A new video by Fayha Shalash, Palestinian journalist and the wife of imprisoned hunger striker and journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, urges international action for his release. We urge all supporters of Palestinian freedom, liberation and justice to share this video widely, as al-Qeeq enters his 24th day of hunger strike demanding release from imprisonment without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention.
Mohammed al-Qeeq is one of 23 Palestinian journalists imprisoned by the Israeli state. His life and health are on the line not only for his freedom, but for Palestinian freedom overall and an end to administrative detention without charge or trial. It is critical to raise our voices internationally and demand freedom for Mohammed al-Qeeq, an end to administrative detention and the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners.
2. Organize a protest or a forum for Mohammed al-Qeeq and Palestinian prisoners. Israeli Apartheid Week is approaching and the Israeli injustice system is an excellent example to highlight in IAW activities, especially as your support can help to bring the international attention needed to help Mohammed al-Qeeq in his struggle for freedom. You can invite a speaker, hold a discussion, hold a protest, or just distribute leaflets and information (see below for sample leaflets and posters). To request resources or let us know about your event so we can post it publicly, email samidoun@samidoun.net or contact us on Facebook.
3. Hold a Symbolic Hunger Strike. This is an especially effective tactic on a campus for Israeli Apartheid Week, but can be used anywhere. A symbolic one-day hunger strike in which participants publicly express their solidarity with al-Qeeq and fellow Palestinian prisoners can help to raise local attention. Email samidoun@samidoun.net to let us know about your event!
As part of the international “Israeli Apartheid Week” organized in over 200 cities and universities around the world, the Association Belgo-Palestinienne Louvain-la-Neuve invites you to join a film screening and discussion on the topic of prisons in Israel. The politics of imprisonment in Israel is also an important issue due to the complicity of Belgium via the “LAW-TRAIN” program.
Speakers include:
Alexis Deswaef, President of the League of Human Rights
Salah Hamouri, French-Palestinian citizen and former prisoner
Alice Mertens, Moderator, ABP Louvain-la-Neuve
7:00 pm – Screening of documentary “Palestine: la case prison” by director Franck Salome, on the conditions of detention in Israeli prison.
Projection du film “3000 Nuits” en VOSTFR au UD2.208
entrée libre
“Années 80, à la veille des évènements de Sabra et Chatila. La révolte gronde dans une prison israélienne, où sont détenues des prisonnières politiques palestiniennes. Layal, une jeune institutrice de Naplouse, vient d’arriver, condamnée à 8 ans de prison pour un attentat dans lequel elle n’est pas impliquée. Elle partage la cellule d’israéliennes condamnées pour droits communs et s’habitue progressivement à l’univers carcéral. mais Layal découvre qu’elle est enceinte. Envers et contre tous, elle décide de garder l’enfant.”
A discussion with Salah Hamouri and Charlotte Kates
Salah Hamouri (born in 1985) is a Palestinian former prisoner who was imprisoned for seven years behind the walls of an Israeli prison.
Now he is a lawyer for Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association to defend human rights that are violated daily by Israel.
Charlotte Kates is the international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.
Part of Israeli Apartheid Week at Antwerp – organized by Comac Antwerpen
Lina al-Jarbouni is from Arabba al-Batouf village, near the Palestinian City of Akka (Akko – Acre), in the north of the country.
She was born to a Palestinian family on January 11, 1974 and holds Israeli citizenship.
On April 18, 2002, al-Jarbouni was arrested and interrogated for more than 30 days at the al-Jalama interrogation facility where she was tortured and abused.
She was subsequently sentenced by an Israeli court to 17 years imprisonment, accused of “aiding the enemy.”
Israel refused to release al-Jarbouni during the Shalit Prison-Swap deal with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
Stand with Lina to demand that Israel release her and all 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.
Israeli Apartheid Week began in Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy on Monday, 27 February with an event on the Right to Education and Academic Freedom in Palestine, focusing on the Palestinian call for academic boycott of Israeli academic institutions as well as the campaign to end the partnership with Israeli military-linked university, the Technion, at the University of Cagliari.
Part of the global week of action highlighting the struggle for Palestinian rights, the event panel included Charlotte Kates of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and Angelo Stefanini, retired professor of economics, management and statistics at the University of Bologna, as well as a video from the Right to Education Campaign at Bir Zeit University in Palestine. Professor Andrea Pubusa of the University of Cagliari moderated the event.
Kates spoke about the institutional denial of the Palestinian right to education, focusing on arrests, raids and imprisonment targeting Palestinian students and faculty. She reviewed the current statistics on Palestinian prisoners, noting that there are approximately 7,000 Palestinians currently imprisoned in Israeli jails that represent all sectors of Palestinian society. She noted the array of military orders that constantly regulate Palestinian life under occupation, as well as the occupation military courts with a 99.74% conviction rate. She also discussed the Israeli policy of administrative detention, currently imprisoning nearly 600 Palestinians without charge or trial, in clear violation of international law.
She also spoke about Israeli raids on Palestinian academic institutions, noting, among other occasions, that “raids at Bir Zeit University have targeted academic departments and student council headquarters; while the raids often take place at night and at times in the day, what is left behind is destruction as glass is shattered, belongings ransacked and computers and documents seized and disassembled. At Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, the Islamic Studies department was invaded and ransacked, with books, materials and documents confiscated by the Israeli military. In a daytime attack on Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, over 50 students were injured due to massive use of tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets.”
Kates highlighted the vibrancy of student political life in Palestine and the concerted, violent campaign of raids and arrests seeking to shut down that process. Involvement with Palestinian student organizations, councils and blocs is criminalized as those blocs are labeled “prohibited” or “hostile organizations,” and student elections are met with increased raids, repression and imprisonment of student organizers.
“As a colonial mechanism, imprisonment is used in an attempt to undermine indigenous resistance and prevent indigenous organizing, development and liberation. Thus, the disruption of Palestinian education, the denial of Palestinian academic freedom and the constant attacks on Palestinian students and faculty are not mere individual incidents or accidents of history. Instead, these examples are representative of a broader structure of repression, occupation and settler colonialism that has been developed over 70 years over the Palestinian people and the land of Palestine. In order to support Palestinian freedom and Palestinian rights, including the right to education, it is critical to support Palestinian prisoners,” she concluded.
Angelo Stefanini provided a thorough introduction and overview of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) and the call for academic boycott of Israeli institutions. He laid out the reasons for academic boycott, including the involvement of Israeli academic institutions in the structures of occupation, their involvement in military research and development – particularly noting the Technion’s role in this regard – as well as the ongoing violations of Palestinian academic freedom carried out over decades of occupation, colonialism and oppression.
Video:
The panel concluded with a video from the Right to Education Campaign at Bir Zeit University, in which university students spoke about their own experiences with Israeli occupation and oppression, urging students and faculty internationally to support BDS and the academic boycott of Israeli institutions. Presentations were followed by a lively discussion highlighting the situation of military bases and testing in Sardinia, including the participation of US and Israeli forces in weapons testing on the island.
Israeli Apartheid Week in Cagliari is continuing over the coming week. Events continue on Wednesday, 1 March at 5:00 pm with documentary presentations at Aula Arcari at the Faculty of Economic, Juridical and Political Sciences at the University. The event will include screenings of “The Living of the Pigeons” by Baha’ Abu Shanab and “Shujayya” by Mohammed al-Mughanni. On Thursday, 2 March at 5:00 pm, in the same room, there will be a presentation of the Italian-language translation of Ghassan Kanafani’s “1936-39 Revolt in Palestine,” with presentations by Giuseppe Pusceddu of the Associazione Amicizia Sardegna Palestina and Samed Ismail of the Collettivo Universitario Autonomo Casteddu. On Friday, 3 March in Aula A, an event at 4:00 pm. will highlight “Military Occupation from Sardinia to Palestine,” with Alessia Ferrari of BDS Sardegna and Nicola Piras of the Committee Against Military Occupation of Sardinia. The week of action will close with a concert at Scalette Magistero, featuring hip-hop performances. Cagliari will also soon host the 14th Al-Ard Documentary Film Festival, highlighting documentary films on Palestine and the Arab world.
Two Palestinian prisoners are continuing on hunger strike against their administrative detention, Israeli imprisonment without charge or trial. Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, 35, is currently on his 23rd day of hunger strike, demanding his release from administrative detention, while Jamal Abu Leil is on his 13th day of hunger strike for his release.
Raed Mteir ended his strike on the 12th day after reaching an agreement for his release in April 2017 and that his administrative detention will not be renewed.
Al-Qeeq’s health has continued to deteriorate, said his lawyer Khaled Zabarqa. He has lost weight significantly and is having difficulty speaking; he has had to use a wheelchair to move and cannot walk. Zabarqa visited al-Qeeq on Monday in the Ramle prison clinic, and reported that his health continues to deteriorate as his health is weaker due to his 94-day hunger strike last year that won his May 2016 release from administrative detention.
Abu Leil met with lawyer Jawad Boulos in Ashkelon prison, where he is held in isolation after being transferred on Monday from Eshel prison. He has lost nearly 10 kilograms.
Palestinians rallied in Ramallah and in Ramle outside the prison hospital in support of the hunger strikers, demanding their immediate release.
As Al-Qeeq and Abu Leil continue their hunger strikes, they are among approximately 600 Palestinians imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention. Administrative detention orders are issued for one to six months at a time and are indefinitely renewable, which means that Palestinians can be imprisoned for years without charge or trial.
17 administrative detention orders were issued between 19 and 26 February, reported Palestinian lawyer Ashraf Abu Sneineh, all of them renewals of existing administrative detention orders:
1. Yacoub Imad Turki, from al-Fuwwar camp, 4 months extension
2. Hasan Husni Shawkat, from Bethlehem, 4 months extension
3. Samer Mahmoud Hanani, from Beit Furik, 4 months extension
4. Kamal Mazen Boustah, from Arabah, 4 months extension
5. Ashraf Ghassan Jibril, from Qalqilya, 4 months extension
6. Majdi Abdel-Qader Oweidat, from Jericho, 6 months extension
7. Saadi Mohammed Khaddeirat from al-Zahiriya, 4 months extension
8. Saif Bassam Abu Eisha, from al-Khalil, 4 months extension
9. Nour Shaker al-Atrash, from al-Khalil, 6 months extension
10. Jadallah Abdel-Alim Da’na, from al-Khalil, 6 months extension
11. Musab Manasrah, from Bani Naim, 6 months extension
12. Bakr Mohammed Kharyoush, from Tulkarem, 4 months extension
13. Ahmad Mahmoud Kharoush, from Qaryout, 4 months extension
14. Raafat Khalil Abu Rabie from al-Mazria al-Qablia, 4 months extension
15. Baha’ Taha al-Najjar, from al-Khalil, 4 months extension
16. Ramzi Tawfiq Qarini, from Jenin camp, 6 months extension
17. Ashraf Mohammed al-Jouda, from Burqin, 4 months extension
Samidoun’s Charlotte Kates participated in a conference in Milan, Italy on Saturday, 25 February, speaking about Palestinian political prisoners, Zionist repression and the internationalization of repression and resistance. The conference, organized by Fronte Palestina, brought together Italian activists from various cities to speak about repressive legislation designed to suppress Palestinian and pro-Palestinian activism, including the BDS movement, and the Israeli role in the export of repressive technology internationally.
Photo: Fronte Palestina
Kates began her remarks at the conference by speaking about Omar Nayef Zayed, the former Palestinian prisoner killed one year earlier in Sofia, Bulgaria, and found dead outside the Palestinian embassy where he had taken refuge from an Israeli attempt to extradite him. Her remarks echoed the event’s opening, as the conference began with a salute to Nayef Zayed, recalling his struggle for freedom. Kates discussed Nayef Zayed’s imprisonment, escape in 1990 and his life in Bulgaria with his family as a leader in the Palestinian community, noting that the extradition request came after years of increased security coordination between the Bulgarian government and the Israeli state. She noted that there is a “triangle of responsibility” for the death of Omar Nayef Zayed, the Israeli state, the Bulgarian state and the Palestinian Authority, who pressured Nayef Zayed to leave the embassy, denied him visitors and discouraged international campaigners on his behalf rather than supporting his efforts to fight Israeli extradition.
She then discussed the role of “anti-terror” legislation and the use of lists of so-called “terrorist organizations” to separate exiled Palestinians from their national liberation movements and cut off international solidarity with the Palestinian liberation struggle, as well as the ways in which these lists replicate and mirror Israeli lists of “prohibited” or “hostile” organizations for which thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned for membership, affiliation and support, remarking on the case of the Holy Land Five in the United States. She also noted other key international cases relating to the Palestinian struggle, including the case of Rasmea Odeh in the US and the imprisonment for 32 years in French prisons of Arab struggler for Palestine, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.
Photo: Fronte Palestina
Kates spoke about the importance of international solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners and the work of Samidoun, highlighting the role of Palestinian prisoners as examples of Palestinian national unity, leaders of the Palestinian liberation struggle and representatives of Palestinian resistance, on the front lines confronting Israeli occupation. She noted that supporting Palestinian prisoners is part and parcel of supporting Palestinians’ right to resist occupation and oppression, and highlighted specific cases, such as the current hunger strike of imprisoned journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, and the struggle of imprisoned Palestinian leader and PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat against isolation.
The talk also addressed the role of Palestinian prisoner solidarity as part of an international struggle against imperialism and repression. She noted European complicity in the imprisonment of Palestinians and highlighted programs such as LAW-TRAIN, funded by the Horizon 2020 research grant program, which brings European and Israeli police agencies together, along with several universities including Bar-Ilan University and KU Leuven, to study interrogation techniques. The project also includes the Israeli Ministry of Public Security, headed by far-right figure Gilad Erdan, who also holds the portfolio for fighting BDS organizing around the world.
Photo: Fronte Palestina
“Building solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners is a way to support Palestinian national unity, real Palestinian struggling leadership, support Palestinian resistance and build alliances of mutual support and solidarity to fight the alliance of imperialism, Zionism and reactionary regimes that threatens us all. This is why we build campaigns to boycott and internationally isolate Israel and the corporations that are part of its prison infrastructure…This is why we organize protests and actions and come together ever more strongly with domestic movements against racism, against fascism, against repression and imprisonment,” concluded Kates.
Photo: Fronte Palestina
The event included a number of interventions; Italian lawyer Ugo Giannangeli spoke about DDL 2043, a proposed anti-BDS law making its way through the Italian legislature, contrasting the attempts to suppress Palestine solidarity activism with Israel’s own egregious violations of international law. Enrico Bartolomei spoke about the university as a site of capitalist research and development, and how this drive towards profit works together with militarization and partnerships with Israeli universities, such as the Technion, for repressive industries locally and globally.
Photo: Fronte Palestina
Several students from the University of Torino spoke about their work as part of Students Against Technion, working to expose the Israeli university’s involvement in the development of military technologies that oppress Palestinians, including drone technologies and tunnel detection. The university, along with other Italian universities, maintained a partnership with the Technion that expired in November 2016; no official word has been issued on its resumption, and the students are demanding an end to this partnership and all future such partnerships. They also spoke about the repression of their own activities on campus, including the cancellation of a speaking event with Israeli pro-BDS activist Ronnie Barkan.
Photo: Fronte Palestina
Diana Carminati spoke about another proposed Italian law, DDL 2186, to implement increased bilateral agreements between Italy and Israel in military, security and defense matters, as well as the importance of a political and anti-imperialist approach to Palestine solidarity organizing. Silvano Falessi of Fronte Palestina spoke about the use of law to serve far-right and imperialist interests in Italy while suppressing the exposure of the genocide against the Palestinian people, while youth activists with Fronte Palestina in Padua addressed their organizing against anti-BDS legislation alongside anti-NATO and anti-imperialist organizing. Activists from Soccorso Rosso (Red Aid) spoke about the case of Georges Abdallah and the importance of supporting Palestinian political prisoners.
Photo: Fronte Palestina
The event concluded with lively discussion and political analysis presented by Fronte Palestina organizers, as well as strategizing to build campaigns to confront repression in Palestine, in Italy and internationally.
New York City activists protested on Friday, 24 February in response to the re-sentencing of longest-held Palestinian prisoner Nael Barghouthi, demanding his freedom and urging a boycott of HP products for its complicity and involvement in Israeli imprisonment, occupation and settler colonialism.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network gathered outside the Best Buy electronics store in Union Square, carrying signs and chanting for freedom for Barghouthi and his fellow Palestinian prisoners. They distributed leaflets and information about the involvement of Hewlett-Packard (HP) corporations in contracting with the Israel Prison Service as well as other Israeli state entities for technology that enables the running of checkpoints, settlements, prison and other infrastructure of colonialism and occupation.
On Wednesday, 22 February, the Israeli occupation Ofer military court reimposed the original prison sentence of life plus 18 years against Palestinian prisoner Nael Barghouthi. Barghouthi has spent 36 years in Israeli prison and is the longest-held Palestinian prisoner, originally released in October 2011 as part of the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange with over 1,000 fellow Palestinian political prisoners. At the time of his release, he had been the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner after 34 years of imprisonment.
He was re-arrested by Israeli occupation forces in June 2014 alongside dozens of former prisoners released in the exchange; under Israeli military order 1651, former Palestinian prisoners released in such an exchange can have their former sentences reimposed on the basis of “secret evidence” by an Israeli military commission.
Nearly 60 Palestinian prisoners have had their original sentences reimposed, mostly on the basis of association with members of “prohibited organizations,” which include every major Palestinian political party. However, Barghouthi was sentenced to 30 months in Israeli prison. On 17 December, Barghouthi’s 30-month sentence expired, yet he was denied release on the basis of an appeal filed by the Israeli military prosecution calling for the reimposition of his original life sentence plus 18 years. He was originally imprisoned on the basis of participating in a commando operation with fellow Fateh fighters that killed one Israeli settler near the illegal West Bank settlement of Halamish.
Barghouthi’s wife, Iman Nafie, a fellow former prisoner, his family and his lawyers have pledged to continue the struggle. The Samidoun protest is part of an international campaign to demand the release of Barghouthi and his fellow re-imprisoned Palestinian prisoners.
Samidoun activists also joined a protest on Sunday, 26 February in New York City’s Grand Central Station denouncing the sentencing of Israeli soldier Elor Azaria, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison for murdering a wounded Palestinian in his custody, Abdel-Fattah al-Sharif; his killing was captured on video by Palestinian human rights activist Imad Abu Shamsiyeh. The brief sentencing of Azaria, who openly murdered a captive Palestinian, has been widely contrasted to the sentencing of Palestinians, including children sentenced for several years for stone-throwing. The protest denounced the sentencing of Azaria as part of the Israeli apartheid settler-colonial system of racist injustice.
The next Samidoun protest in New York City will take place on Friday, 3 March, highlighting the struggles of Palestinian women prisoners and in particular the case of Lena Jarbouni, the longest-held Palestinian woman prisoner, at 5:30 pm outside the Best Buy in Union Square. Other upcoming actions include the International Women’s Strike and a protest on Tuesday, 14 March outside the New York Hilton Midtown against the “Friends of the Israel Defense Forces” annual gala, where fanatical Zionists gather each year alongside Israeli soldiers to raise tens of millions of dollars to support Israel’s political imprisonment and other war crimes against occupied Palestinians. The protest will take place at 5:30 pm outside the hotel and is endorsed by a number of organizations, including Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, the Committee to Stop FBI Reception NYC, International Action Center, Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, NY4Palestine and the United National Antiwar Coalition.
As part of the international “Israeli Apartheid Week” organized in over 200 cities and universities around the world, the Association Belgo-Palestinienne Louvain-la-Neuve invites you to join a film screening and discussion on the topic of prisons in Israel. The politics of imprisonment in Israel is also an important issue due to the complicity of Belgium via the “LAW-TRAIN” program.
Projection du film “3000 Nuits” en VOSTFR au UD2.208
A discussion with Salah Hamouri and Charlotte Kates
Community dinner and presentation!
Before International Women’s Day – and the 
