International Women’s Day: Imprisoned Palestinian Women and Girls Struggle for Freedom

8 March 2016

“On this day, we affirm that we are Palestinian prisoners of struggle, and part of the Palestinian women’s movement, and that the national and social struggle goes on constantly and continuously until we win our freedom from occupation, and our freedom as women from all forms of injustice, oppression, violence and discrimination against women….We stand as part of a global struggle with all the world’s women freedom fighters: against injustice, exploitation and oppression.” – Khalida Jarrar

Palestinian women have always been a part of the struggle for national liberation: in the streets and fields of Palestine, in the home, the school, the university; in all forms of struggle, from the cultivation of Palestinian agriculture and the education of Palestinian children, to engagement in political leadership and all forms of struggle and resistance.

Accordingly, they have faced political imprisonment, torture and repression. Since 1967, over 15,000 Palestinian women have been arrested and imprisoned in Israeli jails; since 2000, 1,400 Palestinian women have been arrested and imprisoned. 3,000 women were imprisoned during the Palestinian intifada of 1987-1992.

Currently, there are approximately 60 Palestinian women held in Israeli jails. 118 Palestinian women have been detained since October 2015 and the rise of the Palestinian popular uprising. 10 Palestinian girls under 18 are imprisoned, and 3 of the Palestinian women imprisoned are held under administrative detention without charge or trial. The imprisonment of Palestinian women has risen dramatically alongside the mass incarceration of Palestinian men. Addameer notes that the current imprisonment of Palestinian women marks a 70% increase over 2013, and a 60% increase over 2014.

[quote_box_center]DIMA AL-WAWI: Dima Al-Wawi is 12 years old, the youngest Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails, sentenced to 4.5 months in prison and an 8,000 NIS fine for simply carrying a knife near the settlement of Karmei Tzur, near her school. She had never interacted with the Israeli occupation forces before and was deeply upset by the ongoing imprisonment of Mohammed al-Qeeq, the hunger-striking Palestinian journalist. Telesur reports, “The girl’s plea bargain during the trial was transcribed…’I am in the seventh grade. I go to Shahada School. I understand that my defense counsel reached an agreement according to which I will have to serve a prison term of four and a half months. I understand that my parents will pay a fine of 8,000 shekels. In my school we learn arithmetic, English, Arabic and religious studies.’… Dima’s father lost his job as a construction worker in Israel after the event, but they will still have to pay the US$2,000 fine. “[/quote_box_center]

Indeed, as International Women’s Day dawns in 2016, Palestinian grassroots activist Manal Tamimi, well-known for her leadership in the popular protests in Nabi Saleh against settlement expansion and confiscation of Palestinian land from the small agricultural village outside Ramallah, who has represented the Palestinian struggle around the world, was seized by Israeli occupation soldiers in a violent 1:00 am raid on her home in the village, thrown into a military jeep and taken to an unknown location. On 7 March, Palestinian advocate Shireen Issawi was sentenced to four years in Israeli prisons by a military court for her role in supporting Palestinian political prisoners. Palestinian parliamentarian and feminist leader, Khalida Jarrar, is serving a 15-month sentence for her own advocacy for freedom for Palestinian prisoners and for Palestine. They are among 60 more Palestinian women imprisoned for their role in struggling for the freedom of their people

[quote_box_center]SHIREEN ISSAWI: Palestinian lawyer and advocate Shireen Issawi became known to the world as the spokesperson for her brother, Samer Issawi, during the over 200-day hunger strike that led to his freedom. (Samer is now re-imprisoned again by the Israeli occupation.) She and her brother Medhat ran a Palestinian legal services office that connected Palestinian prisoners to Israeli lawyers and to their family members, often denied visits. The recipient of support from international human rights organizations and the winner of the Alkarama award for human rights, Issawi was sentenced on 7 March to 4 years imprisonment for her work with Palestinian prisoners.[/quote_box_center]

The rise in “house arrest” orders in Jerusalem have led to a new form of Palestinian prisoner: Palestinian women imprisoned with their sons inside their homes in Jerusalem. In a particularly dangerous precedent not only for children but for Palestinian women, an order of house arrest was made against the child Milad Musa Salah-al-Din, 16, of Hizma in Jerusalem, on the condition that his mother be imprisoned with him for two months. Both are threatened with a 20,000 NIS fine if either of them leaves the home. This comes after he was imprisoned for 25 days, accused of throwing stones, and his family paid a fine of 10,000 NIS. His mother is prohibited from teaching at her job as a school teacher.

Most Palestinian women prisoners are held in two prisons, HaSharon and Damon. Like Palestinian men, Palestinian women are arrested in multiple venues: on the streets, at Israeli checkpoints, when going to pray at Al-Aqsa mosque, and in late-night raids on their homes. Several Palestinian women have been arrested when visiting their imprisoned sons or other relatives. They are taken to detention and interrogation centers where they can spend weeks or months under interrogation without charge, trial, or access to a lawyer. Palestinian women have reported the use of stress positions, sexual harassment and threats of sexual assault, sleep deprivation and other forms of cruel, arbitrary strip searching, inhuman and degrading treatment amounting to torture under interrogation. As Palestinian writer Reham Alhelsi notes, “Palestinian female prisoners are subjected to various forms of psychological torture; including verbal harassment, insulting religious and national beliefs of the prisoners, uttering obscenities in front of them during the investigation, threats of sexual assault and rape to force Palestinian women to surrender and submit confessions. Additionally, Palestinian female political prisoners, like their male comrades, are held under inhumane conditions in cells that are overcrowded, dirty, humid, cold in winter and hot in summer, and lack ventilation and the basic needs for living. They also suffer from various punishments, ranging from malnutrition, medical negligence, to denial of family visits and isolation.”

[quote_box_center]KHALIDA JARRAR: Palestinian parliamentarian, advocate for Palestinian prisoners, leftist and feminist, Jarrar faced down an attempt to forcibly displace her from her home in Ramallah to Jericho by an Israeli military order. Her month-long sit-in at the Palestinian Legislative Council office won international support and attention for the struggle of the former executive director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association. Several months after defeating the displacement attempt, she was arrested in a violent dawn raid by Israeli occupation forces, who invaded her home. She was originally ordered to administrative detention; following an international outcry, she was then charged in the military courts with 12 charges relating to public speaking, advocacy and media interviews, especially in support of Palestinian prisoners. She is now serving a 15-month sentence in HaSharon prison.[/quote_box_center]

Palestinian women prisoners are also subject to denial of medical care, especially for those injured by Israeli occupation soldiers. Most of the minor girls imprisoned in HaSharon were injured or shot, and were transferred to prison before the completion of their recovery. They are regularly transferred back to hospital due to the ongoing complications of their injuries, yet are regularly exposed to threats of infection or further injury in prison. Shorouq Dwayyat, who was shot by an Israeli settler after she resisted his harassment in Jerusalem, was denied medical care after being shot, and was transferred to HaSharon prison while relying on a wheelchair, the use of which was regularly denied. Israa Djaabis, suffering from second and third degree burns, and Abla al-Aedam, shot in the head by soldiers, were both moved to HaSharon prison despite their ongoing and serious injuries requiring regular assistance by their fellow prisoners.

[quote_box_center]LENA JARBOUNI: The longest-serving Palestinian woman prisoner, Jarbouni, from Akka, is a Palestinian citizen of Israel who worked in sewing workshops and was arrested in 2002. She is ill and suffers from a number of diseases. Lina is the spokesperson and representative of women prisoners in HaSharon; sentenced to 17 years, she has three years remaining in her sentence. She received this lengthy sentence for “aiding the enemy” – Palestinian resistance. She was denied essential medical treatment until her fellow women prisoners launched a strike for her treatment. She teaches her fellow women prisoners Hebrew and has played a critical role in advocating for the educational rights of imprisoned Palestinian girls.[/quote_box_center]

For Palestinian girls, imprisonment also threatens their education. WOFPP reported that “the prisoners’ spokesperson in Hasharon, Lena Jarbouni demanded that the prison authorities provide regular schooling for all minor prisoners. Most of them are school students and some are in their final year and have to prepare for their Tawjihi (final) exams. Recently, the prison authorities responded positively and agreed to provide a special prison-appointed teacher, following which twice-weekly day studies have begun.” Palestinian women within the prisons have both struggled for girls’ right to education and provided direct support despite all attempts to deny or undermine education for girls. Khalida Jarrar and Mona Qa’adan supervised the 2015 Tawjihi exams within the prisons, ensuring that several girls could receive their graduation certificates.

The denial of education also impacts university students. For example, the graduation of Asmaa Qadah – the secretary of Bir Zeit University’s student union – has been postponed due to her being held in administrative detention for three months.

[quote_box_center]ASMAA QADAH: Asmaa Qadah, 21, is a student at Bir Zeit University, who was arrested in December 2015 as she crossed Zaatara checkpoint heading toward the university from her home in Nablus. The secretary of Bir Zeit’s student union, Asmaa is affiliated with the Islamic Bloc, one of the student blocs that participates in the union. She was ordered to three months in administrative detention without charge or trial on the basis of so-called secret evidence. She was interrogated for only one hour, and the Israeli state’s public expressions against her related entirely to her participation in student elections at Bir Zeit University. An English language major, Asmaa was scheduled to graduate in 2016 with high honors. Due to her detention, her graduation has been postponed. She has been denied family visits. One day after her arrest, her father was also imprisoned and accused of affiliation with a “prohibited organization.” All major Palestinian political parties are prohibited by the Israeli military occupation by military order.[/quote_box_center]

Palestinian women outside Palestine are also subject to political imprisonment and repression at the hands of the Israeli state and allied governments – the case of Rasmea Odeh is an instructive and iconic example. Odeh, 67, is a former Palestinian prisoner who served 10 years in Israeli prison after being subject to horrific torture, including rape and sexual assault. For the past four years she has faced imprisonment and deportation at the hands of the United States government, which has persecuted her for alleged immigration violations based on her experience as a Palestinian political prisoner in Israeli jails. Odeh, who in Chicago has led in the organizing of Palestinian and Arab women, has been the subject of a strong solidarity and defense campaign, and she and her legal team recently won an important victory in appeals court. However, her persecution is part and parcel of the same system that imprisons Palestinian women in Palestine in an attempt to undermine Palestinian organizing and struggle for freedom.

[quote_box_center]RASMEA ODEH: Rasmea, 67, was imprisoned from 1969 to 1979 in Israeli prisons, from the age of 22. A student, she was part of a politically active family; she was arrested and interrogated, subjected to horrific torture, rape and sexual assault. Her case has been known around the world since the 1970s, when the torture she suffered was exposed by a British newspaper and brought before the United Nations. After years of organizing in Chicago with the Arab American Action Network, as a leader in the Palestinian and Arab community in the city, she was once again faced with arrest, imprisonment and deportation, this time at the hands of the United States government, on the basis of alleged immigration violations. She has been consistently denied the right to speak about her experience as a survivor of torture in court, a fact that recently won her an important victory in appeals court. She has a strong solidarity campaign and continues to be involved in movements against police brutality, racism and oppression in Chicago and the United States, supporting Palestinian youth organizing.[/quote_box_center]

The transfer and transportation of Palestinian prisoners serves as another form of abuse for Palestinian women. Many Palestinian prisoners have written about the “Bosta,” the metal transport vehicle in which prisoners are shackled and transported for long hours. Leena Jawabreh, former Palestinian prisoner, wrote, “She is transferred in the ‘Bosta,’ the designated vehicle to transfer prisoners to the military courts. It is in fact a mobile cell with a metal chair. It can barely accommodate one person in a sitting position, and the windows are blacked out. The prisoner is chained by her hands and feet, and the shackles hurt her wrists every time she moves and leave marks on her body. The Bosta is used without any mercy from the occupation. She is subjected to all kinds of humiliation, verbal abuse, and mockery by the soldiers who transport her.”

WOFPP reports that Palestinian women held in Damon prison are subject to constant transfers by ‘Bosta’ whenever a hearing is scheduled in their cases before the military courts. They are first transferred to HaSharon and then to the military court, with the same procedure upon their return. At times, they are held at HaSharon for an entire weekend if their hearing takes place on a Thursday or Sunday, preventing them from any stability. “This means that they are deprived of any kind of routine, and this together with the difficult transportation conditions and the move from prison to prison lead many of the women to want to give up attending their own trials – something about which they do not always have a choice.”

[quote_box_center]MANAL TAMIMI: Internationally renowned for her leadership in the grassroots, popular struggle in the small agricultural village of Nabi Saleh, threatened by the expansion and land confiscation of the illegal Halamish settlement against their community. She is a leader in the weekly Friday protests that challenge the settlements and the military occupation, demanding freedom from land confiscation. Tamimi has spoken around the world about the struggle in Palestine and in Nabi Saleh; the image of her and her daughters defending her son from an Israeli soldier became famous around the world as a representation of Palestinian women’s resistance. At 1:00 am on International Women’s Day, 8 March, Tamimi’s home was invaded by armed occupation soldiers, who seized her and took her to an unknown destination.[/quote_box_center]

Palestinian women prisoners are also subject to solitary confinement and isolation, and denied family visits, including with their children, under “security” pretexts and as “punishment” for acts of protest and resistance inside the prison. Six Palestinian women were denied family visits for one month for raising the Palestinian flag in 2015 on “Israeli independence day.” The isolation and division of Palestinian families because of Israeli mass imprisonment is not only experienced by women inside the prisons, but by Palestinian women outside the prisons. 40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank will be imprisoned or detained by Israeli occupation forces at some point in their lives. Palestinian women are denied access to their fathers, sons and husbands, deprived of the income and family support and sustenance of male partners, and forced to act as single mothers because of the ongoing mass imprisonment of Palestinian men.

Palestinian women have also been leaders in resistance inside the prisons, participating in hunger strikes, raising the Palestinian flag, and continuing the education of imprisoned girls. At the same time, Palestinian women are foremost leaders of the movement to support and free the over 7,000 Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails outside the prisons as well. It is the mothers, wives and sisters of the prisoners that organize vigils, protests, strikes and demonstrations demanding the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners.

On International Women’s Day 2016, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Palestinian women inside the Israeli prisons, struggling for freedom for themselves, for Palestinian women and for the Palestinian people. Mass imprisonment is a fundamental weapon of settler colonialism, in this case of Zionism, as a method of attempting to suppress indigenous resistance and freedom struggle. From Khalida Jarrar, to Asmaa Qadah, to Shireen Issawi, to Lina Khattab, Palestinian women inside and outside prison are on the front lines of Palestinian resistance and Palestinian liberation.

In order to struggle for the release of all Palestinian women prisoners – and indeed, of all Palestinian prisoners – from Israeli jails, we urge:

International accountability for the Israeli state. The Israeli occupation’s arrest, torture and mistreatment of Palestinian women prisoners violate numerous international treaties and conventions, including the Fourth Geneva Convention, the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention against Torture, and the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women. The United Nations, United States and European Union must hold Israel accountable, including by ending all US aid to Israel, ending the EU/Israel Association Agreement, and ending Israeli participation in European-funded programs for research and development.
Escalating the boycott of G4S. G4S, a British-Danish security conglomerate, provides security systems, control rooms and equipments for the Israeli prisons, interrogation centers and checkpoints where Palestinian women prisoners are held, including HaSharon and Damon prisons. At HaSharon, G4S provides the main control room for the prison. Palestinian prisoners have urged the boycott of G4S and there is an international campaign to demand agencies – especially public bodies – stop doing business with this human rights abusing corporation. Just this past week, UNICEF in Jordan cancelled its contracts with G4S. Universities, public institutions and the UN all contract with G4S – those contracts must come to an end.
Building the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The international campaign for BDS is building the international isolation on the Israeli state due to its abuse and violations against the Palestinian people and Palestinian prisoners. This powerful popular initiative is critical to building international support for the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation – liberation of the prisoners and liberation of Palestine.
Escalating the popular movement in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners. Inside the prisons, Palestinian women and men are striking, organizing and struggling, leading the movement for the freedom of the Palestinian people. The Palestine solidarity movement outside prison must emphasize the stories of Palestinian prisoners, the struggle of Palestinian prisoners, and raise their cases in all international forums and events. The women’s movement globally has a significant role to play in building this popular movement with Palestinian women prisoners in particular, and supporting the Palestinian popular feminism that challenges and resists occupation, oppression, apartheid, imperialism and Zionism – the forces killing and imprisoning Palestinian women.

“We, women Palestinian prisoners, call on the people of the world to support our struggle, to demand our rights and our freedom. We demand to be treated as prisoners of war with our rights fully recognized under the Geneva Conventions. We know that we are prisoners of freedom, because we are committed to the freedom of our Palestinian land and people. The Palestinian, Arab and international voices calling for our rights and our freedom break through the darkness of the interrogation cells, the cruelty of soldiers and guards, and the injustice of the prison. We call upon you to make our case, the case of the Palestinian prisoners, an international imperative for justice and freedom.” – Leena Jawabreh

Resources:

Nahla Abdo, From Captive Revolution to Grand Gaza Prison: https://plutopress.wordpress.com/2014/08/21/from-captive-revolution-to-grand-gaza-prison/

(Also see Abdo’s book, Captive Revolution: https://www.plutobooks.com/display.asp?K=9780745334936&%3C/)

Reham Alhelsi, The Women of Palestine and the Struggle for Liberation: https://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com/2012/03/10/the-women-of-palestine-and-the-struggle-for-liberation/

Reham Alhelsi, Palestinian Female Political Prisoners and Detainees: Ongoing Resistance Behind Zionist Bars, https://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com/2015/12/28/palestinian-female-political-prisoners-and-detainees-ongoing-resistance-behind-zionist-bars/

Reham Alhelsi, Palestinian Female Political Prisoners and Detainees: Resistance and Steadfastness towards the Liberation of Palestine: https://avoicefrompalestine.wordpress.com/2015/11/30/palestinian-female-political-prisoners-and-detainees-resistance-and-steadfastness-towards-the-liberation-of-palestine/

Addameer, Occupied Lives: The Imprisonment of Palestinian Women and Girls: http://www.addameer.org/publications/occupied-lives-imprisonment-palestinian-women-and-girls

Leena Jawabreh, Facing imprisonment in Israeli Jails: A Palestinian Woman’s Testimony: https://samidoun.net/2013/09/facing-imprisonment-in-israeli-jails-a-palestinian-womans-testimony-by-leena-jawabreh/

International Women’s Day: Khalida Jarrar’s statement from HaSharon prison: https://samidoun.net/2016/03/international-womens-day-khalida-jarrars-statement-from-hasharon-prison/

Film, Women in Struggle, Dir: Buthaina Canaan Khoury, 2004: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0Va7-cNxf8

Film, Tell Your Tale, Little Bird, Dir: Arab Loutfi, 2007: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdkoxBjKM1Q

The Struggle of Palestinian Women (PLO, 1975): http://www.palestinianconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/PLO-PalestinianWomen.pdf

International Women’s Day and the General Union of Palestinian Women, PFLP Bulletin, April 1982: http://www.palestinianconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WomensDay-PFLPBulletin-April1982.pdf

Palestinian Women Develop Their Struggle through Democratic Revolutionary Resolutions, September 1974, PFLP Bulletin: http://www.palestinianconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WomensDay-PFLPBulletin-13-SepOct74.pdf

Women’s Struggle in Occupied Palestine, Democratic Palestine, May 1984: http://www.palestinianconference.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/WomensStruggle-DemocraticPal-Mar1984.pdf

International Women’s Day Palestinian Poster Collection: http://www.palestineposterproject.org/special-collection/international-womens-day

Institute for Palestine Studies – Special Focus on Palestinian Women: http://www.palestine-studies.org/resources/special-focus/palestinian-women-%E2%80%93-shared-struggle-diverse-experiences

Women’s Organization for Political Prisoners, February 2016: http://www.wofpp.org/english/home.html

Samidoun statement in solidarity with New York City Students for Justice in Palestine against repression

7 March 2016

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our solidarity with New York City Students for Justice in Palestine, coming under sustained attack from the Zionist movement as well as university administrations for their commitment to struggle for freedom, not only for Palestine and for the Palestinian people, but to liberate the university and struggle for the freedom of oppressed peoples and communities within the university and New York City.

NYC SJP has come under attack by the Zionist Organization of America, in a letter to City University of New York (CUNY) administration and in articles in the New York Post and elsewhere, demanding the silencing of SJP on CUNY’s 23 campuses. Claiming to represent the interests of Jewish students while in reality representing an organization whose very name reflects its deep commitment to racism, colonialism and the erasure of the Palestinian people and their existence, Morton Klein, ZOA president, stated that SJP “does not deserve a place” at CUNY.

The attack on NYC SJP is part of a concerted effort by the Zionist movement and the Israeli state on campuses across the United States and internationally in an attempt to silence the burgeoning movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s cause, the growth of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and support for Palestinian liberation as a central cause for justice and liberation, against racism and colonialism, internationally. This has come not only through attempts to ban or decertify SJP groups, impose excessive security fees and scrutiny on events, cancel rooms, or deny resolutions or student referenda on Palestine on campuses across the United States, Canada and elsewhere. We also see here the attempts to pass anti-BDS legislation in US state and federal legislatures, the prosecution of BDS activists by the French state, the “condemnation” of BDS organizing by the Canadian state, and the attempt of the British state to threaten local communities who boycott Israel and other human rights violators.

These attempts to stifle the political, expressive and associational rights of students organizing for justice in Palestine, and indeed the broader movement for liberation in Palestine, go hand in hand with repressive surveillance, political imprisonment, the “state of emergency,” and the national security state and “anti-terror” policing. The same New York Police Department (NYPD) infamous for its “stop-and-frisk” policies targeting Black and other oppressed communities, not to mention the killing of Eric Garner, Ramarley Graham, Akai Gurley, Amadou Diallo, Sean Bell and many other victims of police violence and oppression, engaged in a multi-year surveillance, spying and repression program targeting Muslim communities in New York City – including students at CUNY.

Undercover police joined CUNY SJP chapters as well as Muslim Student Association and Islamic Student Organization groups in attempts to spy on and entrap students, while engaging in a mass surveillance dragnet of Arab, Muslim and South Asian communities across the city. This surveillance and infiltration also included the targeting of grassroots Palestinian and solidarity organizations in the city like Al-Awda New York for undercover police infiltration and surveillance..

It is in this context that CUNY administrators have expressed their denunciation or concern about SJP activities in response to complaints and charges like that of the ZOA, conflating anti-Zionism, which is anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-imperialist and anti-oppressive, with anti-Semitism and conflating Jewish students with the racist Zionist movement, while allowing Muslim students to be targeted by the organized forces of the state infiltrating student organizations for surveillance and repression. Furthermore, it is Zionist organizations on campus that not only advocate in favor of a racist state, but as NYC SJP notes, “these organizations honor and invite advocates of the use of rape as a tool of war like Mordechai Kedar to campus, as Hunter Students for Israel, Hunter Hillel, the Zionist Organization of America, and United Jewish Appeal attempted to do.”

NYC SJP is an organization of youth that is committed not only to the liberation of Palestine but to the liberation of the university itself: “to liberate CUNY for the people, building a University which teaches the real history of the oppressed people of New York City and the world, in order to prepare students not to maintain the world as it is, but to overthrow it.” It refuses to view the struggle inside the university as one outside the context of social oppression, racism, and exploitation. Thus, it also views the struggle for the liberation of Palestine as one that is central to the struggle against all forms of racism and oppression, and critical to the struggle to defeat imperialism and gain liberation for the peoples of the world. It is no surprise, then, that the same forces that are based on racism, imperialism and oppression are seeking by any means to disrupt and undermine their organizing.

These ongoing attempts to silence Palestine activism – not only at CUNY, but at campuses across the U.S. and around the world – go hand in hand with U.S. and other state policies that seek to criminalize Palestinian resistance and organizing. The creation of lists of “Foreign Terrorist Organizations” by the U.S., Canada, U.K, European Union and others often proscribe most major Palestinian political parties and organizations – mirroring Israeli military orders outlawing Palestinian parties as “prohibited organizations” – and seeking to sever both the Palestinian diaspora and the solidarity movement from the Palestinian organizations leading the struggle for the freedom of the Palestinian people through the means of state repression and criminalization.

Students in Palestine are constantly subject to arrest, torture and imprisonment on the basis of their political activity. Student union offices are raided, and members arrested and imprisoned – often held under administrative detention without charge or trial – by the Israeli occupation due to their activity in student blocs and organizations. Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qeeq, who just ended a 94-day hunger strike for freedom, is the former president of Bir Zeit University’s student union; folkloric dancer Lina Khattab was imprisoned for 6 months for participating in a student protest to free Palestinian political prisoners; Asmaa Qadah, secretary of Bir Zeit’s student union, was arrested in January and sent to administrative detention without charge or trial. Their student unions, blocs and organizations – representing the whole spectrum of Palestinian politics – are frequently designated supporters of “prohibited organizations.”

Just as the military orders labeling “prohibited organizations” are used to imprison thousands of Palestinians, including political leaders and elected representatives, the so-called “terror lists” are used to criminalize Palestinian activism internationally. The case of the Holy Land Five, and before that, the case of Sami al-Arian, highlight the nefarious use of such laws in order to imprison Palestinian activists raising money for Palestinian charities and suppress independent Palestinian fundraising and support outside the structures of international donor funds and NGOs. Furthermore, the case of Rasmea Odeh – herself a former Palestinian political prisoner in Israeli jails, a survivor of torture, rape and sexual assault, now facing prosecution on immigration charges – emerged from a multi-year FBI infiltration and investigation of Palestinian and solidarity activists on the basis of suspicion of “material support” for Palestinian political parties and organizations. We also see the case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, imprisoned for 32 years in French prisons as a Lebanese Arab communist struggler for Palestine, and the targeting of Omar Nayef Zayed for extradition in Bulgaria, as part of an ongoing campaign of repression against the Palestinian liberation struggle.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network stands with New York City Students for Justice in Palestine, all the SJPs on CUNY campuses, and all who face repression, silencing, imprisonment, and attacks for their participation in the struggle for justice and liberation for Palestine.

International Women’s Day: Khalida Jarrar’s statement from HaSharon prison

7 March 2016

Khalida Jarrar, imprisoned Palestinian feminist, parliamentarian and political leader, issued a statement from HaSharon prison on the occasion of International Women’s Day, greeting all struggling women in the world. The message was delivered by Palestinian lawyer Hanan al-Khatib, who visited Jarrar in prison; she is serving a 15-month sentence and was arrested on 2 April 2015. The statement follows:

On this day, we affirm that we are Palestinian prisoners of struggle, and part of the Palestinian women’s movement, and that the national and social struggle goes on constantly and continuously until we win our freedom from occupation, and our freedom as women from all forms of injustice, oppression, violence and discrimination against women. On this day, Palestinian women mark this occasion in light of the crimes of the occupation against Palestinian women, children, elders and youth. This year, our call focuses on the freedom and self-determination of our people, and the freedom and self-determination of Palestinian women: achieving equality and liberation, and ending all forms of oppression and injustice committed against them. We stand as part of a global struggle with all the world’s women freedom fighters: against injustice, exploitation and oppression.

Shireen and Medhat Issawi sentenced by Israeli courts: Palestinian lawyers and legal workers targeted

7 March 2016

Palestinian lawyer and activist Shireen Issawi was sentenced to four years in Israeli prison on Monday, 7 March, and her brother Medhat Issawi to eight years in the same hearing in the Jerusalem central court. Their hearings had been repeatedly postponed; each has already been imprisoned for two years.

Shireen Issawi, a prominent Palestinian lawyer and activist in her own right, was internationally visible as the spokesperson for the campaign to support her brother, Samer Issawi, during his lengthy hunger strike in 2012 and 2013, which won his freedom; freed from prison in the 2011 Wafa al-Ahrar exchange with the Palestinian resistance, he was accused of leaving Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries and thus violating a term of his release. After winning his freedom in 2013, he was re-arrested in June 2014 along with dozens of ex-prisoners, and had his original 26-year prison sentence reimposed. The release of all of these re-imprisoned Palestinians is a major demand of Palestinian political forces.

Shireen, 34, and Medhat, 40, were accused of communicating with and providing funds to Palestinian prisoners that they represented through their legal practice, the Al-Quds Office for Legal and Commercial Affairs, which served as a liasion between families – often denied visits – and Palestinian prisoners, and Israeli lawyers and Palestinian prisoners; they transferred money to prisoners on behalf of their families. The Issawis are Jerusalemites – Palestinian residents of Jerusalem whose identity cards allow them to travel more freely throughout Palestine and visit Palestinian prisoners.

Because of Israeli laws that declare all Palestinian political parties to be “prohibited organizations,” and communication – even with family members – in these organizations to be “coordination with” or “support for” prohibited organizations, Shireen, Medhat, and fellow lawyers and legal workers were raided, spied on, and imprisoned, accused of carrying out such unremarkable, and inded, necessary activities for Palestinian prisoners as carrying them messages from family members prohibited from visiting them and depositing money in their “canteen” (prison store for the sale of goods to Palestinian detainees) accounts on their behalf. They were accused of support for “prohibited organizations” – the Palestinian political parties, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and others – of which their clients were members.

Shireen was arrested on 7 March 2014 and her brother Medhat one week later, on 13 March 2014; Medhat had previously served 20 years in Israeli prisons, while Shireen had been held under house arrest and had her law license stripped for a year – again, for supporting Palestinian prisoners. The Issawis were not the only Palestinian lawyers and legal workers so targeted – Amjad Safadi, 39, also a Jerusalemite Palestinian lawyer, was held for 50 days under interrogation in the Moskobiyeh detention center; five days after his release, he reportedly hanged himself inside his family’s Jerusalem home on 29 April 2014. He had been arrested on 6 March, alongside five other lawyers, with similar accusations to the Issawis. Shireen and Medhat have received international support – the Law Society of Britain and Wales called for their freedom, and the Alkarama Foundation presented Shireen with a human rights award.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network condemns the sentencing and imprisonment of Shireen and Medhat Issawi, and demands their immediate release, as well as an end to the persecution and targeting of Palestinian lawyers and legal workers for providing services necessary to Palestinian political prisoners and confronting the isolation of Palestinian prisoners.

Further, we note that the entire system of the criminalization of Palestinian politics and resistance as “prohibited organizations” under military orders is a key mechanism of Israeli occupation and apartheid in order to suppress, deny and repress Palestinian political life and struggle. We further note that this criminalization is often echoed internationally by so-called “terrorist organization” lists which function to support Israeli occupation, apartheid and colonialism by criminalizing and repressing Palestinian political organizing and struggle inside and outside Palestine.

We also demand the immediate release of Samer Issawi, Samer Mahroum and over 60 re-arrested Palestinian prisoners whose sentences were arbitrarily reimposed following their release in a prisoner exchange as a mechanism of pressure against the Palestinian resistance and the entire Palestinian people – and the freedom of all 7,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Palestinian prisoners launch hunger strikes for freedom, protest actions against sanctions

7 March 2016

Hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners are escalating a campaign of struggle against sanctions imposed on prisoners by the Israeli occupation prison administration. 1700 Palestinian prisoners have announced an escalating series of hunger strikes and other actions, even as several more Palestinian prisoners have begun hunger strikes against administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial.

On Sunday, 6 March, prisoners affiliated with Hamas and with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine returned their meals for one day in protest of denial of family visits, denial of access to the canteen (where prisoners purchase goods), and frequent isolation and solitary confinement. Hamas prisoners stated that they will continue this action next Tuesday and Thursday as well.

This comes as 54 prisoners at Etzion detention center have struck for four days to demand transfer from the prison, due to unacceptable living conditions, lack of medical care and bad food. Etzion is a detention center that usually holds Palestinian prisoners only immediately after arrest, for up to eight days. A number of the strikers have been held there for over 20 days; the detention center is comprised of 16 cells, each with a small permanently closed window, and a tiny collective yard.

In Eshel prison, there is a growing state of tension following a violent “inspection” of Section 11 on 3 March, where prisoners of the PFLP are held, during which Fadi Abu Huda, a Palestinian prisoner from Nablus, clashed with a guard over the denial of family visits. Abu Huda was beaten and then taken to an unknown destination, section 11 closed until next Sunday, and the prisoners’ belongings confiscated.

Mahmoud al-Fasfous, held under administrative detention without charge or trial since 29 October 2014, launched an open hunger strike on 20 February against his imprisonment following the renewal of his administrative detention. Asra Media reported that al-Fasfous expected to be released after his first administrative detention order, but it instead has been renewed five times over a year and a half on the pretext of a “secret file.” Following the announcement of his hunger strike, his brother Kayed was arrested in a late-night raid on his home in al-Khalil by occupation forces. Al-Fasfous, 26, suffers from jaw fractures caused by beatings by occupation forces, as well as chronic stomach problems.

In addition, Yazan Hanani of Beit Furik, Nablus, has been on hunger strike for nine days against his administrative detention without charge or trial; he has been imprisoned since 28 October 2015.

Dawoud Habboub, from al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah, launched a hunger strike on 1 March against his administrative detention without charge or trial.

Four additional Palestinian prisoners, Sami Janazrah, Nabil Khalil, Alaa Rayan and Karam Amr, joined the strike in protest of administrative detention without charge or trial on 6 March.

18 March, NYC: Protest to #FreeAbuSakha and all Palestinian political prisoners

7 March 2016

Friday, 18 March
4:00 pm
G4S Office – 19 W. 44th St
New York, NY
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1651979891732596/

Demand Israel free Mohammed Abu Sakha, a Palestinian circus instructor, three days before a military court hearing on his “administrative detention,” and that G4S end its complicity in Israel’s incarceration of 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners, including 670 held without charge or trial, and other crimes against Palestinians.

Abu Sakha, 23, was detained by Israeli occupation soldiers on 14 December as he travelled from his home in Jenin to The Palestinian Circus School School in Birzeit, where he teaches children with disabilities circus performance. He is held in Megiddo prison. He has trained at the circus school since 2007 and performed and trained children in circus acts since 2011.

On 31 December, the school announced, “We are outraged and very sad to inform you all that our friend and colleague Mohammed Abu Sakha was sentenced to six months in administrative detention. The order was issued on Tuesday 29th of December but can still be appealed with all your support!” http://www.palcircus.ps/en/content/freeabusakha-trainer-and-performer-palestinian-circus-school

Amnesty International has issued an “urgent action alert” calling for action and campaigns to release Abu Sakha: https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/MDE15/3214/2016/en

The Palestinian Performing Arts Network called on its “fellow artists and cultural organizations to raise awareness of Israel’s illegal policy of administrative detention and to pressure the Israeli government to immediately release Mohammed Abu Sakha”: http://www.ppan.ps/ppan-statement-abu-sakha–

Meanwhile, the Friends of the Palestinian Circus School and other international activists have been working to build cultural, artistic and grassroots solidarity to free Abu Sakha, which are often posted to the#FreeAbuSakha facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/freeabusakha

G4S, the world’s largest firm company and second-biggest private employer, equips Israeli prisons and detention centers where Palestinian political prisoners are held and tortured, as well as the occupation forces and infrastructure that routinely massacre Palestinians while holding millions under military rule.

Join us to answer a united appeal by Palestinian prisoners for escalated boycotts of G4S: https://samidoun.net/2015/08/stop-g4s-a-call-to-the-global-boycott-movement-from-palestinian-political-prisoners/

Demand G4S immediately end its contracts with Israeli prisons and detention centers, occupation and security forces and checkpoints, and that Israel release abu Sakha, other administrative detainees and all Palestinian political prisoners.

Support the Palestinian people, the Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian Resistance, and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

11 March, NYC: Palestine contingent to free Dr. Aafia Siddiqui

7 March 2016

Friday, 11 March
4:00 pm
Jacob Javits Federal Building
26 Federal Plaza, New York
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/943197855777302/

Join supporters of Palestine at a citywide mobilization to Free Dr. Aafia Siddiqui!, a Pakistani political prisoner held by the United States government since her abduction from Pakistan at the behest of US forces during their occupation of Afghanistan 13 years ago.

Political prisoner Aafia Siddiqui’s life is on the line. She has not had a prison visit with any family member or her lawyer in over a year. Aafia is a victim of the US torture program in Afghanistan and of continuing prison abuse in federal prison in Fort Worth, Texas.

Four demonstrations during March, Women’s History Month, are calling for an independent medical team, including Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui, a medical doctor who is Aafia’s sister, be permitted to visit her to evaluate her health. The demonstrations will also demand the repatriation of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui to her home in Pakistan.

On March 30, 2003, Dr. Siddiqui and her three young children (ages six, for, and six months) were targeted in Karachi, Pakistan, in a rendition operation ordered by the US government – based on faulty “intelligence.” From 2003-2008 Aafia, and her children, were separately trapped in a black hole of secret imprisonment at various overseas locations. In 2008 she was brought back to NYC, barely clinging to life, and charged with attempting to shoot her way out of captivity that same year. While no one was injured except her, and while the forensic and testimonial evidence pointed to her innocence, Dr. Siddiqui was found guilty in 2010 and given a sentence of 86 years.

During her trial, Aafia called out many times her innocence and that she had been tortured and horribly abused. She pleaded for an end to the violent strip searches that preceded every day in court. She was continuously ruled disruptive and out of order.

Aafia is now imprisoned at Carswell Federal Prison, on a military base in Fort Worth, Texas.

An enormous movement of mass support for Aafia’s repatriation to Pakistan has swept Pakistan. Aafia has become a symbol of the thousands of disappeared prisoners. Millions of Pakistanis and all political parties from left to right, religious to secular, have demanded her return to Pakistan.

Support Rallies will be held in:

Boston, Massachusetts – March 8th @ 4 PM MIT, 77 Massachusetts Ave, Boston MA
New York City – March 11th @ 4 PM Federal Building @ 320 Broadway
Washington, DC – March 19th @ 12 Noon U.S. Dept. of Justice @ 950 Penn Ave NW
Fort Worth, Texas – March 30th @ 6 PM FMC CARSWELL

Initial endorsers of NYC Free Aafia Demonstration – March 11, Aafia Movement, International Action Center, Islamic Leadership Council, Majlis Ashura NY, Lynne Stewart Defense Committee, Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood, National Coalition to Protest Civil Freedoms, New Abolitionist Movement, NY4Palestine, Pakistan USA Freedom Forum, Project Salam, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, South Asian Fund for Education, Scholarship and Training, United National Antiwar Coalition.

Palestinians in Austria and Germany honor Omar Nayef Zayed

6 March 2016

Palestinians living in Austria and Germany honored Omar Nayef Zayed, whose life was taken on 26 February inside the Palestinian embassy in Bulgaria. The former Palestinian prisoner, who had lived in Bulgaria for the past 22 years after escaping Israeli imprisonment in 1990, had taken refuge in the embassy after he was sought for extradition to the Israeli occupation by Bulgarian security agencies.

After 70 days in the embassy, his life was taken in the morning hours of 26 February. Palestinians inside and outside Palestine, as well as solidarity activists, are demanding justice and accountability for the killing of Omar Nayef Zayed, and holding memorials to remember his life and his commitment to the Palestinian struggle for freedom.

In Berlin, Germany, the Democratic Palestine Committees held a memorial meeting for Nayef Zayed on 28 February, followed by a protest outside the Bulgarian embassy denouncing Israeli assassinations and Bulgarian silence on 29 February.

Memorial:

Protest:

And in Vienna, Austria, Palestinians organized a memorial meeting on 5 March, remembering the life and struggle of Nayef Zayed and demanding justice for his death.

Photos:

18 March, Berlin: Day of Struggle to free all political prisoners

6 March 2016

Friday, 18 March
6:00 pm
S-Bahnhof Sonnenallee
Siegfried-Aufhaeuser-Platz
Berlin, Germany

Jugendwiderstand (Youth Resistance), a revolutionary, anti-imperialist youth organization, is organizing a protest to free all political prisoners in Berlin on 18 March. Full call in German and Turkish: http://jugendwiderstand.blogspot.be/2016/03/heraus-zum-18-marz-kampftag-fur-die.html

Join us for March 18 – Day of action for the liberation of all political prisoners! Resist and fight against the justice system of the bourgeoisie and the imperialist oppression!

Freedom for all political prisoners….

The internationally-operating Rote Hilfe (‘Red Help’) – until present the most meaningful and largest solidarity organisation for workers’ and peoples’ movements – was officially founded not for nothing by the Communist Internationale on March 18, 1923. It was the anniversary of the Paris Commune of 1871 – the first attempt of the working class to take over the power and carry it with the goal of reorganizing the society. France’s and Germany’s ruling classes united to drown in blood this struggle of the oppressed. 30,000 men and women, workers, fighters and revolutionaries were hanged, 363,000 appeared before court. To commemorate this massacre and honour the fallen, this day has been known up until now as the international day of action for the liberation of all political prisoners.

Even today it remains in the nature of things for the universal imperialist system of exploitation to produce copious amounts of hardship, poverty and war, calling forth the exploited and the oppressed to commit to a most decided resistance. To assure their continuous rule and profits, the bourgeois countries, their armed institutions and their justice system resort to various forms of political repression: intimidation, spying, news-baiting, monetary fines, tightened laws, bans, trials, imprisonment, isolation, counter-revolutionary violence, torture, planned disappearances, murder and terror are in the program of the so fully ‘democratic’ dictatorships of the bourgeoisie in the imperialist capitalist system.

… in Germany …

In doing so, the offensives of the state-run agencies of oppression mainly hurt the progressive, organized and militant sections of the workers’, youth and people’s movements. In the FRG, they are currently going ahead with article §129 (a & b) covering spying and terrorism against the democratic organisation for migrants, ATiK. 10 of its members are sitting in jail as of April 15, 2015 and are awaiting their show trials. They are being accused of having supported and being members of the TKP/ML, a Maoist party that is fighting in Turkey and Kurdistan against the fascist rule. The same faith also strikes prisoners of another party that is also fighting in Turkey, the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), an example among others is the woman revolutionary Gülaferit Ünsal, locked up in a jail in Berlin; moreover, several prisoners from the ranks of the Kurdish national movement, having been handed long prison sentences, fill up the jails of the German imperialists. But resistance is legitimate. Neither the people of Germany nor the people of Turkey are under whatsoever threat from these prisoners – their democratic and revolutionary struggle only affects the decaying rule of a corrupt system, the people’s enemy.

Since the wave of house searches in May 2013, proceedings have also been opened against activists from Berlin, Magdeburg and Stuttgart, whom the authorities are accusing of membership in the militant Revolutionäre Aktionszellen and the Revolutionäre Linken on threadbare grounds. Even militant antifascists such as the Bremen football ultra, Valentin, who is to this day in pre-trial confinement, are becoming targets for investigative authorities and are being used to set an example. The obvious goal is to intimidate and break the activists and to pre-emptively smash the organized resistance. Even football fans, graffitists and fare dodgers are experiencing strong repression and are filling up this state’s prisons. If these class brothers and class sisters start struggling for their democratic rights behind bars in the newly-founded prisoner’s union GG/BO, then both social and political prisoners, prisoners of class resistance, will become a particular worry for the ruling class.

Even if, in Germany, there are currently no large, acute class struggles, the most recent waves of repression must be seen as forms of “preventive counterrevolution”, as measures of struggle against the workers’ and the people’s movement, way before these will be able to organize themselves on a higher level.

… and internationally!

While the FRG imperialism provides assistance to Erdoğan’s fascist AKP dictatorship by going ahead with overall attacks against Turkish and Kurdish migrants and their organisations, the political repression in the semi-colonial Turkey/North Kurdistan has an even uglier face: against the background of a reactionary war against the Kurdish people, last year, the 10,000 political and war prisoners in the Turkish jails were joined by another thousand of communists, revolutionaries, patriots, pacifists, critical journalists, scientists, artists and democratic activists young and old alike. In the filthy dungeons of the Turkish regime, they are often to expect torture and mistreatment. That is the general answer to the unfurling people’s struggles in the country. And even here, aside from the terror against the masses, which covers a bright spectrum, there are attempts to combat the organized sections of the people, as for example the Federation of Democratic Rights (DHF).

In India, there are over 10,000 political prisoners from the democratic people’s or the national independence movements, and revolutionary prisoners that took part in the People’s War of the Communist Party of India (Maoist), who are now sitting in the jails of the Hindu fascists. Some comrades, such as Saibaba or Comrade Ajith, despite the quasi total handicap and old age are kept under the most dishonourable of terms. Apart from the hundreds of war prisoners and the jailed masses of the People’s War in the Philippines and in Peru, in these cases too, the revolutionary leaders of the communist parties are held prisoners, such as, as of last year on the Philippines: Comrades Benito and Wilma Tiamzon and Comrade Silva; as well as Chairman Gonzalo in Peru, as of 24 years ago.

In occupied Palestine, several thousand prisoners from the national resistance are sitting behind bars of the Zionist regime. Of course, the General Secretary of the PFLP, Ahmad Sa’adat belongs to the most famous ones. Furthermore, tightly connected with the struggle of the Palestinian people is Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the long-term prisoner of the French imperialists. Likewise, the examples from the Basque Country and Northern Ireland show that here as well, the fighters for independence and liberation must rot in the jail system. This also applies to the anti-imperialist-anarchist urban guerilla activists in Greece. Or even to Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier that are already being held hostage for several decades by American imperialism, while their health conditions are continuously worsening in the most dramatic fashion…

To the streets!

There are too many individual faiths and too many red, struggling hearts behind bars to count them all. Imperialism, hostile to humanity, takes its opponents seriously. Everywhere in the world he advances with might and main against the people’s resistance and especially against the communists and the revolutionaries. Too many to count are murdered or land into its prisons. This highlights imperialism’s fear of the revolution, and that the latter is not a mere phantasm, but rather has been for quite some time a material reality in many parts of the Third World.

The revolutionary war prisoners and the political prisoners are a part of our class’s worldwide struggle. They pursue the struggle even from behind the walls of the enemy according to their possibilities, although imperialism tries to break them with might and main. Our great respect and our complete support belong to them!

This is why on March 18, we want to carry to the streets our solidarity with all political prisoners of the universal people’s resistance movement and of the international working class!

Let’s strengthen our unity against bourgeois class justice and imperialism-propelled political repression. Let’s fight side by side face against the enemy’s attacks.

Resist and fight against bourgeois class justice and imperialist repression!

Solidarity means resistance – Freedom for all political prisoners!

Imprisoned Palestinian clown and teacher Abu Sakha to appeal administrative detention 21 March

6 March 2016

Mohammed Abu Sakha, imprisoned Palestinian circus performer and trainer, will appeal his administrative detention order on 21 March in an Israeli military court hearing on his imprisonment without charge or trial under secret evidence. Abu Sakha, 24, is a trainer and performer with the Palestinian Circus School who specializes in working with children with disabilities; he was arrested in December 2015 at a checkpoint by Israeli occupation soldiers as he traveled from his home in Jenin to the school in Bir Zeit.

There is an international campaign to free Abu Sakha; the Circus School he works with has partnerships with circuses and artists around the world. Amnesty International has called for his release in an urgent action; the European Union has expressed concern about his case. Protests in Toulouse, Brussels, Madrid, London, Heidelberg and elsewhere – often combined with creative performances – have called for his release, while circus and arts groups have petitioned on his behalf, among over 7,000 who have signed the online petition in support of Abu Sakha.

Abu Sakha had his first visit from his mother in prison last week, who issued the following statement following his visit (reported by the Palestinian Circus School):

Good evening to all! Yesterday I visited Mohammad for the very first time. I had mixed feelings between being proud and pained by the distance. At the same time I was very happy to share and feel with other parents whose children are held in prison for years. I experienced how parents get tired and insulted by the soldiers whose ages barely exceed 20 years old, shouting at older respectful people. Because we care about seeing our children, we force ourselves to put up with all the humiliation for the sake of a 40 minute visit that passes in a glimpse of an eye.. I told Mohammad about all the solidarity campaigns that you are all organizing, at first he was contemplated then he asked me to thank you all on his behalf. Mohammad told me he feels pained for all the children, only 12 and 13 years old, and the disabled people who are imprisoned. He says that they are the ones who deserve solidarity campaigns and manifestations. Human rights organizations should work for them. Even though he’s imprisoned, Mohammad still cares about fulfilling his mission to ease people, he turned the prison into a small circus, making shows and entertaining prisoners. He told me we force ourselves to believe that we are in a summer camp, not a prison so that days pass by quickly. I hope God grants them all freedom and he sends his greetings to all.

Take action – join the campaign:

1. Sign the online petition calling for Abu Sakha’s release:https://secure.avaaz.org/en/petition/Israeli_Defense_Forces_Free_circus_trainer_and_artist_Mohammed_Faisal_Abu_Sakha/

2. Take the action called for by Amnesty International:

Amnesty UK (English): https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/free-palestinian-circus-performer-held-israel
Amnesty Germany (German): http://www.amnesty.de/urgent-action/ua-012-2016/palaestinenser-ohne-anklage-haft
Amnesty Spain (Spanish): https://www.es.amnesty.org/actua/acciones/israel-artista-circo-palestino-ene16/

3. Organize a protest performance – or a simple leaflet distribution – in your community. Hand out the “Free Abu Sakha” leaflets and help support freedom for an imprisoned Palestinian artist. Share it withSamidounand the Free Abu Sakha facebook.

1...517518519...692 Page 518 of 692

Follow us on Instagram @samidounnetwork