah. The Ramallah and Dheisheh protests were violently attacked by PA forces in an attempt to suppress them, sparking growing demands against the PA’s continued involvement with the imprisonment of Palestinians for the benefit of the occupation.

Leuven protest demands Belgian university end collaboration with Israeli police

17 March 2017

Activists gathered in Leuven’s crowded Oude Markt in the Belgian university city on Thursday, 16 March, to demand an end to participation by KU Leuven (the Catholic University of Leuven) and Belgian police and prosecutors in an EU-funded collaboration with Israeli police. Titled LAW-TRAIN, the project aims to “develop interrogation techniques.” A coalition of groups in Belgium have come together to oppose participation in LAW-TRAIN and end such collaborations with Israeli institutions through the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research fund.

Organized by Leuven-based groups, including Comac Leuven, Intal and the Leuven Palestine Action Group, participants from a number of organizations, including Palestina Solidariteit and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, joined in the awareness-raising street theater-style protest calling on KU Leuven’s rector, Rik Torfs, to pull out of the project.

Students representing ‘detainees’ were tied to chairs in front of a university building in the square as ‘Israeli soldiers’ paced menacingly behind them. Other participants held signs and placards calling on KU Leuven to get out of the LAW-TRAIN project and support Palestinian human rights, while speakers addressed students and others in the busy square in Dutch and English about the LAW-TRAIN program and Israeli torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. Activists distributed flyers and information and gathered signatures on the petition demanding Belgian institutions stop participating in LAW-TRAIN.

Activists across Belgium have emphasized the involvement of the Israeli police in the torture, repression and interrogation of Palestinians from Jerusalem and Palestine ’48, as well as their involvement in home demolitions and destruction of Bedouin Palestinian communities in the Naqab. The Israeli Ministry of Public Security, presided over by far-right minister Gilad Erdan, who also holds the state’s anti-BDS portfolio seeking to suppress the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions, is also a partner in the project, along with Bar-Ilan University.

“We are protesting the collaboration between KU Leuven and, among others, the Israeli police and Bar-Ilan University. KU Leuven now has ties with the Israeli police and the Israeli security forces, who have been condemned by organizations such as Amnesty International on numerous occasions for their human rights violations and torture practices. We believe it is not OK for a university such as KU Leuven to continue this collaboration. It is condoning and accepting these human rights violations so long as this continues. We want to call on our Rector, who’s been ignoring this whole matter, to end this collaboration,” said Casper Mullie, a student of philosophy at KU Leuven participating in the protest.

“As students, we cannot accept that our universities and institutions where we pay fees every year, to participate in projects that violate Palestinian human rights. In this case, the human rights violations are particularly egregious,” said Ibrahim, a student organizer with Rise Up who traveled from Brussels to participate in the protest in Leuven.

Hundreds of Belgian academics and cultural workers have signed an open letter organized by BACBI,
the Belgian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, calling on the Belgian government and universities to break with the project. In addition, a delegation of high-profile Belgian lawyers and human rights experts traveled to Palestine to study the use of torture by Israeli police and security forces. Israeli Apartheid Week events organized by students at campuses across Belgium had a strong focus on Palestinian prisoners and the campaign to stop LAW-TRAIN.

Samidoun is a member of the coalition against LAW-TRAIN, along with Intal, Comac, Palestina Solidariteit, BACBI, Medicine for the Third World, Vrede, CNAPD, Broderlijk Delen, 11.11.11, Solidarite Socialiste, Een Andere Joodse Stem (Another Jewish Voice), EcoloJ, CNCD 11.11.11, Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine, Association Belgo-Palestinienne, Leuven Palestine Action Group, Pax Christi Vlaanderen and the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine (ECCP).

TAKE ACTION: Sign the petition against LAW-TRAIN at http://stop-law-train.be

Major LAW-TRAIN resources include:

Belgian Coalition against LAW TRAIN
BACBI archive of LAW TRAIN resources
BACBI dossier, “The LAW-TRAIN Project: Why a Partnership with the Israeli Police is Indefensible”
Stop the Wall Campaign, LAW-TRAIN: European License for Israeli Torture
Stop the Wall Campaign, ECCP, Belgian Coalition Against LAW-TRAIN, “The LAW TRAIN Project: Concerns go Unaddressed“

Protests in New York and Washington demand justice, accountability for Basil al-Araj, end to security coordination

15 March 2017

Palestinian and international protests continued as Mahmoud al-Araj, the father of Basil al-Araj, filed a complaint on Tuesday, 14 March against Palestinian Authority officials and directors of the security services. The elder Al-Araj was beaten on Sunday, 12 March by PA security forces alongside many other protesters denouncing PA security coordination with Israel. His son Basil was murdered by Israeli occupation forces on 6 March 2017 when they invaded the home where he was staying in El-Bireh.

Basil al-Araj and five of his comrades had been arrested by PA security forces in April 2016 in a case touted at the time by PA President Mahmoud Abbas as an important achievement for PA/Israel security coordination. They were tortured and imprisoned for five months without charges before being released after a hunger strike that received widespread Palestinian attention and support. Four of Basil’s comrades, Haitham Siyaj, Mohammed Harb, Mohammed al-Salameen and Seif al-Idrissi, have now been seized by Israeli occupation forces and are held without charge or trial under administrative detention. Al-Araj went underground and his family was repeatedly harassed by occupation forces, their home invaded in the middle of the night and their belongings ransacked, before al-Araj was shot dead by occupation forces as he resisted on 6 March. Israeli occupation forces have continued to deny the return of Basil’s body.

Protesters took the streets in Ramallah on Sunday, 12 March against the PA court system continuing criminal charges of “possession of an unlicensed weapon” against al-Araj and the five, four of whom are held in Israeli jails. While the charges against al-Araj were dismissed, the other four’s PA trial was continued until 30 April, with the statement that they may be released from Israeli jail at that time.

The protesters, including al-Araj’s father, were attacked with batons, tear gas, sound grenades and rubber bullets. Many were injured and several arrested; Mahmoud al-Araj was taken to hospital. Along with lawyers Farid al-Atrash and Anas Barghouthi, he filed the complaint against a series of PA officials, including Adnan al-Damiri, the spokesperson of the PA security forces, Sliman Qandil, head of National Security, Abdel-Latif Qaddoumi, chief of Ramallah police, and generally against police and security forces who participated in attacking demonstrators on 12 March. The complaint includes the use of excessive force, attacking a peaceful protest, making false statements in the media and defamation; al-Damiri engaged in public statements attacking the demonstrators, labelling them “mercenaries” and foreign agents, following the violent assault on them by PA forces.

Thousands of Palestinians also took the streets on 13 March in Ramallah, marching from Manara Square in protest of the attack by PA security forces, while demanding an end to PA security coordination with Israel. The mass marches in Ramallah included demands for PA officials, including Mahmoud Abbas, to resign. The demonstrators also emphasized the importance of supporting and protecting Palestinian resistance strugglers.

As the large march wound through Ramallah, demonstrations were organized by young Palestinians in New York City and Washington, DC. On Sunday, 12 March, protests were held in Brussels, Berlin, Vienna, London, Amman, Beirut, Tunis and Rabat demanding justice for al-Araj and an end to PA security coordination.

Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement, the protests in New York City and Washington and took place at the Palestinian Mission to the United Nations and the PLO Delegation to the United States, respectively.

In New York City, around 40 people gathered to demand justice for al-Araj. Zachariah Barghouti, other PYM representatives and speakers from a number of Palestinian and solidarity organizations, including Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, Existence is Resistance and Decolonize this Place, addressed the rally, as well as a number of young Palestinians who knew al-Araj personally. Participants chanted in Arabic and English and left signs and posters at the door to the mission, expressing the demands of the protesters. Adnan Farsakh of Samidoun led spirited chants in Arabic, denouncing Israeli assassination and PA complicity.

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“Basel’s unrelenting passion for freedom and justice should be an example for us all. Basel was a hero and freedom fighter. And we have to honor him by securing liberation for Palestine!” said Michela Martinazzi of Samidoun. Another Samidoun activist read the statement about al-Araj’s assassination by Israeli occupation forces.

The PYM presented a statement noting that the protests in New York and Washington were denouncing the killing of Al-Araj by occupation forces while simultaneously demanding accountability for the PA’s role in his assassination due to security coordination.

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In Washington, DC, protesters gathered amid falling snow outside the PLO General Delegation to the US. Jehad Salim spoke, delivering a speech in Arabic mourning Basil al-Araj. In his speech, he denounced the Oslo agreements and all that has followed from them, including the PA’s security coordination with the Israeli occupation.

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“Al-Araj’s assassination is a continuation of the sordid Israeli practice to eliminate Palestinian leaders and undermine the national liberation movement. Rather than protest these murders and Israel’s use of lethal force against civilians, the PA continues to collude with the Israeli occupying power, thus exacerbating the vulnerability of nearly four million Palestinians residing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,” noted the call for the protest.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is organizing another protest against the assassination of Basil al-Araj on Friday, 17 March at 5:30 pm outside the Best Buy electronics store in Union Square. The protest will also highlight the growing international campaign to boycott HP for its involvement in Israeli colonization and apartheid while demanding justice for al-Araj. All are invited to attend the Friday protest.

Eleventh anniversary of Israeli attack on Jericho prison: From Ahmad Sa’adat to Basil al-Araj

14 March 2017

14 March 2017 marks the 11th anniversary of the attack on Jericho prison by Israeli occupation forces and the abduction of six Palestinian political prisoners. Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, his comrades Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Hamdi Qur’an and Basil al-Asmar, along with Fateh veteran leader Fouad Shobaki, were seized from the PA prison after US and British guards suddenly left their posts in a violent attack by Israeli occupation forces. Today, all six of the kidnapped Palestinians remain imprisoned. Two Palestinians were killed and 23 injured by occupation forces as they waged a military assault on the prison.

The attack on Jericho prison not only reflected yet another Israeli crime against the Palestinian people and the targeting of one of Palestine’s most prominent political leaders, Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Palestinian leftist party, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. It also clearly indicated the joint role of imperialist powers like the United States and the United Kingdom and the devastating impact of Palestinian Authority “security coordination” with Israel.

This anniversary is particularly poignant today, following the Israeli assassination of Palestinian youth leader Basil al-Araj, months after he was released from a Palestinian Authority prison. Thousands of Palestinians have taken the streets inside Palestine and in exile to demand an end to the policy of security coordination and Palestinian Authority attacks on Palestinian resistance. Just as the Palestinian Authority’s imprisonment of Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades under US and British guard cannot be separated from their present imprisonment by the Israeli occupation, the PA’s arrest of al-Araj and his comrades cannot be separated from his murder by the Israeli occupation.

The imprisonment of Sa’adat and his comrades in a Palestinian Authority prison had been negotiated by parties representing a full array of the forces allied against the Palestinian people, including Mahmoud Abbas, Mohammed Dahlan, Saeb Erekat, Yasser Abed Rabbo, then-Prince Abdullah of Jordan, Omri Sharon and Tony Blair. Even inside the PA prison, the imprisoned Palestinians were further held under US and British guard, reflecting the dominant role of the United States and the European Union in ensuring Palestinian Authority subservience in the framework of security coordination. Some of those British guards had played a role in imprisoning Irish republican prisoners in the North of Ireland; today, former officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary have trained PA security forces mandated to carry out security coordination. The prisoners themselves had been seized through trickery and deception by Palestinian Authority officials, including Tawfiq Tirawi, then the PA’s security chief.

Those US and British guards deliberately left their posts in order to provide a clear path for the Israeli attack on Jericho prison. Indeed, much of the weaponry with which the Israeli occupation forces attacked the prison, destroying much of it, was US-made or US-funded. Furthermore, in 2017 we also mark 100 years of British colonialism in Palestine and the issuance of the Balfour declaration – and 100 years of Palestinian resistance, which was met with brutal repression, mass jailings, home demolitions and the execution of Palestinian freedom strugglers at the hands of British colonial authorities, who introduced administrative detention to Palestine.

In the case of al-Araj, PA President Mahmoud Abbas publicly proclaimed his arrest and that of his comrades by PA forces in April 2016 to be a major coup for security coordination, declaring publicly and non-specifically that they were “planning an attack” and were “tracked down and arrested.” They remained for five months within PA prisons without charge, before entering a hunger strike that secured their release. Today, four of the five youths imprisoned with Basil al-Araj are held without charge or trial in Israeli prisons under administrative detention. Al-Araj’s own family home was repeatedly raided and ransacked and his family members subjected to continuous summons for interrogation, before he was shot down – resisting till the last breath – in el-Bireh on 6 March 2017.

Security coordination is a devastating and daily threat to the lives and freedom of Palestinians struggling to bring an end to Israeli occupation and settler colonialism. From Ahmad Sa’adat, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Hamdi Qur’an, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar and Fouad Shoubaki to Basil al-Araj, Palestinians continue to resist under the constant threat of imprisonment and death at the hands of occupation forces, with full economic, military and political support from the US, the UK, Canada and the European Union. There are approximately 6,500 Palestinians imprisoned today in Israeli jails. That number is supplemented by the political detainees in Palestinian Authority prisons, alongside Palestinians and strugglers for Palestine targeted for imprisonment and persecution in international prisons, from former prisoners and torture survivors like Rasmea Odeh in the United States to charity workers like the Holy Land Five to Lebanese struggler for Palestine Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, imprisoned for over 32 years in French prisons.

On the eleventh anniversary of the attack on Jericho prison, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network reiterates the call for freedom for all Palestinian political prisoners. We also reiterate and join in the demand heard loudly in the streets from thousands of Palestinians, including those in Ramallah, Dheisheh, Gaza, London, New York, Brussels, Berlin, Amman, Beirut, Rabat, Tunis, Washington DC and elsewhere seeking justice for Basil al-Araj, for an immediate end to PA security coordination with the Israeli occupation.

From Basil al-Araj to Ahmad Sa’adat, Palestinian leaders and symbols of resistance have been targeted for imprisonment and assassination with the complicity and support of governments around the world, including those of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and European states. This anniversary is also an occasion to inspire all international movements standing with Palestine to escalate our actions to expose and put an end to that support, complicity and involvement, through building the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, supporting Palestinian national liberation organizing and resistance, and building the struggle to free all Palestinian political prisoners and free the land and people of Palestine.

17 March, NYC: Protest Israel’s murder of Basil al-Araj and Stop HP

14 March 2017

Friday, 17 March
5:30 pm
Best Buy Union Square
52 E. 14th St., NYC
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1874232936195319/

In a pre-dawn raid attacking a home in el-Bireh, Basil al-Araj, 31, a Palestinian youth activist and writer pursued by Israel for nearly a year, was assassinated by invading Israeli occupation forces the morning of March 6.

Al-Araj, from the village of Walaja near Bethlehem, fought back and resisted the invading forces for two hours before the attacking occupation soldiers broke into the home where he was staying and executed him at close range. They then seized his body and took it to an unknown location.

The attack on the home included rocket fire as well as al-Araj’s extrajudicial execution in a hail of bullets. Al-Araj’s family home in al-Walaja had been repeatedly raided by occupation forces for months.

Join us as we mourn al-Araj, stand with other Palestinians – including 6,500 political prisoners – pursued by Israel because of their struggles for freedom, and demand Hewlett Packard companies end their contracts with Israeli occupation forces, prisons and detention centers, 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.

Israeli occupation issues 35 administrative detention orders so far in March

13 March 2017

Israeli occupation authorities issued 35 administrative detention orders between 1 and 12 March, reported Palestinian lawyer Mahmoud Halabi of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.

Administrative detention orders are used to imprison Palestinians without charge or trial; they are issued for one to six month periods, but are indefinitely renewable. Therefore, Palestinians can spend years at a time imprisoned with no charge and no trial. There are currently around 600 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention orders.

Among the Palestinians issued administrative detention orders in this group is Ihsan Dababseh, former prisoner and one of two Palestinian women currently held in administrative detention. Among the orders, 13 are new orders and 22 are renewals of existing administrative detention orders.

The list of prisoners against whom orders were issued are:

1. Mumin Fathi Fashafsheh, Jenin, 4 months extension
2. Khaled Mansour Abdel-Nabi, al-Khalil, 3 months, new order
3. Samarah Sami Majid, Ramallah, 3 months, extension
4. Mahmoud Mohammed Salah, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
5. Omar Ali al-Hih, al-Khalil, 6 months, extension
6. Khaled Majid al-Badr, Jerusalem, 4 months, extension
7. Tariq Mahmoud Blalou, Jenin, 6 months, extension
8. Mohammed Ahmed Suqia, Jenin, 3 months, new order
9. Mahmoud Khalil Ghuneim, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
10. Said Ismail Abu Hadid, al-Khalil, 4 months, extension
11. Yousef Naim Ghuneim, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
12. Mohammed Ribhi Saleh, Bethlehem, 4 months, extension
13. Rami Hisham Abu Safiya, al-Khalil, 6 onths, extension
14. Musab Mahmoud Suwaita, al-Khalil, 3 months, new order
15. Ismail Khalil al-Zeer, Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
16. Ahmad Nasri Ibrahim, Jenin, 4 months, extension
17. Ahmed Fayez Saadi, Jenin, 3 months, new order
18. Mohammed Ibrahim Yahya, Jenin, 4 months, extension
19. Alaa Abdel-Rahim al-Azm, Ramallah, 4 months, extension
20. Yousef Mahmoud Laham, Bethlehem, 6 months, new order
21. Amer Omar Za’aroureh, Nablus, 4 months, extension
22. Khaled Jamil Shanaiteh, Bethlehem, 6 months, new order
23. Eyad Habib Mohammed, Bethlehem, 6 months, extension
24. Shadi Mohammed Abu Aker, Bethlehem, 6 months, extension
25. Walid Daoud Bustanji, Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
26. Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Hamed, Qalqilya, 4 months, extension
27. Mohammed Suleiman Srouji, Tulkarem, 6 months, new order
28. Ismail Ahmed Hawamdeh, al-Khalil, 6 months, new order
29. Jaoudat Ahmad Mashal, Ramallah, 4 months, extension
30. Maan Hamdallah Hamidat, al-Khalil, 6 months, new order
31. Walid Mohammed Hmeidan, Bethlehem, 4 months, new order
32. Ahmed Diab Burash, Ramallah, 4 months, new order
33. Ihsan Hassan Dababseh, al-Khalil, 4 months, new order
34. Essam Rashid al-Ashqar, Nablus, 2 months, extension
35. Mohsen Raafat Asfour, Ramallah, 4 months, extension

Palestinian woman’s detention extended for 11 days, denied access to lawyer

13 March 2017

An Israeli occupation court convening in the Moskobiyeh interrogation center in Jerusalem ordered young Palestinian woman Batool Ramahi to 11 more days of detention, forbidding her from receiving a visit from a lawyer until 16 March.

Ramahi, 24, was arrested from her home in the village of Surda near Ramallah in a pre-dawn military raid on Sunday, 12 March.

Meanwhile, Palestinian Legislative Council member Samira Halaiqa was brought before an Israeli military court on Sunday, 12 March, where her detention was extended, and was scheduled to be returned to military court on Monday, 13 March.

Halaiqa’s arrest brought the total number of imprisoned PLC members to 10 and prompted protest in Gaza by PLC leaders affiliated with her Change and Reform bloc, associated with Hamas.

A Palestinian girl, Sondos Joulani, 17, was among 21 Palestinians seized by Israeli occupation forces on Sunday night, 12 March and Monday morning, 13 march. She was one of 11 people arrested in Jerusalem, including Karim Abu Tayeh, Ayman Abu Tayeh, Uday Abu Tayeh, Mohammed Abu Hammam, Mahmoud Abu Nabi, Hatem Shweiki, Wael Qarout, Wael Abu Ramouz, 15-year-old Musleh Naser Shehadeh, and Mahmoud Matar, the father of Ibrahim Matar, killed on Monday morning by Israeli forces.

Four more Palestinians from the town of Jiftlik were seized, including Ibrahim Abu Salem Dalakh, Mohammed Abu Gheith Dalakh, Nawaf al-Jahalin and Yasser Abu Hatab. In al-Khalil, three people were arrested, including Rabie Jawad Zaaqiq, Malik al-Jabari, and Salim Mahmoud Tarayreh, 48, the father of Issa Tarayreh, who was 16 years old in September 2016 when he was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces.

Tareq Maher Zakarneh was seized in Qabatiya, Mohammed Ghazi Suleiman Abu Jaber in Tulkarem and Jumaa el-Desoki in Jalazone refugee camp.

Since International Women’s Day, an average of one Palestinian woman has been arrested by Israeli forces daily, including Joulani, Halaiqa, Ramahi, Souad Shyoukhi – whose brother was killed by occupation forces – and novelist Khalida Ghosheh, currently released on bail after being arrested and interrogated about her forthcoming novel, “The Jackal’s Trap,” looking at Palestinian collaborators with Israel.

Protest against LAW-TRAIN in Charleroi, Belgium faces police harassment

13 March 2017

Original in French by Myriam De Ly at Pour La Palestine

On Saturday, 11 March, thirty members and supporters of Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine gathered in the afternoon to protest the LAW-TRAIN project.

Belgium, and specifically the judicial police and KU Leuven, are collaborating with the Israeli police in the LAW-TRAIN project, which aims to develop interrogation techniques, despite the fact that Israel is regularly condemned for its use of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment during its interrogations of prisoners.

The action came as part of the international Israeli Apartheid Week.

Over 200 universities, towns and cities around the world are participating in this week of action with a common theme: 100 years of colonialism in Palestine, 100 years of popular resistance!

During the symbolic action, the participants expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners and their resistance.

There are approximately 6,500 Palestinians in prison, including 69 women and 350 children.

These children are often arrested at night and can receive lengthy sentences. Children are prevented from seeing their parents for three or four months at a time, if not more. During these visits, they are denied physical contact between parent and child.

1000 Palestinian prisoners are ill and do not receive proper health care. In addition, some Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces and Israeli authorites refuse to return their bodies to their families.

Hundreds of Palestinians are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Their detention can be arbitrarily extended, 6 months at a time. 75 Palestinians have been imprisoned for over 25 years and six for over 30 years.

The participants expressed their rejection of their government’s adoption of Israeli methods. In France, a Lebanese struggler, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who struggled for Palestine, has been imprisoned for 33 years despite being eligible for release since 1999.

They demanded: an end to the Belgian cooperation with Israeli institutions implicated in violations of international humanitarian law and human rights. The immediate end of the participation of the Belgian prosecutor’s office and judicial police and KU Leuven with Israeli police. The end to financing of such projects by the European Union.

Harassment by police in Charleroi

The action went well. At the moment the participants dispersed, they were stopped by the police for an identity check.

We explained that this was a symbolic action that had ended. We left again in small groups, and headed to a bistro to drink and eat together when we were stopped again for a second time.

Five minutes later, three young people who were on their way called us on the telephone to tell us they had been stopped by the police. We joined them. 15 police officers and a dog encircled them.

One of the police said: “A group that is moving and carrying a political message, it is normal that there is a control.”

The “political message” was nothing other than the keffiyehs that the three young people were wearing while walking on the Place du Manege. We recalled the previous Police Order concerning us, in which they claimed that wearing a keffiyeh is an appeal for violence or hate.

This harassment is outrageous and yet another attack on the right to expression for Palestine in Charleroi. We will not allow this to happen.

Stop LAW-TRAIN!
Stop the harassment by Charleroi police!

Photos by Raymond, Shady and Coralie.

Palestinian administrative detainee Jamal Abu Leil ends hunger strike in agreement

12 March 2017

Palestinian prisoner Jamal Abu Leil ended his hunger strike on Sunday, 12 March in an agreement that he will be released after the end of his current administrative detention period, in August 2017. Abu Leil, 50, had refused food for 25 days and had been transferred to multiple prisons while held in solitary confinement.

A Fateh leader in Qalandiya refugee camp, Abu Leil has been imprisoned since 15 February 2016 in administrative detention without charge or trial. Jawad Boulos, of the Palestinian Prisoners Society, said that he had visited Abu Leil in Ramon prison and that he extended thanks and appreciation to all who supported him in his battle against administrative detention.

Abu Leil is a member of the Popular Committee in Qalandiya camp and an administrator of the Qalandiya youth center. He is a former member of the Fateh Revolutionary Council. He is one of over 600 Palestinian prisoners held without charge or trial under indefinitely-renewable administrative detention orders.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network congratulates Jamal Abu Leil and salutes all of the Palestinian prisoners behind bars struggling to achieve freedom and end injustice.

Follow us on Instagram @samidounnetwork