It was an afternoon of creative protest in Brussels, Belgium, as the Friends of the Palestinian Circus School juggled in solidarity at Place de l’Albertine with imprisoned Palestinian circus teacher and performer Mohammed Abu Sakha on Saturday, 16 April.
Abu Sakha, 24, is a teacher with the Palestinian Circus School, where Palestinian children learn circus performance and activities. He has toured internationally performing and in circus exchanges with European circus groups. On 14 December 2015, he was arrested by Israeli occupation forces as he traveled from his home in Jenin to the Circus School in Bir Zeit. He was ordered to six months in administrative detention without charge or trial.
Abu Sakha’s case has won widespread support from international circus performers, musicians and artists, as well as NGOs like Amnesty International. In Brussels, performers with Circus Zonder Handen (Circus Without Walls) joined activists and artists from an array of groups in juggling and clowning for Abu Sakha’s freedom. Speakers from the Friends of the Palestinian Circus School and Mouvement PAC (Presence et Action Culturelles) spoke about Abu Sakha, the Palestinian Circus School and administrative detention while performers led demonstrations of juggling. Participants learned to juggle – and tossed balls into the air – calling out “Free Abu Sakha!”
The juggling event was Brussels’ first event of the weekend marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. On Sunday, 17 April at 12 noon at Place de la Monnaie, Samidoun will join Association Belgo-Palestinienne, the Palestinian Community of Belgium and Luxembourg, Palestina Solidariteit, ECCP, Intal, the European Alliance in Defence of Palestinian Detainees, Plate-forme Charleroi Palestine and more to stand in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. The event will include performances for children, a photographic exhibition, and speakers and presentations.
The following article is reproduced in full from Free Haifa, highlighting the case of Palestinian poet from occupied Palestine ’48, Dareen Tatour, facing imprisonment and persecution for poetry and public political writing. On 13 April, the Israeli court in Nazareth set the next hearing in Tatour’s case for 8 May, following lengthy discussion of her Arabic poetry, awkwardly translated into Hebrew. Arrested on 10 October 2015 and accused of “incitement” for posting on Facebook amid the rising Intifada and the shooting of Palestinian woman Israa Abed by Israeli police, Tatour has been confined in a Tel Aviv apartment under house arrest since 13 January after three months of imprisonment.
At 3:00am before dawn, on October 10, 2015, patrol cars from Nazareth police, escorted by a unit of Israel’s notorious “Border Guards”, surrounded a quite house in the nearby village of Al-Reineh. They broke in and waked up the terrified family. Their target was Dareen Tatour, 33, a Palestinian poet, photographer and activist. They didn’t have a search order, neither an arrest warrant, but they carried the astonished Dareen with them anyway.
Who is a martyr?
October 2015 saw a wave of mass struggle by the Palestinians, centered in Al-Quds as response to Israeli provocations in Al-Aqsa, but spreading throughout Gaza, the West Bank and the 48 occupied territories. But Dareen didn’t expect to be arrested. She didn’t take part in the demonstrations this time. She used to go to demonstrations before and as a photographer was targeted by the police. She was wounded in 2008, as settlers and police attacked the March of Return in Saffuriya. But why now?
Apparently the immediate reason for Dareen’s detention was a status that she published on Facebook. On October 9 a Palestinian woman from Nazareth, Israa Abed, a mother of 3 and a post-graduate student of genetic engineering, was shot by Israel soldiers in the central bus station in ‘Afula, on her way home from her studies. The films of her cold-blooded shooting by several Israel soldiers were published everywhere. The Arab public was shocked. According to the Israeli police Dareen posted Israa’s picture and wrote “I will be the next martyr”.
For the Israeli racist regime, media and public every Palestinian that is shot by the Israelis is immediately defined as “Mekhabel” – a special term invented in Hebrew to de-humanize Arab resistance fighters, not even describing them as regular “terrorists”. While every single Arab that looked at the film saw clearly that Israa didn’t attack anyone, and concluded that any Arab now can be shot for no reason, the Israeli media hysterically interpreted the same incident as a proof that any Arab can be “Mekhabel”. (Luckily Israa didn’t die from her wounds and Israel later dropped any “security” accusations against her.)
For the Israelis any Palestinian “martyr” (Shahid) is a suicide bomber. For the Palestinians not only freedom fighters but every innocent victim of the occupation is a Shahid. In this bloody period Dareen was identified as an enemy and can be regarded lucky to be arrested and not shoot at and actually becoming Shahida, like so many others.
The case against Dareen
Having Dareen in their custody, with her computer and smartphone, the best brains of the Israeli police in Nazareth worked hard to prove that she is a real security threat and stitch a file against her. On Monday, November 2, Dareen was indicted on charges of incitement to violence and supporting a terrorist organization. (I didn’t see the official indictment, but here are media reports about it in Arabic and Hebrew.)
The main clause of the indictment is based on a poem that she (or somebody else using her name – the case is still in the court) published in “youtube” under the title: “Qawem ya sha’abi, qawemhum” – “resist my people, resist them”. There is nothing illegal in this poem, not even according to Israel’s anti-democratic laws. But the poem is read against a background of Palestinian youth clashing with the occupation forces. The Israeli prosecution and media now relate to such iconic images as “Palestinians engaged in terrorist activity”!
Another main clause in the indictment relates to an item from the news, cited in a post on Dareen’s Facebook page, according to which “The Islamic Jihad movement calls for continuing the Intifada all over the (West) Bank…” The same post calls for “comprehensive intifada”. You can argue what this call for intifada means, but there is no support for Islamic Jihad there. The same report could appear, using exactly the same language, in an Israeli media… But Palestinians are always suspected of not really loving their oppressors.
Endless tireless persecution
The harshest part of Dareen’s saga started after the indictment. In some similar cases, only involving some mild posts on Facebook, the accused were transferred to house arrest as the trial went on.
The prosecution in Nazareth fought a trench war to extend Dareen’s detention as long as possible. They wouldn’t agree to house detention in her parent’s home and demanded that she will be deported far away from the district altogether. This doesn’t make any sense, as all the charges against Dareen related only to publications on the net, where geography is not relevant. But at this stage they already inflated the case against Dareen as their main crusade to guard “the security of the region”. And in Israeli courts the word “security” transforms almost any judge to an obedient stamp carrier at the service of the prosecution.
The prosecution went on to demand that Dareen will be held in a house that is isolated from the internet, under the supervision of volunteer guards that should be with her for 24 hours a day and pay a high penalty in case of any infringement. They objected to any specific proposal that met these harsh conditions and appealed to the district court over any decision of the low court that seemed a bit lenient toward Dareen.
As a result Dareen spent more than 3 months in different prisons, suffering harsh conditions and attending endless court hearings. Finally she was transferred (on January 14, 2016) to detention in a house that her brother rented especially in a remote suburb of Tel Aviv. She is not allowed to exit the small apartment at any time. An electronic device attached to her ankle is supervising her movements, in addition to the hapless “guards”.
The first hearing of the trial
On Wednesday, April 13, I went to Nazareth to attend the first hearing of Dareen’s trial. The small supporting crowd included some of Dareen’s relatives as well as Muhammad Barakeh, the head of the Arab High Follow-up Committee (the official united leadership of the 48 occupied Palestinians) and Knesset member Haneen Zoabi.
The prosecution started to rest their case by bringing the policemen that translated the “Qawem” poem to Hebrew. The scene was completely surrealistic. Poems, by their very nature, are contradictory to the concept of “proven beyond reasonable doubt” that stands at the heart of the criminal law. The (policeman) witness was struggling with the ambiguities of the poem’s words, supplying his intuitive interpretation to the phrases. We were torn between the urge to laugh loudly and bewilderment at the knowledge that the freedom of our dear Dareen depends on this nonsense.
The fact that the prosecution and the judge continued to discuss seriously the supposed incitement in the poem is only another demonstration of the way the Israeli oppressive apparatus is blinded by its own hatred and lies. But the lack of any semblance of justice and the zero value that they give to the basic Human Rights of the Palestinians is even more blatantly proved by their careless decision to use as translator a policeman with no special competence at translation. He testified breezily that his competence was based on studying literature at high school and his love for the Arab language. They are confident they can rob Dareen of her freedom according to an interpretation of her poem without even caring to bring a proper translator!
The case of Dareen Tatour is just another small example of Israeli oppression against the Palestinians. Till now I don’t know of any specific solidarity actions with her, nor inside Palestine, neither abroad. This is understandable, taking into account that Palestinians of all ages are shot and killed every day, there are thousands of Palestinian prisoners (many of them children) and many hundreds are held in prison for years without any trial.
Yet I think that the case of Dareen deserves special attention.
She is a woman and a poet. The main accusation against her is her poem. This is a good opportunity for poets and writers to make a stand against the occupation and its practice of criminalizing any Palestinian expression of the desire for freedom and dignity.
Also, Dareen’s lawyer, Abed Fahoum, raised in court the principled issue of discriminatory enforcement of the law against incitement. Israeli social and official media is boiling with calls to kill Arabs, some by prominent politicians and rabbis. The racist attitude of the prosecution, going exclusively against the freedom of expression of the Arab population while turning a blind eye to Zionist incitement, should be exposed. Pursuing this line of defense is a major interest of the Palestinian Arab public in general. Dareen and her lawyer will need all the help they can get during the next few weeks in the court and out of it to make this point heard.
Twitterstorm to mark April 17, Palestinian Detainees Day
April 17 of each year marks Palestinian Detainees Day which is celebrated across Palestine and the world. This year, more than 6000 Palestinians are in Israeli jails. The number of child detainees has more than doubled since October 2015. Palestinians Detainees , thus, deserve our support.
A group of social media activists will mark this anniversary by tweeting at #FreePalestineDetainees at 8 PM (Palestine time) , 10am PST. 1 pm EST, 5 pm GMT, on April 17. Please join us and tweet to make this hashtag a trend globally. This is the least we could do to our fellow Palestinians in Israeli jails.
New Yorkers protested on Friday, 15 April in the lead-up to Palestinian Prisoners’ Day outside the offices of British-Danish security corporation G4S, demanding it stop doing business in occupied Palestine, where it currently provides security systems, control rooms and equipment to Israeli prisons, checkpoints and police training centers.
G4S is the subject of an international boycott campaign due to its involvement in profiting from the oppression of Palestinians; in addition, G4S’ involvement in the imprisonment of children in the US and the UK, and in deportation and abuse of migrants in the US, UK and Australia, has led to divestment from G4S at several major US universities. G4S pledged to remove itself from “reputationally damaging” business in March 2016, including selling off its entire G4S Israel operation in the next one to two years.
However, Palestinian activists have emphasized the critical importance of continuing to pressure G4S as its products continue to repress Palestinians on a daily basis, and to ensure that it follows through on this commitment. The international boycott of G4S – and demand that institutions end their contracts with the corporation – continues.
Samidoun protests weekly in New York City outside G4S offices at 19 W. 44th Street in Manhattan, on Fridays at 4:00 pm. This week, the protest comes in preparation for a bigger action on Sunday, 17 April, marking Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. Participants at the demonstration included Laura Whitehorn, former U.S. political prisoner and lifelong anti-imperialist activist, asserting solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
Palestinian Prisoners’ Day has been commemorated since 1974 by Palestinians and friends of Palestine around the world, and will be marked with events around the world demanding freedom for all Palestinian prisoners.
On Sunday, 17 April, Samidoun will join CUNY Prison Divest and New York City Students for Justice in Palestine at 1:30 pm at Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn to mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and launch the second Prison Divestment National Week of Action. The protest will speak out against massive public investments and subsidies for private prison corporations that profit from mass incarceration from New York to Palestine, and demand boycott and divestment from G4S and other prison profiteers like Corrections Corporation of America and the GEO Group.
The Israeli occupation military renewed the administrative detention of Change and Reform Bloc Palestinian Legislative Council member and Hamas leader Hassan Yousef for an additional six months on Friday, 15 April.
Yousef, 60, was arrested by Israeli forces after they raided his home in Beitunia on 20 October 2015; the raid came only three months after his release from a year of imprisonment under administrative detention in Israeli jails. This is the fourth time Yousef has been held under administrative detention – imprisonment without charge or trial.
He is among nearly 700 Palestinians currently held under administrative detention. Yousef also announced that he was striking from taking his prescribed medicines and boycotting the prison infirmary in solidarity with isolated prisoner Shukri al-Khawaja, who has been on hunger strike since Sunday, 10 April.
Palestinian prisoners in Nafha prison are protesting against the sanctions imposed on them following a violent raid by Israeli occupation special forces on prison units, especially sections 14 and 13, on Wednesday, 13 April.
Prisoners in Nafha are refusing to exit their rooms for security checks conducted twice daily by the prison administration. These steps will continue and expand to other prisoners in the southern prisons (Nafha, Eshel, Naqab, Ramon). On 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, prisoners in these jails will reject meals and engage in a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with the prisoners in Nafha.
These protest steps are inclusive of Palestinian prisoners associated with all political parties and factions.
The sanctions imposed by the Nafha prison administration include: covering windows of rooms with tin, blocking the vision of prisoners and the entry of air; blocking the entrance corridor with large concrete slabs, leading to high heat and blocking the entry of air; increased inspections at night; limiting the movement of the elected prisoners’ representatives and prohibiting them from moving between departments; preventing prisoners from access to recreation; prohibiting the entry of clothing and blankets from family members into the prison.
British Members of Parliament from diverse political parties have signed on to a parliamentary motion calling on the Israeli occupation to release imprisoned Palestinian political leader and parliamentarian, Marwan Barghouthi, who has been jailed for the past 14 years, reported the campaign to Free Marwan Barghouthi and All Political Prisoners on Friday, 15 April.
The statement calls for his release so that he can “play a part in the process of reconciliation, unification and negotiation that will be needed before Palestine achieves its independence,” and cites the precedent of South Africa, where Nelson Mandela was released from prison so he could take part in negotiations for majority rule, and India, where Gandhi and Nehru were released by the British so they could take part in negotiations for independence.
The parliamentary motion was tabled by Tommy Sheppard of the Scottish National Party and its signatories include the Conservative chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Crispin Blunt, and the current Father of the House of Commons Sir Gerald Kaufman.
Barghouthi, a prominent Fateh leader, has spent a total of 20 years inside Israeli prisons and he has been for many years now in Cell 28 in Hadarim prison. He has regular visits from his wife Fadwa, but is allowed very little other contact with the outside world.
Eight winners of the Nobel peace prize have signed the “Robben Island declaration” calling for his release, including President Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the Argentinian Nobel laureate Adolfo Esquivel has nominated him for the Nobel peace prize this year.
Like other prominent imprisoned Palestinian political leaders such as Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Barghouthi refused to recognize the legitimacy of Israeli military courts. Despite Barghouthi’s insistence outside the military courts that his role in Fateh is political in nature, he was imprisoned for armed resistance actions taken by Fateh’s armed wing in the second Intifada.
At 3:30 pm, Press Conference with Qassam Barghouthi, former Palestinian prisoner and the son of imprisoned Palestinian Fateh leader Marwan Barghouthi, and Majed Bamya, Palestinian diplomat responsible for the question of prisoners. Also participating are the representatives of the French cities and towns participating in the French Mayors’ delegation to Palestine seeking to visit Marwan Barghouthi imprisoned in Israeli jails, from the cities of Gennevilliers, Stains, Limay, Avion, Allones, Valenton, Bezons and Bondy, as well as Patric Le Hyaric, Member of European Parliament.
Claude Léostic, coordinator of the French national campaign to free Marwan Barghouthi and Palestinian prisoners will also speak at the event.
In addition, there will be a public forum at 6:30 pm, in the Municipal Council room, on Palestinian political prisoners, with Salman al-Herfi, the Palestinian ambassador in France.
Délégation de visite à Marwan Barghouthi : conférence de presse du 18 avril 2016 à Gennevilliers
Lundi 18 avril 2016 à 15h30, 18ème étage à l’Hôtel de Ville 177 avenue Gabriel Péri
Cette conférence de presse se fera en présence de Qassam Barghouthi, ancien prisonnier et fils de Marwan Barghouthi, ainsi que Majed Bamya, diplomate palestinien en charge de la question des prisonniers. Des représentants des villes participant à la délégation seront également présents (Gennevilliers, Stains, Limay, Avion, Allonnes, Valenton, Bezons, Bondy) ainsi que Patrick Le Hyaric, député européen.
Claude Léostic, chargée de la campagne nationale pour la libération de Marwan Barghouthi et de tous les prisonniers palestiniens est également partie prenante de l’événement.
Par ailleurs, une initiative publique est prévue le même soir, à 18h30, dans la salle du Conseil municipal, sur le thème des prisonniers politiques palestiniens, en présence de son Excellence Salman Al Herfi, Ambassadeur de Palestine en France .
