In this new video, Samidoun Deutschland provides a visual overview of the ongoing work for Palestine in Germany, from postering in the streets, to banner actions, to mass demonstrations — and the attacks by police, particularly in Berlin, also home to likely the largest Palestinian community in Europe.
This video comes following the Berlin police’s banning of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day demonstrations after a Zionist smear campaign, and now the banning of two demonstrations to commemorate al-Nakba on 13 and 14 May.
Accompanying this international campaign, we formed a team of lawyers that will be undertaking the legal battle against the demonstration bans and the court cases for those who are targeted by the state for their struggle for a liberated Palestine. Support us and donate to:
Name: Rote Hilfe e.V.
IBAN: DE55 4306 0967 4007 2383 17 BIC: GENODEM1GLS
Note: Palaestina gegen Repression
On 15 May — the commemoration of 75 years of ongoing Nakba — CUNY administration at Hunter College announced that they were censoring an event by the Palestine Solidarity Alliance, for the outrageous reason that Nerdeen Kiswani, CUNY alumna, chair of Within Our Lifetime – United For Palestine, and 2022 CUNY Law School graduation speaker, would appear on the program and was “banned from speaking at Hunter.”
Please take action by sending an email to the administration, using the action alerts below created by CUNY 4 Palestine:
In the United States, it is illegal — in violation of the U.S. Constitution — for public universities like CUNY to censor events or speakers based on their political position or viewpoint. To target a Palestinian organizer on 15 May, the day of commemoration of Nakba and the Day of Palestinian Struggle, further raises this action to a clear example of discrimination, following on multiple repressive actions by CUNY administration. It is also important to note that this comes after students and faculty at multiple CUNY Campuses have voted in support of boycott, divestment and sanctions resolutions and solidarity motions for Palestine despite repeated attempts to suppress this solidarity. For the second year in a row, students at CUNY elected a Palestinian speaker in 2023 as the student commencement speaker, with the graduation ceremony just days ago.
This attack on Nerdeen Kiswani and the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance at Hunter College is part and parcel of the ongoing Nakba, alongside the ban on Nakba commemoration demonstrations in Berlin, targeting Palestinians in exile and diaspora with silencing and repression for calling for return and liberation for Palestine. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our full solidarity with Nerdeen Kiswani, the students of Hunter College and the CUNY 4 Palestine organizers as they fight repression, build community power and continue to put forward a clear perspective for the liberation of Palestine.
The German state intensifies its attack and bans demonstrations on Nakba Day 2023
A statement from the Revolutionary Solidarity Coalition
The German state authorities are escalating their attack on all Palestinians, Arabs and supporters of the Palestinian cause in Germany, with the Berlin police’s banning of this year’s demonstration in Berlin to mark the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, scheduled for Sunday, 14 May 2023. This repressive attack is taking place as Israeli fighter jets bomb the besieged Gaza Strip, killing 33 Palestinians to date, including 6 children and 3 women. More than 100 people have been injured in the aerial bombing and hundreds of people were denied emergency medical care due to siege and enforced border closures. The number of martyrs in Palestine has risen to 147 since the beginning of the year.
Around 80,000 Palestinians live in Berlin. Despite having lived in Germany for many years, many of them do not have a secure residence status and are often precariously employed and exposed to discrimination and harassment by the state. The German state also criminalizes protest against the ongoing war crimes in their homeland and their involvement in the struggle for their liberation and return. This attack is not only aimed at them, but also at the millions of people who demonstrated across Germany in 2021 during the “Saif Al-Quds”/Unity uprising in Palestine in 2021.
Such domestic political decisions by the German state are inseparable from its ongoing diplomatic, economic and military support for Israel at the international level. With its support of the Zionist colony in Palestine, Germany is not a spectator but a complicit participant in the ongoing Nakba and genocidal war against Palestinians.
The Revolutionary Solidarity Coalition was formed last year around the same time that the 2022 Nakba demonstrations were banned. A spokesperson for the alliance notes that demonstration bans are part of “a long chain of repression by the German state, which serve as an instrument for crushing progressive and revolutionary forces.”
The justifications for the ban build on the racist practices of the state. Anti-Palestinian racism is instrumentalized by describing the Palestinian diaspora and participants in the demonstration as “highly emotionalized men” and thus wanting to dictate to the Palestinians, in full colonial tradition, a dehumanized, emotionally-cold attitude towards the occupation, their exile and the attempts at annihilation to which they are exposed.
Four days before our demonstration planned for May 14, 2023, the Berlin police had already attempted to intimidate us. We were threatened that all Arabic speeches, songs and chants would be recorded for later use in law enforcement.
This ban is an attack on us all! The right to freedom of expression and association is a fundamental human right and as such must not be arbitrarily curtailed.
As a Coalition, we therefore call on everyone to show solidarity and break the ongoing silence on the criminalization of Palestinian, revolutionary and anti-imperialist struggles!
Support our team of lawyers who will take on the legal fight against the ban on demonstrations and the court cases for those who are being prosecuted by the state for their struggle for a liberated Palestine.
Support the fight for Palestine and donate to:
Name: Rote Hilfe e.V.
IBAN: DE55 4306 0967 4007 2383 17
BIC: GENODEM1GLS
Note: Palaestina gegen Repression
As the Zionist attack on Gaza continues, as Palestinian prisoners continue to fight for freedom, as the Palestinian resistance continues to defend the land and people of Palestine through over 75 years of struggle for liberation, return and victory — join us to take the streets to demand justice for Palestine, express our outrage, and support the Palestinian resistance. On this commemoration of 75 years of ongoing Nakba, join us to say: From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free of Zionism, imperialism, occupation and colonialism!
Please note, the list below is focused on outdoor protest activities. There are many important rallies, discussions and panels taking place to commemorate 75 years of Nakba. Among those is the tour of Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela taking place in the United States, coordinated by USPCN. For more details on those events, click here.
Another major initiative coinciding with Nakba75 commemorations is the Palestine Action siege of Elbit in Leicester. An ongoing camp has been set up with protests, events and actions, including caravans to join the siege Join in and get more info from Palestine Action!
The week of action in Switzerland, the upcoming Resistance Festival in Brussels, and various Palestine Liberation Weeks and Weeks of Palestinian Struggle all reflect important events to join in.
Note: These events are organized by many different groups around the world. Times and schedules may change. Wherever possible, we have provided a link to the original organizers; please check their posts for details!
TO ADD YOUR EVENT TO THE CALENDAR: Email us at samidoun@samidoun.net, or tag us on social media (Instagram @samidounnetwork, Twitter @SamidounPP)! We know that these events are mainly international and that the Arab people are marching everywhere for Palestine — we will be honored to add Arab events.
Bradford – Shut Elbit Down Convoy for Palestine, Saturday, 13 May, meet at 1 pm at Forster Square, Bradford for caravan to rally at 4 pm at Elbit, Meridian Business Park. Info: https://twitter.com/Pal_action/status/1655855877964939266
Leicester – Car Caravan to Elbit Factory, Saturday, 13 May, meet at 3:30 pm at Evington Valley Rd, Rally at Elbit (UAV Tactical Systems, Unit F Meridian East, Leicester, LE19 1WZ) at 4 pm. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CsHcn4ZN_aN/
Santiago – Caravan to Commemorate Nakba75. Saturday, 13 May, starting at 5:30 pm, Club Palestino, Av. Kennedy 9351, Las Condes. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrwJee6plQM/
France
Paris – March to Support the Palestinian Resistance. Saturday, 13 May, 2 pm, departing from Place du Chatelet, Paris. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrOYKbQIxpk/
Toulouse – Palestine Tour: 75 Years of Nakba, 75 Years of Resistance. Saturday, 13 May, 3 pm, Metro Jeanne d’Arc, Toulouse. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Crx8vRdtOQz/
Milano – Nakba75 Day of Struggle. Saturday, 13 May, 10:30 am, Spazio di Mutuo Soccorso, Piazza Carlo Stuparich 18, Milan. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr8aPAmMF7E/
Philadelphia – Nakba Day 75 Rally and March. Saturday, May 13th, 12:30 – 4 pm, Rittenhouse Square @ 12:30 pm, March at 1 pm, Philadelphia. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Crzp99ctbM6/
Manchester – Nakba75 Rally and Emergency Rally for Gaza. Sunday, May 14, 12:30 pm, Starting at Platts Fields Park, Rusholme. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CsB8YYnIo52/
Buenos Aires– 75 years, the Nakba continues – Monday, 15 May, 4:30 pm, Bernardo de Irigoyen and Avenido de Mayo, march to Zionist embassy. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CsCD-7Wt7iZ/
Phoenix, AZ – March for 75 years of Nakba, Friday, May 19, 5:30 pm, Deck Park Bridge, 1221 N Central Ave, Phoenix, behind the library. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/CsHSfHnP6ED/
Barcelona – Nakba75 March and Rally. Saturday, 20 May, 6 pm, Plaça Universitat, marching to Plaça de Sant Jaume. (There is also a week of actions, discussions and film screenings from 11 to 20 May – check the post for details) Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr77Hcfq2uE/
Portland – Nakba 75 Demonstration and Palestine Festival. Sunday, May 21st at 1:30 PM at SW Park Ave & SW Madison St., Portland, OR. Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cr9OQkTSIkY/
Nakba75 Boston.
Join us to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Nakba. Cambridge City Hall. 5/15/23 @ 5pm. More info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cq4DM9spXkg/
From Nakba to victory: liberate the land from the river to the sea! Uphold resistance!
Join CSPP PDX, SUPER @ PSU, and the Palestine solidarity community on Sunday, May 21st at 1:30 PM at SW Park Ave & SW Madison St. for a rally and festival on the 75th anniversary of an-Nakba, the catastrophe of 1948.
RESIST // Come for a rally to hear stories of Palestinian history, struggle, and how we can win a free Palestine within our lifetime!
RECLAIM // Spend the day with us for a festival with food, music, tabling, and connection to celebrate the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and the reclamation of the future!
We encourage mask wearing and will have masks available at the event. Please stay home if you are feeling sick or have been exposed to COVID
Join @super_uw, @falastiniyat, and @samidounseattle for a community gathering, rally, and march to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine—Al-Nakba— and create a space to channel our grief into action. We will uplift 75 years of Palestinian sumud (steadfastness) and unified resistance to Zionism and call for liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea!
Bring signs, keffiyehs, and your rage to channel into collective action!
Samidoun NY/NJ will be joining Within Our Lifetime for this important event!
Join us for a takeover of Bay Ridge, the heart of the Palestinian community in NYC, to celebrate Palestinian resistance, life, culture, food, music and the ongoing struggle for Palestinian liberation!
This will be more than a protest, it will be a community gathering to assert our power and show NYC that we stand with Palestine from the river to the sea, and we support Palestinian resistance and liberation by any means necessary.
This will be a family friendly event, we will have face painting, coloring books, and more activities for kids! We will have food, beverages, resistance music and more surprises planned for throughout the day.
Every year thousands of people come to Bay Ridge to experience the Palestinian community and stand in solidarity with us in the fight against zionism and settler colonialism. We also want this to be a space that does more to give back to our community which is why we want rallies and street actions that create a space for Palestinian resilience.
DM us if you want to volunteer or if your organization wants to endorse/cosponsor!
As of 4:50 pm Pacific time Monday, 8 May, occupation forces are currently targeting the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance in attempted assassination raids, particularly targeting leaders of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine. Homes in Rafah, in Gaza City and elsewhere have been hit by Zionist missiles, leading to casualties and martyrs. The homes that have so far been targeted reportedly included those of several resistance leaders. Confirmed Palestinian reports indicate that at least 12 martyrs have been killed by the occupation assault and 20 Palestinians have been injured. These include the leaders of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine: Jihad Ghannam, secretary of the Saraya al-Quds Military Council; Khalil Salah al-Bahtini, member of the Military Council of Saraya al-Quds and commander of the northern region; Tariq Izzedine, a leader of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank; as well as the wives and children of targeted leaders.
Occupation warplanes are continuing to attack central and southern Gaza and occupation forces announced their intention to close the Erez and Kerem Salem crossings “indefinitely,” further tightening the 16-year siege of Gaza. This comes only hours after fishers’ boats were targeted by occupation warships in the Gaza sea.
All Palestinian resistance fighters, police and security personnel are on high alert in Gaza and a state of emergency has been declared. In the meantime, occupation forces are calling on settlers around Gaza to shelter or go to bunkers, in fear of the response of the Palestinian resistance.
Fascist Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir tweeted “It’s time!” as occupation forces rained U.S.-made and -provided weaponry on residential neighbourhoods and Palestinian self-defense sites.
These attacks are ongoing Zionist war crimes, funded and supported by US and Western imperialism. As we commemorate the 75th anniversary of Nakba — and 75 years of ongoing resistance to Zionism and imperialism — this is a key example of the ongoing colonial violence perpetrated against the Palestinian people, as well as the strength and steadfastness of the people and their resistance. We urge all to mobilize, organize and make clear that we will not accept the ongoing murder of the Palestinian people and their resistance leaders, and that Palestine will, and must be, free, from the river to the sea.
Haifa demonstration for the release of Walid Daqqah
On Sunday, 7 May, Sana’ Salameh, the wife of imprisoned Palestinian intellectual, writer and freedom fighter Walid Daqqah confirmed that he had been returned to Barzilai hospital two days prior, after he had been removed from the civilian hospital and returned to the infamous Ramleh prison clinic. On 12 April 2023, Daqqah underwent surgery to remove part of his lung after he developed pneumonia, a complication of his ongoing, delayed and inadequate treatment for the rare bone marrow cancer, myelofibrosis.
Salameh and the Daqqah family have emphasized the importance of following the official campaign page for updates on Daqqah’s health, medical treatment and legal case, in order to avoid rumors and misinformation.
Daqqah was diagnosed with myelofibrosis in December 2022, following a leukemia diagnosis 10 years before. Daqqah, 62, has been imprisoned since 25 March 1986. Sentenced to 37 years in occupation prisons, he should have been released in March of this year (2023), except for an additional two-year punitive sentence added on to his prison sentence, allegedly related to accessing mobile phones inside occupation prisons.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network reiterates our call for Daqqah’s immediate release from Zionist prisons, and the release of all Palestinian prisoners. The policy of long-term medical neglect is a policy of the slow execution of Palestinian detainees, with Walid Daqqah the latest example of this brutal policy.
The family have emphasized their demand: the immediate release of Walid Daqqah so that he may receive treatment without conditions or restrictions. They have urged widespread action to seek his liberation.
Charleroi, Belgium – May Day demonstrators demand freedom for Walid Daqqah, Khader Adnan and all Palestinian prisoners
The systematic and deadly nature of Israeli medical neglect is clear in the case of Khader Adnan, who lost his life after 86 days on hunger strike after repeatedly being denied transfer to a civilian hospital. In Daqqah’s case, he is denied family visits even in a civilian hospital and is treated as a prisoner; the Ramle prison clinic, where he had been transferred on 30 April, is even more notorious as an unsuitable environment dangerous for a person receiving treatment for a rare cancer like myelofibrosis.
Palestinian prisoners have declared their dedication to fight for Daqqah’s release. The Handala Center for Prisoners and Former Prisoners said that Palestinian detainees in Nafha and the Naqab desert prison were demanding Daqqah’s release, planning protest actions and wearing prison uniforms to show their readiness to struggle.
Daqqah obtained a master’s degree in political science and wrote several books while behind bars, in the realm of political theory as well as fiction, including children’s fiction. On multiple occasions, he has faced harsh repression, including solitary confinement, especially targeted toward his expressive work. For example, Daqqah was thrown into solitary confinement when he published a new children’s book, “The Secret of Oil”; a launch event for the book in the town of Majd al-Kurum was shut down by far-right Israeli minister Aryeh Deri. In the preface to the book, Daqqa wrote, “I write until I am freed from prison, with the hope of freeing the prison from me.” This followed the defunding of a Haifa Palestinian theater that exhibited a play based on his work “Parallel Time.” His family’s official campaign page asserts:
“In spite of all the injustices and discriminations inflicted upon Daqqah throughout the 37 years of his incarceration, he has managed remarkable achievements that have made him in to the political, intellectual and cultural icon that he is. He has been a leader among the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement and is a prominent figure in the Palestinian, Arab and international cultural scene, in particular in the field of prison studies. Even his intellectual life has been deemed dangerous as prisoner authorities subjected Daqqah to extra punishment due to his political, social and intellectual activism, in particular solitary confinement.
Daqqah is a prolific author. Among his works: Testimonies of Resistance: The Battle of Jenin Camp 2002 (2004); Consciousness Molded or the Re-identification of Torture (2010); The Story of the Forgotten in Parallel Time (2011); The Oil’s Secret Tale (2018); The Sword’s Secret Tale (2021); The Spirit’s Secret Tale/ The Martyrs Return to Ramallah (2022). In addition, Daqqah published several translations, and tens of articles both in Arabic and Hebrew, most prominently: “Parallel Tine” (2005); “Milad: I Write to a Childe Yet to Be Born” (2011); “Liberate Yourself by Yourself” (2020), and “Control through Time” (2021). Daqqah also has several unpublished manuscripts, paintings, poetry, lyrics, and autobiographical and theatrical writings.
Under these harsh circumstances, Daqqah married the activist, journalist and translator Sana’ Salamah on 10 August, 1999 in Askalan Prison. The occupation state denied them conjugal visits and their right to be parents, in spite of all the appeals. Undeterred, on 3 March 2020 their daughter Milad was born in Nazareth from liberated semen for artificial insemination.”
We urge Palestinian communities around the world and supporters of Palestine to include the campaign to free Walid Daqqah in your events and activities for Nakba 75 and the Week of Palestinian Struggle, representing the unity of all Palestinians and of Palestine from the river to the sea. Use these signs below in your actions and campaigns, and send us your photos on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter or via email at samidoun@samidoun.net.
