Palestinian prisoner Sami Janazrah, on hunger strike for 55 days, has been removed from Soroka hospital and returned to the isolation cells in the Israeli Ketziot prison in the Naqab desert as of Tuesday, 26 April.
Janazrah, 43, a Palestinian refugee from Iraq al-Manshiyya living in al-Fuwwar camp near al-Khalil, has been held without charge or trial under administrative detention by the Israeli occupation since 15 November 2015. He launched his hunger strike on 3 March 2016, demanding his release; throughout that time, he has been held in solitary confinement. He was moved to the hospital after he suffered a head injury after fainting while being transferred to the isolation cells in Ela prison. Despite significant weight loss, constant pains and fainting spells after 55 days of hunger strike, he is now being denied medical care and oversight and has been returned to solitary confinement.
Janazrah and his wife have three children, Firas (13), Mahmoud (10) and Maria (4). He participated in the first intifada as a youth and the second intifada, and was spent seven years in Israeli prisons during multiple arrests. He was previously the secretary of Fateh in al-Fuwwar and an active Fateh youth member; he organized a solidarity tent in support of Samer Issawi during his lengthy hunger strike in 2013, until Issawi’s strike ended.
Two more Palestinians held without charge or trial under administrative detention are also on hunger strike; Fouad Assi and Adib Mafarjah, both held in solitary confinement in Ela prison. Assi and Mafarjah have been on hunger strike since 4 April – they are demanding their release from Israeli administrative detention.
Nearly 750 Palestinians are held without charge or trial under administrative detention, of 7,000 total Palestinian political prisoners.
Palestinian journalist Omar Nazzal will be brought before Israel’s Ofer military court on Wednesday, 27 April, reported the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society. Nazzal was arrested by Israeli occupation forces at the Al-Karama crossing on Saturday, 23 April, en route to the European Federation of Journalists’ general meeting in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Nazzal is a member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate. The EFJ, along with the PJS a member of the International Federation of Journalists, has called for the immediate release of Nazzal; dozens of Palestinian journalists protested on Sunday demanding his release.
Palestinian journalists will again rally outside the Ofer prison, west of Ramallah, at 10:30 am tomorrow, 27 April, protesting for the release of Nazzal to coincide with the military court convening in his case.
Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Verizon broadband and telecommunications company workers, whose 39,000-strong strike is nearing its second week, and encourages the broadest possible support by all progressive forces for this historic mobilization of the working class.
We particularly urge all supporters of Palestine to sign a petition circulated by the workers’ unions, the Communication Workers of America (CWA) and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), and to join pickets, rallies and protests organized by the unions along the East Coast of the United States.
Every effective challenge to US capitalism doubles as a challenge to US imperialism, a key enemy of the Palestinian prisoners and people, their movements and aspirations.
Verizon workers, who have carried out both of the two largest strikes in recent US history, stand at the forefront of a resurgent labor movement manifested in new struggles like Fight for $15.
The ranks of the strikers include our comrades, Palestinian and solidarity activists, their spouses, children and parents, as well as countless members of allied movements and our local communities.
Their fight against a global corporate giant seeking to impose new depths of austerity and strip away the gains of past struggles is a fight for all of us. It is imperative that we stand with them.
Thursday, 28 April 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm (followed by light lunch and reception, 4:00 – 5:00) Wollman Hall, Eugene Lang College, The New School Room B500 65 W 11th St New York, NY 10011
This round-table conversation will examine the impact of prolonged military occupation on Palestinian youth and draw connections with the struggles for human rights in the United States for communities of color. Palestinian and American civil society leaders will discuss parallels between Israeli military law, and discrimination, police violence, surveillance and systemic injustice in the US.
Participants:
Sahar Francis is a Palestinian lawyer and general director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. She became director in 2005, and has been a human rights legal advocate since 1994.
Thenijwe McHarris is currently working with a team called Blackbird, which is focused on movement building in the current historical moment that centers anti-black racism, state violence and black resistance as part of the ongoing struggle to transform the country.
Khaled Quzmar is a Palestinian lawyer and general director of Defence for Children International – Palestine. Quzmar joined DCIP in 1995 as a lawyer representing Palestinian children in Israeli military courts.
Vincent Warren is an American lawyer and executive director of the Cneter for Constitutional Rights in New York.
Mohammed Rozzi is a Palestinian scholar from the Gaza Strip who is currently completing his Ph.D. studies in Switzerland.
Organized by Students for Justice in Palestine at the New School
Muhammad Salah with his lawyer, Michael Deutsch. Photo: People’s Law Office
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses its condolences to the Salah family and the broader Palestinian community of Chicago and the United States on the passing of Muhammad Salah, prominent Palestinian activist and community leader in the Chicago area, former political prisoner in Israeli jails, survivor of Israeli torture, and subject of extensive U.S. state repression. We express our deepest condolences to Muhammad’s wife Maryam, his children, family, loved ones, and entire community.
Muhammad Salah’s victory in court in 2006 – and his second victory six years later, with his removal from the ‘Specially Designated Terrorist’ list – was, as the US Palestinian Community Network Chicago writes, “a prominent court victory for our community in the period of the ‘War on Terrorism’ and the consistent political and legal attacks on Palestinian rights and our struggle for national liberation.”
For over twenty years, Salah faced joint persecution at the hands of the Israeli occupation and the U.S. government. A grocer in Chicago, he traveled to deliver humanitarian and financial aid to Palestinians in Gaza in 1993 and was seized as he entered; this was before the so-called “material support laws,” the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 and the later revisions to follow in the Patriot Act and elsewhere, existed. However, the Israeli state’s policy of mass arrests of Palestinians and the criminalization of Palestinian political, social and national institutions was of course in full force, as it had been for decades; and Salah’s case played a significant role in the development of U.S/Israeli strategies of repression of the Palestinian-American community and its strong, active role in the Palestinian national liberation movement.
Salah was beaten and blindfolded before undergoing “extensive interrogation” at the hands of the Israeli Shin Bet. Michael Deutsch and Erica Thompson, Salah’s lawyers, noted in their extensive article on the case (Part 1, Part 2) the various forms of physical and psychological torture inflicted on Salah by the Shin Bet and collaborators during a five-week interrogation period, after which he signed on to a forced confession. The Israeli state – with U.S. official and media complicity – launched a propaganda blitz not only labeling Salah an activist with Hamas, but a “military leader” heading a massive “U.S. leadership network” for Hamas. An Israeli military court sentenced him to five years in prison – a harsh, unjust penalty, yet also highly incongruent with the dramatic claims of Israeli officials and media.
The targeting of Muhammad Salah was always intended as a mechanism not only to target this one Palestinian, but the entire Palestinian community in the United States. As Salah’s lawyers wrote, “The goal had been…to get a confession that would…start a movement to cut off U.S. funding and support for the Palestinian cause, and provide a road map for pro-Israel forces in the United States to target supporters of Palestine.”
On the basis of the confession produced under torture by the Shin Bet, Salah was designated a “Specially Designated Terrorist” – requiring a special license to earn or spend money and special approval to work, hire a doctor or lawyer, or conduct financial transactions. He was so designated by the U.S. government while imprisoned in an Israeli jail, despite his U.S. citizenship, and the designation met him – along with FBI agents and undercover informants -when he returned to the U.S. in 1997 after his release from Israeli prison. Salah lived through years of informants, wiretapping, omnipresent surveillance, and false allegations, until he was acquitted in 2007 of charges brought against him in 2004 of “racketeering,” alongside co-defendant Abdelhaleem Ashqar. Earlier attempts to charge him with “material support” for terrorism had failed.
Salah was convicted of one charge of obstruction and sentenced to twenty-one months in prison, a sentence he served. When released, once again he lived under “internal banishment.” He could not get a job, participate in political activities, donate to charity, or even buy a book or newspaper. in 2012, he filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of the Treasury. “In response to the lawsuit, and without attempting to defend its designation of Mr. Salah, the Department of Treasury unilaterally removed Mr. Salah from the Special Designated Terror list. After 17 years of oppressive restrictions on his ability to undertake basic life activities, Mr. Salah and his family are freed from the burdens placed upon him by the U.S. Government. The decision represents a total victory for Mr. Salah,” noted the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Muhammad Salah struggled throughout his life: for justice, freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people, in Palestine, in the United States, and everywhere in exile and diaspora. He confronted the same oppressive forces that today threaten and persecute Rasmea Odeh and imprison the Holy Land Five – and the same oppressive forces who brought the full force of the U.S. repressive machinery to bear against the Black Liberation Movement, against the American Indian Movement, against Puerto Rican independentistas. He was faced with the full force of the U.S./Israel imperialist-Zionist nexus of power and all forms of state repression: imprisonment, “internal banishment,” terror designation, torture – and continued to struggle and to seek freedom.
We mourn the loss of Muhammad Salah, a victim and survivor of injustice who continued to fight for justice and confront oppression throughout his life, and extend our deepest condolences to his family, loved ones, and community – and we pledge to carry on the struggle, to seek freedom and justice for all political prisoners in U.S. prisons – from Mumia Abu-Jamal, Oscar Lopez Rivera and Leonard Peltier to Abdelhaleem Ashqar, Rasmea Odeh, and the Holy Land Five – Israeli prisons, and international prisons; to confront the so-called “anti-terror” law that terrorize oppressed communities and target liberation movements; and to struggle for justice and liberation for Palestine and the Palestinian people.
Saturday, 4 June 11:00 am – 7:00 pm Maison des Associations Internationales Rue Washington 40 1050 Brussels
RSVP: asrafalastin@web.de
The following event is organized by the European Alliance in Defence of Palestinian Detainees:
About 7000 Palestinian prisoners are detained in Israeli jails right now. The Israeli Government refuses to recognize them as political prisoners and treats them as criminals.
In January 650 Palestinians were being held in administrative detention—three of them are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
People are being locked up, sometimes over years—without being charged or brought to trial. International minimum standards such as the right to be visited by family and relatives are being ignored, independent reviews of remand in custody do not take place.
Administrative detention is utilized by Israeli authorities systematically, and against international laws (Geneva Conventions); it is used as a collective punishment for the population. Torture and mistreatment are prevalent in Israeli prisons and even children are not spared: in January, there were 450 children in Israeli prisons!
The imprisonment of people without any reason and without granting them even the most minimal rights has to stop! We want to discuss possible steps to intensify our solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners.
Our aim is to establish a parliamentary working group for the defence of the Palestinian Prisoners.
We invite you to join our annual conference:
On Saturday, June 4, 2016 (11 p.m. – 7 p.m.)
Brussels (Maison des Associations Internationales Rue Washington 40, 1050 Bruxelles)
General Coordinator, Dr. Khaled Hamad, asrafalastin@web.de
Organized by Inminds Palestinian Prisoners Campaign: www.inminds.com
Please join us outside the Free Word Centre in Farringdon, the headquarters of English PEN – the founding centre of PEN International – “the worldwide writers’ association which promotes the freedom to write and the freedom to read”, as we respectfully ask them to distance themselves from its sister organisation American PEN which, in breach of the Palestinian call for a cultural boycott of Israel, has partnered with the Israeli Embassy and taken apartheid money for a literary festival which begins on the 25th April 2016. Oppressed writers rights are not served by partnerships with the oppressor. American PEN list the Embassy of Israel among the “Champions” of the World Voices Festival. This at a time when Israel is targeting Palestinian poets, journalists and bloggers.
We will urge English PEN, in accordance with its remit to “uphold writers freedoms around the world”, to champion Palestinian poets, journalists and bloggers who are currently being targeted by the illegal Israeli occupation forces.
In particular we will raise the case Palestinian poet Dareen Tatour who was arrested last October and has been caged for 3 months at Israel’s infamous rat infested HaSharon prison for her poem “Resist, my people, resist them”. Currently she is under draconian house arrest in an apartment in Tel Aviv with banning orders from connecting to the internet and communicating with certain people. She has guards and an electronic tagging device attached to her ankle. She is not permitted to return her home in Reineh.
Her poem draws attention to the violent attacks on her people by the occupation, including the arson attack that killed the 18-month-old baby Ali Dawabsha and his parents in Duma, a village in the occupied West Bank, last year; the killing of 18-year-old Hadil Hashlamoun by Israeli soldiers in Hebron, also last year; and the kidnapping and murder of 16-year-old Muhammad Abu Khudair in Jerusalem during 2014. Tatour says “It is ironic, but not surprising, that I was sent to jail for protesting the killing of my people whereas actual Israeli killers roam free”.
Recently over 150 bloggers have been arrested for their facebook posts which the illegal Israeli occupation forces have found objectionable. Also around 20 Palestinian journalists are currently imprisoned for their journalism. These include 25 years old Samah Dweik who was abducted in the night from her home on 10th April 2016 when Israeli occupation forces broke into her family home in Ras al-Amoud in eastern Occupied Jerusalem. The occupation objected to a facebook post.
Another case we will raise is that of Palestinian Journalists Syndicate leader Omar Nazzal who was arrested yesterday (23rd April 2016) by the occupation forces whilst on his way to an international meeting of the European Federation of Journalists taking place in Sarajevo on 25th April – the same day PEN’s World Voices Festival starts where Israel is honoured as a “Champion”.
We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can’t join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.
The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.
Dozens of Palestinian journalists protested on Sunday for the release of Omar Nazzal, Palestinian journalist and member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, arrested by Israeli occupation forces on Saturday, 23 March as he traveled to the General Meeting of the European Federation of Journalists.
The EFJ meeting in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is being attended by a delegation of the PJS, which was to include Nazzal as well as PJS chair Nasser Abu Baker. Nazzal and his colleagues were questioned for over four hours at the Al-Karameh crossing between occupied Palestine and Jordan before he was seized by occupation forces and taken to the Etzion interrogation center.
The EFJ issued a statement about the arrest of Nazzal. “The EFJ strongly call on Israeli authorities to release immediately Omar Nazzal,” said the EFJ President, Mogens Blicher Bjerregård. “We also express our solidarity to Palestinian journalists who will gather in Ramallah on Sunday at the International Committee of the Red Cross to demand the release of Omar Nazzal.”
The EFJ and the PJS are affiliates of the International Federation of Journalists, whose president, Jim Boumelha said, “It was shocking to hear that a participant to a congress for journalists from all over Europe has been arrested by the Israeli authorities on his way to attend and banged in Etzion prison without any reason being given…The 100 delegates representing over 320,000 journalists in 51 unions from all over Europe will be demanding that their colleague is released forthwith.”
Mahmoud Hassan, Palestinian lawyer with Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, submitted an urgent appeal for Nazzal’s release. “Prosecutors and police were given until 9:00 am tomorrow to respond to the request,” said Addameer; there will be a hearing on Monday morning at Ofer Military Court. Earlier, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society reported that the Israeli military sought to extend Nazzal’s detention until 27 April.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Studies Center, and the Palestinian Ministry of Information joined various Palestinian political parties and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate in denouncing Nazzal’s arrest.
Palestinian journalist Omar Nazzal, member of the General Secretariat of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate in the West Bank, was arrested by Israeli occupation forces on the al-Karameh crossing between occupied Palestine and Jordan on Saturday, 23 April and taken to the Etzion interrogation center.
Nazzal, a prominent journalist and syndicate leader who is widely quoted on issues relating to the repression of journalists, was on his way to Sarajevo for the General Meeting of the European Federation of Journalists, taking place on 25-26 April.
The EFJ and the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate are members of the International Federation of Journalists, a global organization defending journalists’ rights against repression. The IFJ has spoken out before regarding the repression of Palestinian journalists, including urging the freedom of detained hunger-striking journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq and condemning the Israeli occupation’s closure of Palestine Today TV.
Nasser Abu Baker, the president of the Journalists’ Syndicate, who is also participating in the EFJ meeting, spoke with reporters about Nazzal’s arrest. The PJS issued a press release, calling on international journalists’ organizations, including the EFJ and IFJ, to denounce the arrest of Nazzal and pressure the Israeli state to release him. Nazzal’s arrest “clearly reveals the level of targeting and persecution of journalists and their union by the occupation and its forces,” said the PJS. Palestinian journalists will gather in Ramallah on Sunday, 24 April at 11 am at the International Committee of the Red Cross to demand the release of Nazzal and an end to the persecution of journalists.
Quds News journalist Samah Dweik, 25, was arrested on 10 April in an early-morning armed military raid on her home. A decision to grant her bail was overturned on 21 April, and she is imprisoned until the end of proceedings on allegations of “incitement” based on Facebook posts.
Writing in +972Mag, Noam Roten notes that “Ahmad al-Bitawi, a Palestinian journalist, was convicted in an Israeli military court of incitement that was, allegedly part of his journalistic work. Other journalists, among them Mahmoud al-Qawasme and Mohhamad Qaddumi, are both imprisoned in Israeli jails awaiting trial for the same charge. These tactics are only used against Palestinians journalists, never against Jewish journalists, some of whom publish similar incendiary materials, like for example Amnon Lord, who published a front-page article for the Jewish religious newspaper Makor Rishon a few weeks ago that included the statement, “killing a terrorist without grounds of immediate self defense is a natural situation during war.”
During the month of February, a long list of Palestinian journalists from both Jerusalem and the West Bank were interrogated, among them “Good Morning Jerusalem” producer Nader Bebars, Pal Media in Jerusalem’s bureau chief Ishaq Kasbe, WAFA photographer Ayman Nubani, and many other journalists, photographers and media technicians.”
There are approximately 20 Palestinian journalists imprisoned today, and dozens have been arrested since October 2015. In the same time period, nearly 150 Palestinians have been arrested for Facebook posts.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Omar Nazzal and all detained Palestinian journalists. The arrest of Nazzal serves several purposes for the Israeli occupation: disrupting the work of the Journalists Syndicate; silencing the voice of a respected Palestinian journalist; intimidating Palestinian journalists living and reporting under occupation that even prominent journalistic figures are not protected; and preventing Nazzal from connecting with his fellow international journalists on the situation faced by Palestinian journalists today. We urge the broadest campaign of pressure to demand the release of Nazzal, all imprisoned journalists, and all Palestinian prisoners. We especially call on journalists’ organizations and press freedom organizations around the world to join in this campaign.
Palestinian prisoner Sami Janazrah has now been on hunger strike for 52 days to demand his freedom from Israeli jails, where he is held under administrative detention without charge or trial. On Thursday, 21 April – his 50th day of hunger strike – he lost consciousness and suffered a head injury as he was transferred from isolation in the Naqab desert prison to isolation in Ela prison.
Despite refusing food and consuming only water since 3 March, he was held for 51 days in solitary confinement in an attempt to pressure him to end his hunger strike. He was finally transferred to hospital on Friday night, 22 April, after further deterioration of his health. A Palestinian refugee from Al-Fuwwar refugee camp near al-Khalil, Janazra, 43, is married with three children and has spent nearly nine years in Israeli prisons in the past. He is reportedly suffering from low blood pressure, seizures and fainting spells, and his weight has dropped to 52 kg.
Fellow Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention without charge or trial, Fouad Assi and Adib Mafarjah, have now been on hunger strike for 20 days, also demanding their freedom and an end to the practice of administrative detention. Approximately 700 Palestinians – out of 7,000 total Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails – are being held on the basis of “secret evidence” in administrative detention. Administrative detention orders are issued for up to six months at a time and can be indefinitely renewed; some Palestinian prisoners have spent years in administrative detention without charge or trial.
Both Assi and Mafarjah are also held in isolation in Ela prison. Assi’s cell is inspected every two hours; all of his electrical appliances have been confiscated. He is the twin brother of Mohammed Assi, who was killed by the Israeli occupation military on 22 October 2013. Assi has been held without charge or trial since 9 August 2015. Mafarjah is also held in solitary confinement, with all of his appliances and clothing confiscated following his strike. He has been imprisoned without charge or trial since 10 December 2014.
Abdel-Razzaq Farraj, Palestinian civil society leader with the Union of Agricultural Work Committees, land defender, and former administrative detainee, wrote that:
“As soon as the first six months pass by, you realize that this is only the beginning. The snow boll rolls over and over, and gets bigger. Despite that, the dream of freedom keeps renewing itself, and you hope for freedom with the end of the new administrative detention period. You start telling yourself; perhaps they no longer think I am a danger to their safety and the safety of their public. ”They have released many prisoners – I might be as lucky as them!”
Your eyes never leave the prison’s door. You look and wait. Every passing paper can be your detention renewal order.
As soon as your virtual release date nears, you family begins to continuously ask, “Anything knew?” You answer, not yet, but don’t be too hopeful. “A renewed detention order is always a possibility.” Your hopes and those of your families rise as days pass by. But a stroke of a pen by the military commander is enough to renew your detention for yet another undefined period.
How do you tell your family that you won’t be with them? How do you tell your children that their hope for a release must be delayed for undefined months to come?”
Two more Palestinian prisoners – Mahmoud Suwayta and Shukri Khawaja – ended their hunger strikes on Thursday. Suwayta refused food for 10 days in protest of denial of family visits; he ended his strike after his son, Mutassim, was allowed to visit him on Thursday, 21 April. Khawaja also ended his 12-day strike on Thursday in protest of his solitary confinement after an agreement that would see his isolation ended in the next 3-5 months and his transfer to Hadarim prison. He will receive a family visit in one and 1/2 months and will not be denied access to the canteen (prison store), as he had been. His strike had been supported by various protest strikes of 106 fellow Palestinian prisoners.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges people of conscience around the world, Palestine solidarity organizations and supporters of justice to take action in support of these Palestinian prisoners on the front lines in the struggle against occupation and apartheid. Samidoun will be holding a protest in New York on Friday, 29 April at 4:00 pm outside G4S offices at 19 W. 44th St in Manhattan for their freedom. We urge people around the world to join us in protest, action, and raising our voices to demand freedom for Sami Janazrah, Fouad Assi, Adib Mafarjah and all Palestinian prisoners!
Take Action
1. Protest at the Israeli consulate or embassy, public square, or G4S office in your area. Bring posters and flyers about administrative detention and Palestinian hunger strikers and hold a protest, or join a protest with this important information. Hold a community event or discussion, or include this issue in your next event about Palestine and social justice. Please email us at samidoun@samidoun.net to inform us of your action – we will publicize and share news with the prisoners.
2. Contact political officials in your country – members of Parliament or Congress, or the Ministry/Department of Foreign Affairs or State – and demand that they cut aid and relations with Israel on the basis of its apartheid practices, its practice of colonialism, and its numerous violations of Palestinian rights including the systematic practice of administrative detention. Demand they pressure Israel to free the hunger strikers and end administrative detention.
