7 February, Kent State University: The Imprisonment of Palestinian Children with Farehan Farrah

6 February 2017

Tuesday, 7 February
6:00 pm
Kent State University Bowman Hall 220
Kent, Ohio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1911305635773515/

This event will be a speech given by Farehan Farrah, mother of 13 year old Palestinian prisoner Shadi Farrah. Shadi has been imprisoned by Israeli soldiers since December 30, 2015 and sentenced to an additional 2 years in prison on January 4, 2017. Farehan will speak about her son’s situation as well as speaking more in depth about the wrongful capturing and improsoning of children going on in Palestine as we speak. With currently about 300 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons, the voices of these children need to be heard, and we need to listen.

Anyone is welcome to this event and the more the merrier. Please share this with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to Farehan Farrah tell her son’s story.

This event will be hosted in room 220 of Bowman Hall at Kent State University.

Rasmea Odeh Defense Team Files Motion to Dismiss Indictment

1 February 2017

New Statement from the Rasmea Defense Committee:

Prosecutors “Vindictive” After Losing on Appeal

Today, the lawyers defending Palestinian American activist Rasmea Odeh moved to dismiss the new indictment that was brought against her in December 2016. The motion and supporting brief argue that the government’s “superseding indictment has substantially broadened the scope of the trial and the evidence that will be relevant and at issue.”

It also states that the new indictment, filed well beyond the statute of limitations in immigration law, is so different from the original 2013 indictment that it cannot be accepted by the court. The statute of limitations for the alleged 2004 offense is 10 years. This new indictment tries to bring fundamentally different charges against Rasmea.

Finally, Rasmea’s defense exposes the U.S. Attorney’s filing of the superseding indictment as a retaliatory and vindictive act. The conviction that the prosecutors won in court in 2014 was overturned in 2016 because the court violated Rasmea’s right to a full defense. She was not allowed to present expert testimony that she suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of the torture she suffered at the hands of her Israeli captors in Palestine in 1969. Now the desperate prosecution is trying to bring terrorism charges against her. This is nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to prejudice the jury by using buzz words such as “terrorism” to paint an unfavorable view of Rasmea.

When she was first falsely charged with a crime by the Israelis in 1969, Rasmea had been arrested along with close to 500 others in Jerusalem. The occupation forces of the Israeli military singled out Rasmea to force her into a confession, through the use of physical, psychological, and sexual torture. It is well known that Israeli documents from that unlawful conviction were the ones used by the U.S. Attorney’s office in Detroit to bring charges against her in 2013. Rasmea’s attorneys had previously challenged the judge’s allowance of these documents into evidence, since they were procured by documented torture in another country.

During her first trial, Judge Gershwin Drain repeatedly stated that he would not allow the retrying of Rasmea for the allegations against her from 45 years earlier. The motion filed today states, “Now that this Court has properly ruled that the PTSD testimony is admissible, the government wants to convert this trial into a political one about terrorism, and the defendant’s acts and affiliations almost fifty years after the fact.”

“We believe that we have a strong case,” said Bassem Kawar of the Rasmea Defense Committee. “It is clear that the prosecutors are desperately trying to levy ridiculous charges at Rasmea, in hopes that they can confuse the jury and distract them from the evidence of torture and PTSD that will be presented at the new trial.”

3-4 February, Canada: National Days of Action Against Islamophobia, White Supremacy and Deportations

1 February 2017

NATIONAL ACTION DETAILS
January 30 to February 5 – Full list of actions in all cities, continually updated:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1awOa4tymbc-ZxNmv5AfknvR9KQl44Fty0ixFZ3XZqSk/edit

We are tired.

The war waged against Muslims and refugees worldwide has reached its boiling point with Trump’s Presidency. These xenophobic, anti-Black, Islamophobic, anti-refugee racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic policies have come to fruition. Walls and bans against Muslims and Refugees on stolen Indigenous lands. We affirm our solidarity with Indigenous nations whose lands we reside on.

Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Yemen. The geographies of our birth place that put targets on our heads. Families separated, refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants deported and detained, trapped in between borders or taken back – our communities are being terrorized by white supremacist violence and domination. Our movement is confronted by racist white nationalism, our lives are devastated in constant fear. We flee war, persecution, mass poverty in search for life – instead we get a fatal sentence for our faith.

Enough is Enough.

On January 29th, in Quebec City a group of Muslims were praying in a mosque at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre when one gunmen came in and rang shots throughout this place of worship. Six have died, even more are injured. We mourn their lives.

Last summer during the holy month of Ramadan, a pig’s head was left at the doorstep. The president of the cultural centre hoped the event was an isolated incident, and responded with nothing but love and respect to the Centre’s neighbours.

Colonial borders are imaginary constructs.

The white supremacist hatred of Muslims and refugees from all intersections world wide is the colonizing force that fuels the identity and economy of America just as much as Canada. Trump’s power is extended to Trudeau’s. The institutional and systemic Islamophobic, anti-Black and racist policies that are killing us at the border, in the streets, in our homes, at work and in our mosques are one.

We are under attack on all fronts, especially those of us who live in the intersections of Blackness and Muslimness and are Refugees who are the first to be silenced, ignored or forgotten.

Not another life. Not another mass murder.

Our resistance does not stop here. Now more than ever we must organize. This is a national call to action to plan demonstrations in your cities, Canada wide. Join us, as we rise up!

OUR DEMANDS:

1) The Canadian government must make an immediate public condemnation of the executive order by President Trump that bans Muslim visa-holders from seven countries and also bans all refugees from entering the US.

2) Canada must immediately open the Canada-USA border and grant permanent, not temporary, status.

This includes revocation of the Safe Third Country Agreement which bars most refugee claimants entering from the United States over land to claim asylum in Canada. The Designated Country of Origin list, which makes it almost impossible for US citizens and citizens of forty other countries to claim asylum in Canada, must be eliminated.

3) Canada must end racist, anti-refugee, anti-Black, Islamophobic exclusion of migrants and refugees within this colonial border.

This includes ending the system of indefinite immigration detention. The federal government must create a regularization program so that all undocumented residents can live here with their families rather than fear mass deportation. Migrant workers in Canada must also be given permanent status and open work permits. We want real, not symbolic, Sanctuaries that guarantee access to services and refuse collaboration with Canadian and American border agents.

4) Canada must rescind all federal legislation that attacks racialized Black and Brown Muslims and refugees, including the Zero Tolerance for Barbaric Cultural Practices Act as well as anti-terror legislation such as Security Certificates and Bill C51.

Statement initiated by Black Lives Matter – Toronto With the support of:

Anti-Fascist Action Calgary
Black Lives Matter -Vancouver
Coalition Against Bigotry – Pacific
Idle No More
Justicia for Migrant Workers
Kashmir Solidarity Group – Toronto
No One Is Illegal – London, Ontario
No One Is Illegal – Toronto
No One Is Illegal -Vancouver Coast Salish territories
People for Peace – London, Ontario
Refugees Welcome – Victoria/Lekwungen territory
Salaam -Vancouver: Queer Muslim Community
Siraat Muslim Collective – Vancouver
Tamil Freedom Coalition
Trikone – Vancouver

Additional Endorsing Organizations:

Amnesty International at York (AIY)
Anti-Colonial Committee of the Law Union of Ontario
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement
Brock University Students’ Union Advocacy Department
Canadian Federation of Students
Canadian Friends of Kurdistan
Canadian Journalists for Free Expression
Canadian Union of Postal Workers – Syndicat des travailleurs et travailleuses
Centre for Women’s Studies in Education (OISE)
Children Space Theatre
Chinese Canadian National Council Toronto Chapter
Cooper Institute – PEI
Council of Canadians
CUPE – Ontario
CUPE 1281
CUPE 3902 Flying Squad
CUPE 3902 Racialized Members Caucus
CUPE 3903 First Nations Solidarity Working Group
CUPE 3903 Flying Squad
CUPE 5167 Outside Working Group
Diversity Solutions
Divest MTA
East Enders Against Racism (Toronto)
East Toronto Families for Syria
Harvest Noon Co-op
Health Providers Against Poverty – Toronto
International Anti-Zionist Network-Canada
Independent Jewish Voices – Canada
Independent Jewish Voices – Toronto
Independent Jewish Voices – Vancouver
International Socialists
Intersex Nonbinary and Transgender Action Coalition of Toronto
Fightback
Fight for $15 and Fairness
Friendzone Collective
Fossil Free Guelph
Khalsa Aid
Leadnow
OHIP for All
Ontario Council of Hospital Unions
Ontario Humanist Society
OPIRG Toronto
OPSEU 551
OPSEU Local 586
Project World Recovery
Mining Injustice Solidarity Network
Mujer
Muslim Women’s Collective – Brampton
NDP Socialist Caucus
Network of Women with Disabilities
No More Silence
Rainbow Refugee
Revolutionary Student Movement – Toronto
Revolutionary Student Movement – York University
RefugeAid – York University
Rhythms of Resistance
Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Sanctuary Health – Vancouver
School of Social Play
Showing up for Racial Justice (SURJ) – Toronto
SlutWalk Toronto
Socialist Action
Solidarity Ottawa
Spring Tide Resources
Stop C-51: Toronto
Stop Demovictions Burnaby
Stop the JNF-Canada
Studio Jaywall
Taggart Law
Tamil Archive Project
Tamil Studies York
The Leap
Toronto Anarchist Reading Group
Toronto New Socialists
Toronto Seed Library
Toronto Street Medics
Toronto Students for Justice in Palestine
Toronto Women’s City Alliance
Unifor National
University of British Columbia Tandem Language Learning Program
University of Toronto Feminist Law Students Association
Upping the Anti: a journal of theory and action
V-Day Guelph
Women’s Human Rights Education Institute
World University Service Center of Canada- York Keele
Workers’ Action Centre
Youth Communist League

New York City protest demands freedom for Nael Barghouthi and fellow Palestinian prisoners

1 February 2017

New York City protesters gathered outside Best Buy on 27 January to demand freedom for Nael Barghouthi and all Palestinian prisoners and highlight the growing global boycott campaign against HP (Hewlett-Packard) for profiteering from the oppression and imprisonment of Palestinians.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network organized the protest, which highlighted the case of Nael Barghouthi. The 59-year-old Barghouthi is the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner in Israeli prisons. He is currently imprisoned while a secretive Israeli military commission decides whether to reimpose an earlier life sentence against him; he was freed in 2011 in the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange with over 1,000 fellow prisoners. In 2014, dozens of freed prisoners were rounded up in an attempt to pressure Palestinain resistance organizations; many of their sentences were reimposed on the basis of secret evidence and vague allegations of “connections with prohibited organizations,” including every major Palestinian party. Barghouthi’s sentence was not reimposed; instead, he was ordered to 30 months in prison, which ended on 17 December 2016.

The military prosecution appealed this sentence and is calling for the reimposition of his original sentence; this appeal has been sitting before the secretive commission since 2015. Despite his lawyer’s and family’s appeal for his freedom, he was denied release as the committee considers his case. Signs at the protest highlighted Barghouthi’s case and the arbitrary targeting of former prisoners.

In addition, Samidoun protesters highlighted the continuing threat to indigenous land at Standing Rock by the Dakota Access Pipeline. Following an executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump on 24 January, renewed attention has been drawn to the Standing Rock Sioux’ resistance to the creation of the pipeline that threatens the water at Standing Rock and once again violates indigenous land rights and sovereignty.

Protesters also distributed information calling on Best Buy shoppers to refrain from purchasing HP products. HP maintains a number of contracts with the Israeli state and is the primary contractor maintaining the technical aspects of its checkpoints. It also provides services and equipment to the Israel Prison Service, profiting from the imprisonment of over 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners.

Following the event, Samidoun members attended a letter-writing evening for political prisoners in US jails, organized by Columbia University Apartheid Divest. Samidoun will organize its next protest in New York City on Friday, 3 February at 5:30 PM at the Best Buy in Union Square, focusing on the case of Palestinian human rights defender and BDS leader Salah Khawaja. All are welcome to join and stand for justice for Palestine.

4 February, Anaheim: Resilience in the Face of Repression

29 January 2017

Saturday, 4 February
2:30 pm
631 S. Brookhurst St
Anaheim, CA 92804
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/606190866252910/

Commemorating Continued Community Struggle Amidst and Increasing Backlash

Join us in honoring the members of the L.A. 8 and the sacrifices they mde for Palestinian liberation. We will be screening a documentary about their case and will hold a discussion exploring the connection between the state repression they faced then and the repression young Palestine activists face today.

Organized by the Palestinian Youth Movement

4 February, Rutgers University: Film Screening of “3000 Nights”

29 January 2017

Saturday, 4 February
6:00 pm
Busch Campus Center
Rutgers University
604 Bartholomew Road, Piscataway, NJ
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1902186390011689/

Join us for a screening of 3000 Nights, directed by Mai Masri on Feb. 4 Sat @6 pm at the Busch Campus Center in Center Hall. After the film we will have a q&a with actress Hana Chamoun.

SYNOPSIS
Accused of helping a teenage boy on the run, newlywed Palestinian schoolteacher, Layal finds herself incarcerated in a top security Israeli prison for Palestinian and Israeli women. After being subjected to a harrowing reception from the female guards and inmates, Layal discovers that she is pregnant. The prison director pressures her to abort the baby and spy on the Palestinian inmates. Terrified but defiant, Layal gives birth to her child in chains.

Through her struggle to raise her son behind bars and her turbulent relationship with the other prisoners, Layal manages to find a sense of hope and meaning to her life. When prison conditions deteriorate and the Palestinian prisoners decide to strike, the prison director warns her against joining the strike and threatens to take her son away. In a moment of truth, Layal is forced to make a choice that will forever change her life.

Inspired by a true story and shot in a real prison, 3000 Nights traces a young mother’s journey of hope, resilience and survival against all odds.

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
Inspired by the true stories of children born in Israeli prisons and young women coming of age behind bars, 3000 Nights is first and foremost a human story of a young mother who, through her struggle to protect her child and her relationship with the prisoners around her, finds the space to reflect, develop, and mature as a young woman.

I first had the idea to make 3000 Nights when I was filming in my hometown, Nablus during the first intifada where I met a young Palestinian woman who had given birth to her son in an Israeli prison. I was profoundly affected to hear how she had delivered her child in chains and raised him together with the other women prisoners. I felt that this was a story that had to be told.

The film explores the meaning of motherhood, love, and betrayal focusing on the imagination, creativity and solidarity of women prisoners that empowers them to survive and endure. Prison is a metaphor for the condition of the Palestinian people under occupation and Palestinian women in particular. I am drawn to this story because it allows me to explore the complex relationships that take place within the intimacy of a confined, hidden space of a women’s world and to go beyond the relationship of conflict and into the realm of the unexpected bonds that can arise between captive women.

This story has been living with me for such a long time that I feel I have been imprisoned with these women and seen the same walls and heard the same sounds. For me this is a film about resilience and resistance. It is above all a film about hope.

http://3000nights.com/

30 January, Saint-Ouen: Screening of “3000 Nights” and discussion

29 January 2017

Monday, 30 January
8:30 pm
Cinema Utopia 95
Place Pierre Mendes-France, Town Hall Square
95301 Saint-Ouen
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1634465643524315/

This session on Monday, 30 January at Cinema Utopia Saint-Ouen will screen the film, “3000 Nights,” directed by Mai Masri. The screening will be followed by a discussion on Palestinian political prisoners, with Florence Braud, of the Collectif Urgence Palestine Cergy, who returned recently from Palestine, and Charles Beillard, president of Abna Philistine, the association of French-Palestinian families.

Endorsed by the NPA, Parti de Gauche 95, League of Human Rights and Europe Ecologie/les Verts Cergy

Protest demands release of Palestinian youth in administrative detention

29 January 2017

Palestinians from the town of Kabul near Akka protested on Thursday, 26 January for the release of Mohammed Khaled Ibrahim, 20, a Palestinian citizen of Israel from the town held without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Ibrahim has been imprisoned without charge or trial since 10 May 2016; he is one of approximately 700 Palestinians imprisoned under administrative detention and 7,000 total Palestinian prisoners. Administrative detention orders are issued on the basis of secret evidence for periods of one to six months and are indefinitely renewable. Palestinians have spent years at a time in prison without charge or trial under administrative detention.

After Ibrahim was seized by Israeli forces in a pre-dawn raid in which his family’s home was ransacked and computers confiscated, he was ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial for six months; after six months, the detention order was renewed. He will have a court hearing on 15 March.

Omar Khamisi, a Palestinian lawyer from Mezan Center in Nazareth, told Arabs 48 that “the military rule over Arab citizens did not end. It is actually practiced in various forms and styles and can be seen clearly in the political persecution of activists of political parties and political, social and cultural movements, most prominently the prosecution of leaders and activists of the National Democratic Alliance and the banning of the Islamic Movement and its charities and humanitarian projects.”

The Freedoms Committee announced that a series of political, media and legal activities will be organized to advocate in support of Ibrahim and demand his release while confronting the policy of administrative detention.

Dareen Tatour’s prosecution for poetry continues in Nazareth court

29 January 2017

Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour testified before the Magistrate’s Court in Nazareth on Thursday, 26 January; Dareen’s saga has lasted for nearly a year and a half as she faces prosecution and imprisonment for writing a poem, “Resist my people, resist them,” and posting it on YouTube.

Arrested from her family home in the village of Reineh on 11 October 2015, Tatour, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, was imprisoned for several months in Kishon, Damon and HaSharon prisons on allegations of “incitement,” and she was then transferred to house arrest. For several more more months, she was confined to an apartment in the Tel Aviv area; due to the restrictions of her house arrest, her brother and sister-in-law had to leave work and school to permanently accompany her; she was finally transferred to house arrest in her home village of Reineh but remains subject to severe restrictions and must wear an electronic ankle bracelet at all times. She is prohibited from using the internet.

Hundreds of internationally renowned writers and artists, including Edwidge Danticat, Ahdaf Soueif, Alice Walker, Eve Ensler, Ariel Dorfman, Russell Banks and Barbara Hammer, have called for Tatour’s release and the dropping of charges against her, a call endorsed by PEN, the international freedom of expression association. Despite the widespread support for Tatour and the almost farcical nature of the charges against her, she faces up to eight years in prison. The arrest and prosecution of Tatour also comes in the context of a long history of occupation persecution of Palestinian writers and artists, including such former prisoners as Mahmoud Darwish, Samih al-Qasim and Tawfiq Zayyad, like Tatour, Palestinians from occupied Palestine ’48.

Despite the lengthy proceedings stretching over four months, Tatour’s case will continue for several more hearings. There will be three more upcoming hearings in the case before a judgment is issued, and those sessions will convene on 19 March, 28 March and 5 April.

Learn more about the case at the Free Dareen Tatour facebook.

Al-Qeeq transferred to isolation in Hadarim prison; Shahatit continues hunger strike for seventh day

29 January 2017

On Friday, 27 January, the Israeli prison administration suddenly transferred Palestinian journalist and former long-term hunger striker Mohammed al-Qeeq from the Petah Tikva interrogation center to the isolation section of Hadarim prison from the Petah Tikva interrogation center.

This came one day after al-Qeeq’s detention was extended by the Ofer military court for the third time after his arrest on 15 January at the Beit El checkpoint near Ramallah as he returned from a demonstration in Bethlehem protesting for the return of the detained bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation forces. His detention has been extended three times since then and his family home and the apartment he shares with his wife were raided by Israeli occupation forces. His wife, Fayha Shalash, was also summoned to Israeli interrogation on Wednesday, 25 January.

Al-Qeeq was released from administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial – in May 2016, after he carried out a 94-day hunger strike to demand his release. His hunger strike gained international notice and highlighted the persecution of Palestinian journalists. Al-Qeeq has pledged to launch an open hunger strike if he is once again ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial. He is expected to be brought before military court again on 2 February.

Current Hunger Strikers

Meanwhile, Randa Shahatit, held in isolation in HaSharon prison, is now on her seventh day of hunger strike. Shahatit was seized by occupation forces on 20 January; the former Palestinian prisoner was released in 2011 as part of the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange when 17 months remained in her 50-month sentence. She was seized by occupation forces in August as she went to the hospital with her 3-month-old daughter and held for 12 days before being released on bail and under confinement to the area of her village while a secretive military committee determined whether to reimpose her prior sentence – as has happened to dozens of Palestinian prisoners. On 3 January, it was announced that her sentence would not be reimposed and her bail conditions were lifted; only two weeks later, she is now being accused of violating her conditions of bail. She is on hunger strike against her arrest and isolation.

Also on hunger strike for the fourth day is Islam Dar Musa, 24, who launched a hunger strike on 25 January to demand to be housed with his also-imprisoned father, Sheikh Saleh Dar Musa, 52. Islam is held without charge or trial under administrative detention since August 2016, and his administrative detention was renewed in December; his father is serving 17 life sentences. Islam was denied a transfer to Ramon prison to be with his father. He has not seen his father since he was last imprisoned in 2013.

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