27 January, NYC: Protest to free Nael Barghouti and stop HP

16 January 2017

Friday, 27 January
5:30 pm
Best Buy Union Square
52 East 14 Street, New York, New York 10003
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/580702052134943/

The longest-serving Palestinian political prisoner, Nael Barghouti, 59, continues to be held despite having finished his latest sentence of 30 months, which was issued based on secret information, on December 17. An appeal was submitted by the prosecution, who seek to reinstate a previous life sentence, on November 25, 2015. However, the military court judge has not yet given a response to the appeal. Barghouti faces the possibility of reinstatement of his life sentence based on secret information.

Barghouti was first arrested when he was 20 years old in April 1978. Barghouti was released as part of the 2011 prisoner exchange. In 2014, during a mass arrest campaign, he was rearrested under military order 1651, which allows for the rearrest of prisoners released in exchange deals based on secret information. Today, he has spent over 35 years in Israeli prisons.

Stand with Barghouti to demand that Israel release him 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.

20 January, Washington DC: Anti-Racist, Anti-Imperialist Trump Inauguration Resistance

16 January 2017

Friday, 20 January
Washington, DC
(and across the US/internationally)

Actions include:

#J20Resist
http://J20Resist.org

#InaugurateTheResistance
https://www.facebook.com/events/1068785513242447/

Become #Ungovernable
https://www.ungovernable2017.com/

#DisruptJ20
http://www.disruptj20.org/

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will participate in events and actions in Washington, DC on 20 January in anti-racist, anti-imperialist, anti-war resistance to the Trump inauguration. There are a number of campaigns and movements organizing to mobilize people to DC and around the US and some of them are presented above. See you in the streets for J20!

18 January, Ramallah: No to Political Arrests!

16 January 2017

Wednesday, 18 January
4:00 pm
Chamber of Commerce Hall
Ramallah, Palestine
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/674278496088304/

On the 15th anniversary of the arrest of the Palestinian national leader Ahmed Sa’adat, the general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat invites all to participate in a seminar on political detention and its impact on the Palestinian national movement.

Speakers will include Palestinian struggler Mahmoud Fannoun and lawyer Muhannad Karajah.

New York City protesters demand freedom for Sa’adat, urge boycott of HP

16 January 2017

Chants for Palestine rang out in New York City’s Union Square outside the Best Buy electronics store on Friday, 13 January as Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network protested in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. The protest, part of the international days of action to free imprisoned Palestinian leader and PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat and fellow Palestinian prisoners, also highlighted the growing international boycott of Hewlett-Packard (HP) companies for their role in profiteering from Israeli imprisonment and oppression of Palestinians.

Protesters passed out leaflets to passers-by and chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!” and “Free all Palestinian political prisoners” outside the store. Leaflets highlighted the case of Ahmad Sa’adat as well as the campaign to boycott HP products.

Hewlett-Packard Enterprise contracts with an array of Israeli state and military agencies to back up their technology of repression; specifically, HPE contracts with the Israel Prison Service for its database of prisoners, as well as producing the biometric ID system used at Israeli checkpoints that block Palestinian movement throughout the West Bank.

A group from the ANSWER Coalition joined the protest, carrying signs to free Sa’adat and his fellow Palestinian prisoners as well as supporting the Palestinian liberation struggle. ANSWER participants and protesters from the International Action Center discussed plans for anti-war and anti-imperialist protests on 20 January in Washington DC and New York City during the Presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.

Samidoun organizers will be participating in the New York City and Washington DC protests on 20 January against war, imperialism and the Trump inauguration, and will return to the Union Square Best Buy on Friday, 27 January at 5:30 pm to demand freedom for Nael Barghouthi, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner today held in arbitrary detention awaiting a ruling from a secret Israeli military committee, and build the boycott of HP.

The Friday protest was part of the launch of international days of action in solidarity with Sa’adat and fellow Palestinian prisoners, marking the 15th anniversary of his seizure by Palestinian Authority security forces on 15 January 2002 at the behest of Israel, the United States and United Kingdom under so-called “security cooperation” between the PA and Israel. Sa’adat was held in the PA prison in Jericho until 16 March 2006, when the prison itself was attacked and Sa’adat and his comrades kidnapped by Israeli occupation military forces; today, he is serving a 30-year sentence in Israeli prison. Events took place around the world, in the U.S., Canada, the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Turkey, France, Denmark, Palestine and Lebanon, demanding freedom for Sa’adat and his fellow Palestinian prisoners.

UK protests demand freedom for Palestinian political prisoners, end to British war profiteering

16 January 2017

The Revolutionary Communist Group/Fight Racism Fight Imperialism! organized a series of events and public actions in solidarity with Ahmad Sa’adat throughout the UK on 13-15 January as part of the International Days of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and All Palestinian Prisoners. The RCG produced the following report on their public actions and events in London (Brixton and Whitechapel), Manchester and Glasgow calling for freedom for Palestinian prisoners and building the boycott of Israel. Protests specifically targeted Barclays Bank for its investment in British and Israeli war industries:

FREE AHMED SA’ADAT!

VICTORY TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!

NO TO IMPERIALIST WAR!

In Britain, RCG (Revolutionary Communist Group) and Samidoun supporters helped organise a day of protest on 14 January as part of an international day action for the release of Ahmed Sa’adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. South London RCG held a street meeting in Brixton, raising awareness of the case of Sa’adat and other Palestinian political prisoners while activists in the East London neighbourhood of Whitechapel led an open mic sound system. Manchester Boycott Israel Group activists led a picket of Barclays bank on Market Street as part of a protest linking the prisoners’ struggle to the wider fight against war and racism. The street action called for the release the prisoners and and exposed British imperialist intervention in the Middle East. Barclays is symbolic of that warmongering, investing in BAE Systems, Raytheon and Boeing, all companies who provide arms to Israel, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, directly fuelling wars on Palestinian, Syrian, Kurdish, Iraqi, Yemeni and Afghan people. Waving the flags of Palestine and Syria, the picket was well received by the public, showing that the campaign for BDS has resonance with other issues.

In Scotland, supporters took to the streets of Glasgow with Palestine flags flying proudly in the wind and placards declaring solidarity with the liberation struggle, activists received wide support from the passing public, taking to the megaphone and chalking the streets to highlight the ongoing fight for justice and dignity by those trapped within the occupation’s dungeons. The criminal role of the British government in comrade Sa’adat’s arrest was made clear. Activists from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign were also out on the street, continuing their campaign against Barclays and its investments in Israeli military technology, for which several SPSC campaigners have been arrested.

The RCG stands for the release of all political prisoners of imperialism, from Ahmad Sa’adat to Mumia Abu-Jamal, and will continue to take the streets, inspired by their resistance. We call on all BDS supporters to join us to build campaigns stand with all Palestinian prisoners leading the fight against Zionism and imperialism and for a better world.

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

www.frfi.co.uk

ILPS Canada: Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners

16 January 2017

The International League of Peoples’ Struggle in Canada issued the following statement in solidarity with Palestinian prisoner Ahmad Sa’adat and his fellow Palestinians in Israeli jails as part of the International Days of Action in solidarity with Sa’adat, from 13-15 January. The days mark the 15th anniversary of Sa’adat’s imprisonment by the Palestinian Authority at the behest of Israel, the US and UK; today, Sa’adat is imprisoned in Israeli prison serving a 30-year sentence and a leader of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement as well as a national leader. Aiyanas Ormond, the chair of ILPS Canada, also participated via Skype in the Waterloo, Ontario opening of the new International Office of the 32 County Sovereignty Movement on 15 January, speaking about Ahmad Sa’adat and the struggle to free political prisoners:

ILPS in Canada and its member organizations join with progressive people around the world in calling for freedom for Palestinian political leader Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners held in the occupation jails.

This month marks 15 years since Comrade Sa’adat, the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was abducted by Palestinian Authority security forces working ‘in security cooperation’ with the Israeli Occupation. He is just one of 7000 Palestinian prisoners currently held in the Occupation jails. This number includes 400 children prisoners, and 720 ‘administrative detainees’ who are held without any formal charge or even access to the illegal and illegitimate ‘due process’ of the Occupation courts. A large number of these Palestinian prisoners are, like Sa’adat, imprisoned purely on the basis of their membership in a Palestinian organization that resists the Israeli colonization and occupation of their homeland.

Palestinian prisoners collectively symbolize the steadfastness and determination of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and are an important source of political leadership for the resistance to the occupation. Comrade Sa’adat is recognized as a leader among Palestinian prisoners and in the Palestinian national movement for his outstanding commitment to the total liberation of his people and their homeland. While he rejects the legitimacy of the Israeli Occupation to imprison him, he refuses to have his freedom used as a pawn in negotiations that would further entrench the occupation or give further concessions to the Zionist State:

“I refuse to be released on the basis of a ‘condition for negotiations’ and I will not accept the price for my freedom to be several meters of the land of Palestine, the land that we have fought for and been imprisoned for. I refuse to be free on the condition of the expansion of settlements. I refuse this offer, not even a single house for Zionist settlers will be built as the price of my freedom.” – Ahmad Sa’adat, from Gilboa Prison

Today we join the collective call for international action for the freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. We demand an end to the internationally-mandated policy of Palestinian Authority “security coordination” that undermines the Palestinian struggle for freedom. And we urge the escalation of the campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli state and complicit institutions and corporations, including HP, to create, as Sa’adat said, “a real economic cost for the industries of colonization.”

Free Ahmad Sa’adat and All Palestinian Prisoners!

Free Palestine!

Long Live International Solidarity!

NYC events build solidarity with Sa’adat and Palestinian prisoners, kicking off international days of action

16 January 2017

Kicking off the international days of action in solidarity with Ahmad Sa’adat and Palestinian political prisoners, John Fletcher of Samidoun spoke on Thursday night, 12 January, to a political meeting organized by the Workers World Party and the International Action Center at the Solidarity Center in New York City.

Fletcher presented an overview of the upcoming days of action taking place around the world in solidarity with Sa’adat and his fellow 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners, as well as Sa’adat’s own history of resistance and leadership. He discussed the boycott campaigns targeting G4S and Hewlett-Packard for their complicity and profiteering from the imprisonment of Palestinians. Fletcher also thanked the International Action Center for its consistent support of Samidoun’s organizing and the Palestinian struggle.

Watch the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7OndsdzTbg’

Also on Thursday, 12 January, NYC Students for Justice in Palestine expressed their solidarity with Ahmad Sa’adat and imprisoned Palestinians at the first session of the NYC SJP Palestine Winter School, taking place at NYU’s Vanderbilt Hall. The session, “Palestine 101,” focused on the history of Zionism and the Palestinian struggle for liberation. Subsequent sessions will focus on imperialism, the Oslo “peace” process and Palestinian political factions and the current political situation. NYC SJP is also organizing a Bay Ridge Resistance series of workshops in the Arab community in NYC.

Participants took a group photo in solidarity with the campaign to free Ahmad Sa’adat and the upcoming international days of action:

Palestinian prisoners continue to be denied family visits: 13-year-old Rita Abu Ghoulmeh banned from seeing her jailed father

16 January 2017

Palestinian prisoners continue to be denied family visits under a pretext of “security” on a systematic basis. On Sunday, 15 January, Rita Abu Ghoulmeh, 13, the daughter of Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, an imprisoned leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was traveling to visit her father but was stopped at a checkpoint and told that she was prohibited from visiting her father for undeclared security reasons.

In speaking with Sawt al-Shaab radio, Rita said, “Today I went to visit my dad, and I presented my ID card and permit for the visit, and I was told that the visit was banned. When I asked them why, they told me that the intelligence had made a decision to ban the visit.”

Wafa Abu Ghoulmeh, Rita’s mother and Ahed’s wife, said that this is a continued crime of the Zionist occupation against the rights of Palestinian prisoners and their families, noting that it is a means of collective punishment against an entire family, especially when you see the pretext of “security” used against minor children who have a right to see their parents. Wafa has been denied visits with her husband for years under the same pretext.

The banning of Rita’s visit came only days after Palestinian child prisoner Natalie Shokha, 15, was denied visits from her parents, also on the pretext of “security.” The Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Commission said that family visits “are being used as an instrument of collective punishment in flagrant violation of the Geneva Conventions and international conventions.”

On multiple occasions, the Commission noted, Israeli occupation soldiers at roadblocks and checkpoints tear up visitation permits issued through the International Committee of the Red Cross by the Israeli authorities. On 8 January, Akram Hamed, the representative of prisoners in Ofer prison said that 30 people had been denied visitation with their imprisoned family members, including elderly people over the age of 80 years old. In Hadarim prison, 5 family visit permits were withdrawn when the families arrived at the prison and their permit papers torn up by the occupation forces. Marwan Barghouthi, held in Hadarim prison, raised this issue on behalf of the prisoners with the director of Hadarim prison, saying that the continuation of this policy will lead to escalated protests by Palestinian prisoners.

The denial of family visits is also used as a means of pressure and punishment against Palestinian prisoners, noting that 12 Palestinian prisoners were punished after protesting against an attack by guards with the denial of family visits for 6 months.

Sick prisoner Mansour Moqtada continues to be denied family visits from his elderly mother; Moqtada is serving a life sentence and uses a wheelchair after he was shot with three bullets in 2002 at the same time he was seized by Israeli occupation forces. He has a colostomy and a catheter and is in frequent pain; he is one of the most seriously ill prisoners in Israeli jails and is permanently held at the Ramleh prison clinic. His mother, who is over 70 years old, has continually been denied family visits with her son for over two years under the pretext of unspecified “security” reasons.

The right of prisoners to receive family visits is enshrined in the Fourth Geneva Convention. In addition, the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids the imprisonment of people under occupation in the territory of the occupying power; nevertheless, the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners are detained inside Palestine ’48. Most Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza Strip can only receive visits through the visits and permitting process coordinated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), because their families are denied access to the areas where they are imprisoned. These permits are often delayed or denied and take months to process; if and when they are approved, Palestinians must visit on special ICRC buses. he entire visit process begins early in the morning and ends late at night for a 45-minute visit; it is very difficult for young children and elderly parents.

Prior to 2016, these visits took place twice monthly for Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank; however, the visits were arbitrarily reduced to once monthly by the ICRC, which cited lack of participation in the second visit and financial concerns to justify their decision. Palestinians have repeatedly protested these cuts to visits, coming as they do at the same time that the Israeli occupation is repeatedly using family visit denial as a weapon against Palestinian prisoners.

Five Palestinian fishermen seized this morning by Israeli occupation forces

16 January 2017

On Monday morning, 16 January, the Israeli occupation navy has so far seized five Palestinian fishers. Early in the morning, the Israeli navy forced two Palestinian fishermen from their boats off the coast of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, seizing the two of them and confiscating their boat. The two, Ourans Sultan and Mohammed Sultan, were taken to an unknown destination. Just before noon on Monday, three more fishers were seized by occupation forces in the sea off the northern coast of Gaza and fire is continuing toward fishing boats.

The attack on the fishers came after two Palestinian merchants from the Gaza Strip were also seized by Israeli occupation forces on Sunday evening, 15 January, as they attempted to cross the Beit Hanoun/Erez border crossing. The two traders, Medhat Karam and Hazem Touman, had secured permits to cross for trade purposes; however, they were subjected to arbitrary and lengthy interrogation before being taken to an unknown location.

The Palestine Prisoners Center for Studies noted that these arrests come after a year of escalating arrests against all sectors of society in the Gaza Strip. In 2016, 125 fishermen were arrested by Israeli forces and dozens of boats confiscated. While the vast majority of fishers were shortly released, they were frequently subject to physical injury and the confiscation, damage to or loss of their valuable fishing boats, at a time when fishers in Palestine have been economically devastated due to the Israeli occupation forces’ restriction of their fishing area.

On Wednesday, 4 January, Palestinian fisherman Rashad Hissi was in his fishing boat west of northern Gaza, 5 nautical miles from the shore. As the Fishermen’s Committee of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in the Gaza Strip noted, “one of the Israeli navy boat ran into the fishing boat directly without any prior warning, resulting in capsizing and damaging the boat completely and the loss of the fisherman, Mohammed Ahmed Mohammed Jamil Hissi, who is still missing.” Hissi was later declared dead. The fishermen urged international action to protect Palestinian fishermen seeking to work and secure their livelihood under attack by Israeli occupation forces, as well as an end to the siege on Gaza.

There were a total of 223 Palestinians from Gaza arrested last year by occupation forces; 15 of them were merchants, as well as patients going to receive medical treatment and students seeking to study abroad.

Former hunger striker, journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq among 20 Palestinians seized by Israeli occupation forces

16 January 2017

Israeli occupation forces seized Mohammed al-Qeeq, 34, Palestinian journalist and former long-term hunger striker, on the evening of Sunday, 15 January at the Beit El checkpoint north of Ramallah. Fayha Shalash, al-Qeeq’s wife, said that the occupation forces delayed and detained a number of families of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces and former prisoners at the checkpoint as they came from participating in a demonstration in Bethlehem for the return of the bodies of the martyrs held captive by the Israeli occupation.

Most were released after around 45 minutes, but al-Qeeq was separated from the others, arrested and transferred inside the Beit El settlement and its interrogation center, Shalash told Asra Voice. She also said that he had stated his intention to begin an open hunger strike if he was seized by occupation forces. Al-Qeeq remains imprisoned now in an unknown location.

Al-Qeeq engaged in a 94-day hunger strike against his administrative detention without charge or trial, winning his release in May 2016. He has continued to be a visible leader and participant in defending Palestinian prisoners and demanding their freedom. Al-Qeeq is one of over 20 Palestinian journalists currently imprisoned by the Israeli occupation, including Omar Nazzal, member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, held in administrative detention without charge or trial.

Fellow long-term hunger striker and former Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan spoke in response to the arrest of al-Qeeq, calling for the escalation of actions and calls at all levels against the ongoing attacks by the occupation against released prisoners and the suppression of the prisoners inside the prisons.

The seizure of al-Qeeq came among the arrest of 20 Palestinians by Israeli occupation forces on late Sunday or early Monday morning, most in the Ramallah area. Among those arrested was Palestinian Legislative Council member Ahmed Mubarak. Mubarak’s seizure by occupation forces brings the total of PLC members currently in Israeli prison to 7; he joins PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat; Fateh leader Marwan Barghouti; Mohammed Abu Teir, exiled Jerusalemite PLC member; and Hassan Yousef, Mohammed Jamal Natsheh and Azzam Salhab, all held in administative detention without charge or trial.

Also arrested in this series of raids were writer Walid Hodali of el-Bireh, Sheikh Ibrahim Abu Saba from Beitunia, Sheikh Falah Abu al-Taher of el-Bireh, Omar Barghouthi from Deir Ghassaneh, Mohammed al-Barghouthi of Bani Zeid, Mohammed Qar’an from Beitunia. Former prisoners Shuja’a Darwish of Birzeit and Jihad Karajeh of Saffa were also seized, as were Mohammed Dahlah and Yousef Alayan of Budrus, Louay Nazir of Kobar and Saeb Fahmi Abu Salem of Rantis. In Beit Ummar near al-Khalil, Abdel Nasser Abu Maria, 18, a former prisoner, was seized by occupation forces, blindfolded and taken to an unknown destination.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Mohammed al-Qeeq and urges international action and pressure for his freedom and that of his fellow Palestinian prisoners, including imprisoned Palestinian journalists.

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