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.

13 March, NYC: Day of Peace and Solidarity

6 March 2016

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is an endorser of the following action, organized by the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC):

Sunday, 13 March
2:00 pm
34th St and 6th Avenue
New York City
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/173700253011503/

None of the major candidate are speaking about U.S. wars. Keep endless wars an issue during this campaign.

Join us – Sunday March 13 for A Day of Peace and Solidarity.
Money for Jobs and People’s Needs, not War!
Rebuild Flint! Rebuild our Cities! End the wars!
Defend the Black Lives Matter movement!

Peace Poets, Raymond Nat Turner, Lynne Stewart, Ramsey Clark, Kathy Kelly, Ann Wright, Ray Laforest, Margaret Kimberley, Joe Lombardo and other speakers to be announced.

London protest outside Bulgarian embassy demands justice in death of Omar Nayef Zayed, former Palestinian prisoner

6 March 2016

Activists with Inminds protested outside the Bulgarian embassy in London on Friday, 4 March, demanding justice, accountability and transparency in the death of Omar Nayef Zayed, who was found killed one week before, on Friday, 26 February, at the Palestinian embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria. Nayef Zayed had taken refuge in the embassy as he was being pursued for extradition by Bulgarian police following a request for his extradition by the Israeli embassy in Bulgaria in December 2015.

Nayef Zayed escaped Israeli imprisonment in 1990, after a hospitalization following a 40-day hunger strike. He and two of his comrades, including his brother, were accused of killing an Israeli settler in occupied Jerusalem who was part of an extreme-right organization, and were sentenced to life imprisonment. His fellow prisoners were later freed in prisoner exchanges with the Palestinian resistance although one, Samer Mahroum, is now re-imprisoned alongside 60 other freed prisoners who are facing the reimposition of their original sentences.

Nayef Zayed lived in Bulgaria for 22 years, where he is married to a Bulgarian wife; they have three children.

The protesters demanded accountability and transparency from the Bulgarian government and a real investigation into Israeli assassination on Bulgarian territory.

The protest included large projections of Omar Nayef Zayed’s image and demands for justice in his case on the Bulgarian embassy building.

Inminds previously protested for justice for Nayef Zayed while he was in refuge in the Palestinian embassy, demanding full support from the Palestinian Authority for Omar’s case and demanding the Bulgarian government reject Israel’s extradition demands.

Photos via Inminds

Video:

#IsraeliApartheidWeek protest in New York City targets occupation contractor G4S

5 March 2016

Demonstrators in New York City marked the twelfth annual Israeli Apartheid Week by rallying outside a local office of G4S to protest the British-Danish security company’s services to Israel’s prisons and detention centers, military and security forces, walls and checkpoints, and other occupation infrastructure on Friday, 4 March. The demonstration was part of a series organized weekly by area members of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network to support Palestinian political prisoners.

G4S is subject to an international boycott campaign, including calls from Palestinian prisoners and hundreds of Palestinian and international organization, for its extensive relationship in providing the equipment of repression and imprisonment to the Israeli occupation. European organizations are demanding that the European Commission end its contracts with G4S, as the European Parliament did years earlier, and activists in Canada are demanding that CATSA – the country’s transportation security agency – end its G4S contracts. Hundreds of organizations are demanding that the United Nations stop doing business with G4S – and UNICEF in Jordan just ended its contracts with the corporation.

Photos by Joe Catron.

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

Follow us on Instagram @samidounnetwork