Shireen Issawi launches open hunger strike in solidarity with Muhammad Allan

17 August 2015

Shireen Issawi, imprisoned Palestinian lawyer and the sister of imprisoned Palestinian and former long-term hunger striker Samer Issawi, is joining her brother in a hunger strike in solidarity with Muhammad Allan, a fellow imprisoned Palestinian lawyer.

Allan is in a coma in Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon; he has been on hunger strike for 63 days protesting his imprisonment without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Issawi is launching her solidarity strike today, Monday 17 August. Samer launched his strike on Sunday, 16 August. Both are demanding Allan’s immediate release from administrative detention.

Shireen Issawi was arrested in March 2014 with other Palestinian lawyers; her trial in Israeli military court has been repeatedly delayed. She is charged with transferring information from Palestinian prisoners from “hostile parties,” as well as transferring money to prisoners from “prohibited organizations,” namely Palestinian political parties. Her trial has been repeatedly delayed for a year and a half.

In an interview with the Electronic Intifada, Issawi’s mother Layla noted that Shireen had not practiced as a lawyer for over three years; she had been prominent prior to her arrest as the international spokesperson for the campaign to free her brother Samer, whose 266-day hunger strike won his relase in December 2013. (Samer was re-arrested in June 2015 as part of the mass Israeli arrests in the West Bank following the capture of three settlers and has since had his original thirty-year sentence reimposed by a secret military tribunal. He had been released in the October 2011 prisoner exchange with Gilad Shalit.)

The charges against Issawi are violations of the rights of lawyers to represent their clients; they also attempt to criminalize support for prisoners from their political parties, as well as the communication of prisoners to the outside world. As she wrote in a letter from prison in 2014, “I am a lawyer, I have the right and duty to defend our prisoners. To stand for their rights is not unlawful. Although I have been busy recently focusing on completing my Masters thesis, they arrested me. The real reason for my arrest is that the occupation wants to intimidate lawyers from performing their duty in the service of our prisoners. They will not succeed, I dedicate my life for the cause of our prisoners and will not stop fighting for their freedom until all our prisoners are released.”

Palestinian student activist Amjad Samhan sentenced to 12 months in Israeli prison

17 August 2015

Palestinian student Amjad Samhan was sentenced to 12 months in Israeli prisons and a 2000 shekel fine in Ofer military court on 17 August. Samhan, 21, is a student at Bir Zeit University.

An activist, involved with the Progressive Democratic Student Pole at Bir Zeit, Samhan was targeted along with 8 other undergraduates at the university in a mass arrest in May: Bilal Yalo, ‘Abdul-Rahman and Mohammad N. Al-Sheikh, Mohammad Ghanem, Khalil Salman, Fadi Washaha, Ahmad Mhanna, and Basil Jamil.

Palestinian students – particularly those who are involved in the student movement or in student unions – have been repeatedly targeted for arrest and imprisoned by Israeli occupying military forces.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network calls for the immediate release of Samhan and dozens of fellow Palestinian students imprisoned in the jails of the occupation, and urges solidarity from student unions and groups around the world with Palestinian student prisoners.

Poster made for Samhan by the Progressive Democratic Student Pole:

Take Action: Muhammad Allan rejects attempt to forcibly deport him from Palestine as Supreme Court considers case

17 August 2015

Muhammad Allan’s lawyer, Jamal al-Khatib rejected an Israeli military prosecution proposal to release the detained lawyer by forcibly deporting him from Palestine for four years on 17 August. Allan is currently in a coma in Barzilai hospital in Ashkelon after 63 days of hunger strike. He is held in administrative detention without charge or trial.

Today, the Israeli Supreme Court heard arguments filed by al-Khatib and human rights organization Adalah, urging Allan’s immediate release on medical grounds. The Supreme Court postponed its decision until Wednesday, saying that it needed to study the medical file.

This is the second such offer directed at Allan; both proposals have carried extreme penalties – this, 4 years of forcible displacement, and the prior, 2 years of imprisonment under administrative detention – despite the fact that Allan has been charged with nothing, and no evidence has been presented against him. Both proposals in fact violate the Fourth Geneva Convention, clearly using administrative detention in a non-emergent context and threatening to forcibly displace a person from occupied territory.

As the Supreme Court considers Allan’s case, Barzilai Hospital has announced that it is planning to reduce the sedation and anesthesia being administered to Allan, which would allow him to regain consciousness. Ma’an News reported that the decision would “depend on his medical condition.” After Allan fell into a coma on Friday morning, his lawyers have repeatedly charged the medical center with keeping him under sedation in order to administer salts and fluids intravenously without his consent. Palestinian medical sources have become increasingly concerned that important facts about his condition are being hidden after doctor Hani Abdeen was denied access to Allan yesterday, after previous consent was obtained for the visit and examination.

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Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network reiterates its call for the broadest international action to free Muhammed Allan and his fellow Palestinian prisoners and prevent his torture through force-feeding. Events are upcoming in New York, Berlin, Vancouver and other cities and it is critical that people around the world make their voices heard to hold the Israeli state accountable for the life of Muhammed Allan and release him instantly.

The imprisonment and torture of Allan is part and parcel of the Israeli colonial policy of the mass imprisonment of Palestinians, the attack on the rights of Palestinian prisoners won by long struggle of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, and the attack on Palestinian existence everywhere in Palestine: the denial of Palestinian refugees’ right to return, land confiscation, home demolitions, ethnic cleansing, siege, apartheid, occupation and settler-colonialism.

Muhammed Allan’s situation is an emergency that requires mobilization and action by all, including the escalation of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel on all levels: economic, military, cultural, academic, as urged by the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

Take Action: Demand freedom – not force feeding – for Muhammad Allan!

1. Sign on: Send a letter demanding Allan’s freedom, and that he not be force-fed. Israeli officials must hear the voice of the world demanding that this threat of torture be stopped, and that Allan, imprisoned without charge or trial, be freed.

2. Protest at the Israeli consulate or embassy in your area. Bring posters and flyers about administrative detention and Palestinian hunger strikers and hold a protest, or join a protest with this important information. Hold a community event or discussion, or include this issue in your next event about Palestine and social justice. Please email us at [email protected] to inform us of your action – we will publicize and share news with the prisoners.

3. Boycott, Divest and Sanction. Hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law. Don’t buy Israeli goods, and campaign to end investments in corporations that profit from the occupation. G4S, a global security corporation, is heavily involved in providing services to Israeli prisons that jail Palestinian political prisoners – there is a global call to boycott it. Palestinian political prisoners have issued a specific call urging action on G4S. Learn more about BDS at bdsmovement.net.

Israeli Supreme Court to hear petition for release of hunger striker Mohammed Allan

17 August 2015

Adalah has filed a petition with the Israeli Supreme Court urging the release of hunger striking detainee Muhammed Allan today, as a Ha’aretz editorial urged his release: “Israel must announce the immediate release of Mohammed Allaan, the Palestinian hunger-striker who is being held in Israel without trial and whose condition deteriorated drastically over the weekend. The state did the right thing last month when it released Khader Adnan, whose life was at risk after a 54-day hunger strike, and it must do the same this time. Any delay could lead to a new cycle of bloodshed, the scope and consequences of which are difficult to predict.”

Adalah petitions Israeli Supreme Court for release of hunger-striking Palestinian detainee Mohammed Allan; Supreme Court hearing today at 1 pm

Adalah, together with private attorney Jamil el-Khatib, submitted an urgent petition to the Israeli Supreme Court today, 17 August 2015, demanding that the General Security Service (GSS or Shabak) and the Military Commander of the occupied West Bank rescind the administrative detention order against Mohammed Allan, and that Allan be released. Allan, a Palestinian lawyer, has been on hunger strike for more than two months in protest against his administrative detention without charge or trial, which began in November 2014.

This petition will join another appeal in this regard by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs. The Supreme Court will hold a hearing today on both cases at 1 pm.

In the petition, Adalah and el-Khatib argued that, “The deterioration of the health status of a prisoner on hunger strike drastically changes the objective conditions of his administrative detention, and makes it imperative for the authorities to reconsider the detention order.” The petitioners stressed that the drastic deterioration in Mohammed Allan’s health situation, since he became unconscious on Friday 14 August 2015, eliminates the security concerns that allegedly justify his administrative detention.

Adalah Attorneys Sawsan Zaher and Aram Mahameed emphasized in the petition on behalf of Allan that Supreme Court case law required that the authorities reconsider an administrative detention in the event of any new substantive change in conditions, and oblige them to take action regarding the new realities before them.

Adalah also contended that administrative detention is supposed to be used rarely and as a preventive measure in order to “prevent immediate danger”. However, the Israeli security authorities use it sweepingly as a punitive measure against Palestinians (more than 400 Palestinians are currently held in administrative detention).

The severe deterioration of Allan’s health, his entry into a coma, and his inability to move, presents an immediate danger to his life and safety. His continued administrative detention will ultimately lead to serious bodily harm, and constitutes an immediate danger to his life.

Case Citation: HCJ 5580/15, Mohammed Allan v. General Security Service, et al. (case pending)

20 August, Berlin: Free Muhammed Allan, Ahmad Saadat, Samer Issawi and all 5442 Palestinian political prisoners

17 August 2015

Free Muhammed Allan, Ahmad Saadat, Samer Issawi and all 5442 Palestinian political prisoners

Protest @ Pariser Platz, Brandenburger Tor, Berlin
Thursday, August 20, 6:00 pm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/832314850221399/

– Rechtsanwalt Muhammad Allan, seit dem 14. Juni 2015 im Hungerstreik
– Ahmad Saadat, Generalsekretär der Volksfront für die Befreiung Palästinas (PFLP), seit dem 11. August 2015 im Hungerstreik
– Samer Issawi, Mitglied des Zentralkomitees der Demokratischen Front zur Befreiung Palästinas (DFLP), seit dem 16. August 2015 im Hungerstreik

– Attorney Muhammad Allan, hunger strike since June 14
– Ahmad Saadat, Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hunger strike since Aug 11
– Samer Issawi, member of the central committee of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, hunger strike since Aug 16

Kundgebung für den palästinensischen politischen Gefangenen Rechtsanwalt Muhammad Allan, der seit dem 6. November 2014 ohne Anklage und ohne Prozess in israelischer Haft ist und sich seit dem 14. Juni 2015 im Hungerstreik befindet. Der Zustand des 31-jährigen Juristen ist kritisch. Allan macht seinen Hungerstreik für alle politischen Gefangenen in israelischer Haft.
Er opfert sich auf für alle politischen Gefangenen.
Wir sollen ihn in diesen schweren Stunden nicht allein lassen und für ihn und für alle politischen Gefangenen demonstrieren.
Ahmad Saadat, der Generalsekretär der Volksfront für die Befreiung Palästinas (PFLP), hat am Dienstag, den 11. August 2015 einen unbegrenzten Hungerstreik begonnen, nachdem es bei den Verhandlungen mit der Gefängnisverwaltung keinen Fortschritt gab auf
Grund ihrer Unnachgiebigkeit gegenüber den Forderungen der Gefangenen. Hinzu kam, daß gemäß einer Anordnung des Militärs das Besuchsverbot für Familienangehörige des Vorsitzenden Saadat für weitere drei Monate verlängert wurde.
Die PFLP-Gefängnissektion bestätigte, daß die von Saadat angeführten Gefangenen der Front beschlossen haben, eine lange und schwierige
Schlacht mit der Besatzungsmacht zu schlagen, bei der es keine Regeln oder Vereinbarungen gibt nachdem alle Optionen erschöpft sind die
Besatzer zu einem Eingehen auf die Forderungen der Gefangenen zu bewegen.
Die Gefangenen der PFLP riefen die Massen unseres Volkes, die arabischen und muslimischen Gemeinschaften und Länder und die Kräfte von Gerechtigkeit und Freiheit in der Welt auf sich mit dem Kampf der Gefangenen zu solidarisieren und sie weitestgehend zu unterstützen bei Konfrontation und Standhaftigkeit rund um die Uhr gegenüber den Verantwortlichen von Gefängnis und Besatzungsmacht. Der Geist und die Tiefe der Solidarität gibt den Gefangenen Kraft den Kampf bis zur Erreichung ihrer Rechte fortzusetzen.
Die gefangenen Genossen hungerstreiken für die Forderung eines Endes des Verbots von Familienbesuchen palästinensischer Gefangener einschließlich ihres Vorsitzenden Genossen Sa´adat; weiter fordern sie medizinische Versorgung für kranke Gefangene, ein Ende der Politik willkürlicher Verhaftungen, Verbesserung der Haftbedingungen und ein Verbots von Razzien durch zionistische Spezialeinheiten.

Mohammed Allan, 31, was arrested from his home in Einabus village, in the occupied West Bank, by Israeli security forces on 6 November 2014. He was handcuffed and taken to his office in the city of Nablus, in the West Bank, and ordered to show files of clients he had represented. He was handed a six-month administrative detention order on 11 November. The Israeli authorities have not given any reasons to Mohammed Allan or his lawyer for his arrest and detention. His administrative detention was renewed for another six months on 5 May. He began a hunger strike on 16 June to demand an end to his detention. According to Palestinian human rights NGO Addameer, since the beginning of his hunger strike he has only consumed water.

The Israeli Prison Service informed Mohammed Allan’s lawyer on 7 August of their intention to submit a request to the Israeli District Court to authorize his force-feeding under new legislation allowing force-feeding of hunger-striking detainees. However, statements made by Israeli politicians, including the one responsible for promoting the bill, indicate it is particularly aimed at Palestinian detainees.

On 10 August, he was transferred to the intensive care unit of Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva, Israel. Later that day, as medical staff refused to force-feed him, he was moved to Barzilai Medical Center in Ashkelon, Israel. Mohammed Allan continued to refuse medical examination and was chained to his hospital bed by a hand and a foot, despite being too weak to stand. It was reported on 14 August that he had lost consciousness.

Mohammed Allan told his lawyer on 12 August that he does not want to die, but to live a life of dignity.

The prison branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announced their plan to launch a hunger strike on Tuesday, August 11, following the ongoing Zionist raids and attacks on Palestinian political prisoners, including imprisoned PFLP General Secretary, Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, and the renewed order denying family visits to Comrade Sa’adat.

PFLP prisoners in all Zionist prisons will launch their strike on Tuesday morning. They will launch their strike amid an atmosphere of confrontation and struggle in the prisons, where prisoners from fellow Palestinian factions and political forces are also waging hunger strikes to resist the Zionist attacks on the achievements and rights of the prisoners won through struggle and resistance over decades.

The PFLP Prison Branch statement:

The prison branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, headed by national leader Ahmad Sa’adat, will launch an open hunger strike on Tuesday [11 August], following a stalemate in the negotiations with the Prison administration, brought about by the Prison Service’s intransigence in response to the just demands of the prisoners. In addition, today a military order was issued extending the security prohibition against leader Sa’adat, denying him family visits for an additional three months.

The prison branch confirmed that the Front’s prisoners, led by Sa’adat, have decided to fight a long and difficult battle with the occupation which is not conditioned by any covenants or undertakings, after exhausting all options in order to impel the occupier to respond to the demands of the prisoners.

The PFLP prisoners called on the masses of our people, the Arab and Muslim communities and countries, and the forces of justice and freedom in the world to provide the widest support and solidarity to the struggle of the prisoners’ national movement in the battles of confrontation and steadfastness they are waging around the clock against the prison and intelligence officials of the occupation. The breadth and depth of solidarity gives prisoners inspiration to continue the struggle until their rights are achieved in full.

The imprisoned comrades will strike to demand an end to the prohibitions on family visits for Palestinian prisoners including the orders against Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat; and to demand medical care for sick prisoners, an end to the policy of administrative detention, improvements in conditions inside the prisons and a ban on invasions and raids by Zionist special units against the prisoners.

At the beginning of July, Israel was holding 5,442 Palestinian political prisoners and detainees, as well as nearly 1,000 Palestinians held for entering Israel “illegally,” according to statistics compiled by the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

Samidoun: Israeli Minister and U.S. Guantanamo commander urge torture of Muhammed Allan, Palestinian prisoners

16 August 2015

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the right-wing, racist, U.S. imperialist and Zionist attacks on the lives and rights of Palestinian political prisoners, and the threat and actual use of force-feeding torture to suppress prisoners’ hunger strikes for justice and freedom.

Israeli Minister of Immigration and Absorption, Zeev Elkin, told Channel 10 that “The State of Israel can’t allow itself to be held hostage to hunger strikes by prisoners because today it’s one prisoner and tomorrow it will be others,” Elkin said. “Today it’s a prisoner in administrative detention and tomorrow it will be someone who was sentenced to jail after a fair trial.”

Elkin clearly admits that there is nothing fair or just about being imprisoned without charge or trial in administrative detention – the condition of hunger striker Muhammed Allan, currently comatose and at risk of death after 62 days of hunger strike – and makes the ludicrous claim that Israeli military courts are any such alternative.

However, the positing of Allan, a comatose man, a lawyer with no recourse to legal mechanisms to achieve justice, held arbitrarily without charge or trial, shackled to a hospital bed in intensive care under armed guard, threatened with force-feeding and denied access to doctors as “holding Israel hostage” is a horrific reversal of facts. Allan is being held hostage by the Israeli state with all of its forces: the military, courts, political and medical apparatus, along with nearly 6,000 other Palestinian political prisoners.

And yet, this statement reveals the strength and power of Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, that it exposes the injustice at the heart of the colonial project in Palestine and reveals a firm dedication to seeking justice that truly frightens those who seek to rule over the indigenous people of occupied Palestine through ethnic cleansing, apartheid, mass incarceration and genocide.

Elkin is all of the above – one of the primary authors of the law which prohibits Israelis from advocating the boycott of products produced in West Bank settlements and a proud advocate of the annexation of the West Bank and Gaza. “This is our land, and it’s our right to apply sovereignty over it. Regardless of the world’s opposition, it’s time to do in Judea and Samaria what we did in [East] Jerusalem and the Golan.” A settler himself, Elkin called for genocide in Gaza, “a thorough cleaning of Gaza.”

That Elkin holds such a position is no surprise, as the Israeli state was founded 67 years ago on the dispossession and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian refugees, the indigenous people of the land and the imposition of a Zionist settler colonial project over the land and people of Palestine.

Elkin’s comments come hand in hand with that of another official representative of a settler colonial state based on the dispossession and genocide of indigenous people: U.S. Colonel Michael Bumgarner, former commander of the Guantanamo military base on U.S.-occupied Cuban territories, where 780 international captives, detained and abducted from around the world by U.S. forces, were held without charge or trial for years.

Bumgarner, who presided over the torturous force-feeding of dozens of prisoners in the military camp via nasogastric tube, labels the torture of hunger striking detainees as “a matter of discipline within your facility.” He specifically warns against prisoners “[thinking] they were influencing national decisions by their behavior.” Bumgarner’s statement comes at the same time that the U.S. is attempting to prevent the release of a cleared, innocent man in Guantanamo – Tariq Ba Odah – on hunger strike since February 2007 and tortured by force-feeding since that time.

It must be noted that force-feeding for U.S. prisoners in California on hunger strike in 2013 – disproportionately Black and other men of color, pushed into the prison system in a manifestation of systematic racism and oppression – was also “legitimized” by a U.S. court, despite the clear international consensus that force-feeding is cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment amounting to torture. As U.S. empire kills and destroys in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Yemen and Syria, it also kills and destroys in Ferguson, New York, Waller County, Cleveland and Baltimore, targeting Black life and sparking resurgent resistance.

The reality is that Palestinian hunger strikers are using the only tool they have to push back against their colonizer and occupier, their bodies, to not only influence “national” decisions, but the international political scene. Palestinian hunger strikers are, like the Irish hunger strikers who put their bodies on the line against British colonialism (the creator of administrative detention in Palestine), a voice of conscience to the world, freedom fighters for justice. As Khader Adnan said, addressing Muhammed Allan, “Today you are representing not only our people, you are representing all human beings in the world who love freedom and dignity. You are now an advocate not only for Palestinians, you are for everyone.”

Elkin, Bumgarner and their ilk, on the other hand, are the voices of repression, racism, colonialism and dehumanization. Torture, force feeding and mass imprisonment are tools of Zionism and U.S. imperialism to preserve colonial rule and attempt to destroy the resistance of the people. Muhammed Allan – and the Palestinian liberation struggle he represents now – stands against these forces. His struggle is indeed “for everyone,” in the words of Ghassan Kanafani, “for every revolutionary… as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.”

Palestine marches for freedom for Muhammad Allan

16 August 2015

Protests throughout Palestine on 15 and 16 August took to the streets, demanding freedom for imprisoned Palestinian lawyer Muhammad Allan, 31, held under administrative detention without charge or trial. He is currently comatose in Barzilai Hospital facing extreme risk to his life after 62 days of hunger strike.

Protests were organized in cities, villages and refugee camps in all areas of Palestine – Occupied Palestine ’48, the West Bank and Gaza – including Nablus, Tulkarem, Saffa, Al-Khalil, Huwwarra, Kufr Qaddoum, Wadi ‘Ara, Dheisheh camp, Jerusalem, Ramallah, Rafah, Gaza City and more.

In Kufr Qaddoum and Huwwarra, Palestinian protests were repressed by Israeli occupation forces; in Kufr Qaddoum, occupation forces shot live ammunition at protesters. Murad Shteiwi, former political prisoner and coordinator of the Popular Struggle Committee in the village, said that hundreds of Palestinians marched for the freedom of Palestinian prisoners and were fired upon with live ammunition, tear gas canisters, and “skunk” – wastewater mixed with noxious chemicals. A military bulldozer broke the town’s water pipeline, cutting water to the village.

Below is a small selection of the photos from protests throughout Palestine:

Samer Issawi launches hunger strike in solidarity with Muhammad Allan

16 August 2015

Samer Issawi, Palestinian prisoner and long-term hunger striker, launched a hunger strike in solidarity with imprisoned Palestinian lawyer Muhammad Allan on Sunday, 16 August, demanding his immediate release from administrative detention. Allan has been on hunger strike for over two months demanding his freedom; he is currently comatose and facing a medical crisis in Barzilai Hospital, where he is held under armed guard.

Issawi, of Issawiyeh village in Jerusalem, was released in 2011 as part of the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange; in 2012 he was arrested and threatened with the reimposition of his entire sentence, accused of leaving the municipal borders of Jerusalem. He refused food for 266 days, striking until he achieved his release after 17 months of detention. Issawi’s release in December 2013, was, like the earlier release of Khader Adnan, a major victory for the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes against injustice.

It should be noted that Issawi’s grueling 266-day strike included the intake of intravenous salts, vitamins and minerals; Allan has consumed only water, and thus he faces a life-threatening health crisis 62 days in to his strike.

Issawi was re-arrested in June 2014, joining sister Shireen and brother Medhat, who had been arrested in March 2014. In May of this year his original 30-year sentence was reimposed on the basis of secret evidence by a secret military tribunal. Released Palestinian prisoners’ sentences can be reimposed under Military Order 1651, accused of nothing more than contact with Palestinians in political parties – or even more mysterious charges, as the entire process is secret.

Issawi’s case has received support from solidarity activists around the world. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes his action today and all of the brave prisoners who struggle with their bodies to resist occupation and achieve their freedom, and urges the immediate release of Muhammad Allan, Samer Issawi, the re-arrested released prisoners, and all Palestinian political prisoners, as well as the abolition of administrative detention and secret evidence tribunals.

Palestinian doctor denied access to Muhammad Allan as he faces life-threatening infection

16 August 2015

Palestinian doctor Hani Abdeen was prohibited from visiting comatose hunger-striking prisoner Muhammed Allan on 16 August, violating an earlier agreement that would allow him to examine Allan today and report on his medical condition after over two months of hunger strike.

Issa Qaraqe, Minister of Prisoners Affairs, said that Allan is currently also suffering from a gallbladder problem – he has gallstones and fluid is leaking into his intestines and liver, threatening Allan’s life again through infection, noting that Allan may need urgent treatment.

Allan, 31, a lawyer from Einabous village near Nablus, was arrested by Israeli occupation forces in November 2014; he was forcibly taken to his law office and made to show the soldiers his client files. He was ordered to administrative detention without charge or trial; the order was renewed for an additional six months in May, prompting Allan’s strike.

Fellow Palestinian prisoner and administrative detainee waged a 55-day hunger strike that won his release from Israeli jails on 11 July, his second lengthy strike in three years. Adnan spoke to Gideon Levy of Ha’aretz in its 16 August issue; he had a message of support for Allan: “Today you are representing not only our people, you are representing all human beings in the world who love freedom and dignity. You are now an advocate not only for Palestinians, you are for everyone. I love life and so do you. To be released healthy or to be released as a martyr – that is freedom.”

Levy also penned his own piece in Ha’aretz, “Muhammad Allan’s Blood is on our hands,” holding the Israeli state responsible for Allan’s life. “He and his friends have called upon their private, non-violent, doomsday weapon – the hunger strike, because justice is on their side. Because there is no other justice that can excuse their detention, except the justice of the Ashkelon thugs and their ilk: freedom or death, and Israel should have bowed its head in admiration for their determination, their justness and their courage.”

Hussein Shabaneh, the chair of the Palestinian Bar Association, did visit Allan today, as Palestinian lawyers from Jerusalem or who hold Israeli citizenship protested outside Barzilai Hospital, where Allan is held in intensive care under armed guard.

Ahmad Tibi and Osama al-Saadi, Palestinian members of Knesset, were also denied access to visit Allan today along with Dr. Abdeen. Allan’s lawyer, Jamal al-Khatib, noted that before falling into a coma on Friday, 14 August, Allan rejected an offer to imprison him for two years under administrative detention without charge or trial, pledging to continue his strike for freedom.

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Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network reiterates its call for the broadest international action to free Muhammed Allan and his fellow Palestinian prisoners and prevent his torture through force-feeding. Events are upcoming in New York, Berlin, Vancouver and other cities and it is critical that people around the world make their voices heard to hold the Israeli state accountable for the life of Muhammed Allan and release him instantly.

The imprisonment and torture of Allan is part and parcel of the Israeli colonial policy of the mass imprisonment of Palestinians, the attack on the rights of Palestinian prisoners won by long struggle of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, and the attack on Palestinian existence everywhere in Palestine: the denial of Palestinian refugees’ right to return, land confiscation, home demolitions, ethnic cleansing, siege, apartheid, occupation and settler-colonialism.

Muhammed Allan’s situation is an emergency that requires mobilization and action by all, including the escalation of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel on all levels: economic, military, cultural, academic, as urged by the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

Take Action: Demand freedom – not force feeding – for Muhammad Allan!

1. Sign on: Send a letter demanding Allan’s freedom, and that he not be force-fed. Israeli officials must hear the voice of the world demanding that this threat of torture be stopped, and that Allan, imprisoned without charge or trial, be freed.

2. Protest at the Israeli consulate or embassy in your area. Bring posters and flyers about administrative detention and Palestinian hunger strikers and hold a protest, or join a protest with this important information. Hold a community event or discussion, or include this issue in your next event about Palestine and social justice. Please email us at [email protected] to inform us of your action – we will publicize and share news with the prisoners.

3. Boycott, Divest and Sanction. Hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law. Don’t buy Israeli goods, and campaign to end investments in corporations that profit from the occupation. G4S, a global security corporation, is heavily involved in providing services to Israeli prisons that jail Palestinian political prisoners – there is a global call to boycott it. Palestinian political prisoners have issued a specific call urging action on G4S. Learn more about BDS at bdsmovement.net.

Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat urges action to free Muhammad Allan

16 August 2015

The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat urges all of its friends and supporters around the world, and all global movements for justice, freedom and liberation, to take action, protest and demand freedom for Muhammad Allan, Palestinian lawyer held in Israeli administrative detention without charge or trial, now in a coma and struggling for both his freedom and his life after 60 days of hunger strike. We urge all to take to the streets, to escalate the movement for the boycott and isolation of Israel, to defend the life of Allan and demand his freedom – and that of his fellow nearly 6,000 Palestinian political prisoners.

“We hold Israel fully accountable for the life of Muhammad Allan, the heroic imprisoned Palestinian struggler,” said Khaled Barakat, coordinator of the international Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat. “Israel is responsible for his life and must bear the consequences if he dies.”

“Muhammad Allan, if he dies, will not be the first Palestinian executed by Israel within its dungeons, through torture, denial of medical care or forced feeding. Four Palestinian prisoners – Abdul Qader Abul Fahem, Ali al-Jaabari, Rasim Halawa, and Ishaq Maragha – were killed by force-feeding – with which Allan is threatened today, even as he lies in a coma,” Barakat said.

“Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and had their lives taken inside Israeli prisons over decades of occupation, but he would be the first Palestinian prisoner to die on hunger strike. The liberation martyrs whose lives have ben taken by colonizers as they hunger strike for justice and freedom – like Bobby Sands and his 9 Irish comrades in British prison – are immortal symbols of struggle that belong to global movements for justice and liberation,” said Barakat.

“The case of Muhammad Allan illustrates that Palestinians will continue to struggle by all means until they defeat administrative detention. We know that this is a long and brutal battle, as it is a system that serves the interests of the occupation and that they are not willing to relinquish. It is a system that was inherited from the era of British colonialism in Palestine, which means that we hold Britain responsible for Muhammad Allan and for every Palestinian who is and has been held in administrative detention,” Barakat said.

“However,” he noted, “The popular forces of freedom, justice and liberation around the world, marching side by side with the Palestinian people, will be victorious and will bring down administrative detention. And they will be victorious in winning the liberation of Palestinian prisoners and of Palestine itself.”

“Brother Muhammad Allan demonstrates true Palestinian heroism and courage,” Barakat said. “He follows in the steps of many other Palestinian prisoners, using his last resource to confront the occupation, even through hunger. We are witnessing the birth of new young Palestinian leaders in the arena of confrontation with the occupation: Lina Khattab, Khader Adnan, Muhammad Allan. This is the case and experience of every colonized and oppressed people who rise up for their liberation.”

“Finally, Israel must bear the consequences and pay for its crimes. Israel has enjoyed global impunity thanks to the support of the United States and fellow imperial powers. This must come to an end through the efforts of Palestinian resistance and revolution, supported by the people of the world,” Barakat said. “Otherwise, the occupation,killing and torture will continue as business as usual.”

“There is a need to build the international campaign against administrative detention. This should be a priority and part of the efforts of the international movement to boycott Israel, as the prisoners emphasized in their latest statement,” Barakat said. “We need to hear the voices of the world demanding freedom for Muhammad Allan, demanding freedom for our imprisoned leaders.”

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