The United States, with the support of the United Nations and European Union, has imposed sanctions and other economic coercive measures on over 30 percent of the global population, mostly located in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Sanctions are one of the key tools of U.S. imperialism, leading to mass starvation and suffering of peoples in the Global South, while opening up markets to U.S. and European corporations.
The International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades & Economic Coercive Measures will challenge the economic atrocities committed by the United States through the use of the law, highlighting the unlawful, unjust, and colonial nature of economic coercive measures. The Tribunal is co-sponsored by organizations located throughout the world, including the Committee of Anti-Imperialists in Solidarity with Iran, the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples, National Lawyers Guild, the International Association for Democratic Lawyers, Al-Awda Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoner Solidarity Network, Black Alliance for Peace, ANSWER Coalition, People’s Forum, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, CodePink, Sanctions Kill, Frantz Fanon Foundation, Al Massar Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, and the Alliance for Global Justice.
In collaboration with international scholar activists and legal experts, the People’s Tribunal hosted an introductory webinar to discuss the urgent need to take legal action against U.S. sanctions and economic coercive measures session on March 18, 2022.
The speakers in the webinar are:
Dr. Eva Nanopoulos, Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University in London,
Carlos Ron, President of the Simón Bolívar Institute for Peace and Solidarity Among Peoples and Venezuela’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for North America,
Vira Ameli, Interdisciplinary Researcher focused on Public Health in Iran and the Middle East,
Dr. Grasian Mkodzongi, Executive Director at Tropical Africa-Land and Natural Resources Research Institute in Zimbabwe,
Maria Lucrecia Hernández, Attorney and Director of ONG Sures in Venezuela,
Motee Abumusabeh, Political and Media Activist in Gaza, Palestine, and
Moderator: Helyeh Doutaghi, Doctoral Candidate in Law & Legal Studies at Carleton University in Canada
The Palestinian Coordination Group In Gothenburg is calling for a demonstration to draw attention to the Day of the Land, Sunday 27 March at 15:00.
The demonstration starts from Brunnsparken in front of Johannastatyn to Järntorget The event will include various short speeches and cultural events at the gathering places.
Every year, March 30, the Day of the Land is commemorated in Palestine.
On March 30, 1976, protests against the theft of Palestinian land were met by sharp fire from the Israeli army. Many Palestinians were killed, injured and arrested. Since then, the Day of the Land has been marked in Palestine, and around the world, with actions in support of the right to land.
The Spartacus Choir and part of the Motval Choir. saxophone: Kjell Johansson piano: Stefan Almqvist at Brunnsparken at 15:15.
World Music Culture Club, David Bäck – vocals – piano, Suad Al Roubi vocals and Yazan Hassoun vocals and guitar at Järntorget Kl. 16:15.
The struggle for the liberation of Palestine is also a struggle to defeat U.S. imperialism and obtain liberation of the Arab people. Join the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path (Masar Badil) for a discussion of U.S. strategy today — and our response.
Prof. As’ad AbuKhalil will address Palestine’s position vis-a-vis the map of global politics in the face of total official Arab and international indifference to the Palestinian question as well the complacency and complicity of the Palestinian Authority.
AS’AD ABUKHALIL is Professor of Political Science at California State University Stanislaus
Following the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra (CPV) by the French government, all those committed to supporting the tireless and heroic Palestinian resistance unite to denounce this repressive action and to support the French comrades.
According to the government of Emanuel Macron and his interior minister Gerard Darmanin, the collective is accused of “inciting hatred, violence and discrimination”.
The CPV is a collective that has organized concrete and generous solidarity support to the cause of the Palestinian people in France for several years. As a result, Zionist forces have repeatedly pressured the government to suppress their actions.
These pressures, unfortunately, have led to the banning of the CPV. At the same time, the French government continues to refuse to release the Lebanese prisoner Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, in prison in France for over 37 years for having been a pro-Palestinian fighter.
With the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, an authoritarian measure and detrimental to the most basic freedoms of opinion and expression, the aim is to attack organizers that has been supporting the Palestinian resistance for years, especially with its solidarity campaigns with prisoners.
At the same time that Israel is intensifying its colonial and apartheid policies with murders and indiscriminate arrests, this attempt is being made to criminalize and intimidate the entire movement in solidarity with the anti-colonial and anti-racist struggle of the Palestinian people, in France and internationally.
In this context, we believe that a collective, political and public response is more necessary than ever, starting with the denunciation of this repressive climate.
A rally against racism, organized by around twenty Charleroi associations, brought together around a hundred people in Charleroi, Belgium, including the Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine.
Members of the Plate-Former Charleroi-Palestine drew attention to the case of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah , Lebanese Arab struggler for Palestine, the longest-held political prisoner in Europe, locked up for more than 37 years, who, from his prison in Lannemezan, supports the struggles against racism and colonialism in France and around the world.
It was also an opportunity to display our signs against Israeli racism and apartheid and for freedom of action for Palestine, challenging the recent French government dissolutions, essentially bans on, two collectives engaged in Palestine solidarity activism.
The struggle continues, against racism, Zionism and apartheid, for the release of Georges Abdallah and for freedom of action for Palestine. Let’s all take part in campaigns to boycott Israel!
Samidoun Deutschland joined with the Freiheitskomitee Berlin (Freedom Committee Berlin), Komitee für den Anti-Imperialistischen Kampf (Committee for Anti-Imperialist Struggle) and the Netzwerk Freiheit für alle politischen Gefangenen Berlin (Freedom for all Political Prisoners Network) to rally on Friday, 18 March in Berlin for the freedom of all political and revolutionary prisoners.
The spirited, youthful rally began outside Rathaus Neukölln in Berlin, where participants gathered with signs and banners highlighting struggles to free political prisoners in Palestine, India, Turkey and throughout Europe.
Samidoun Deutschland members carried Palestinian flags and banners demanding freedom for Palestinian students.
The rally also highlighted the French state’s persecution of Palestine solidarity organizing. A large banner in support of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, one of two Palestine solidarity groups recently dissolved by the French state, was displayed in the rally, and speakers called for solidarity to resist the dissolution orders that attempt to suppress the Palestinian liberation movement.
Following the rally, participants took to the streets, marching through the neighborhoods of Neukölln and Kreuzberg, drawing widespread attention and support from passers-by and members of the community.
Samidoun Deutschland is continuing to organize throughout Germany to advocate for Palestinian liberation. You can help Samidoun Deutschland today to keep their voice loud and clear and make sure we fill the cities of Germany and Europe with the messages of the Palestinian resistance leadership behind bars. Click here to make a donation to the Samidoun Deutschland sound system campaign!
On Friday, 18 March, activists in New York City gathered outside the French consulate to send a message of solidarity with the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and Comite Action Palestine, two organizations dissolved — essentially banned — by the French government for their Palestine solidarity work.
If a banned organization in France continues to organize events, display its logo or publish on social media, members can be subjected to arrest, fines and even imprisonment. The French government gave only political reasons — support for the boycott of Israel, anti-Zionism, and defense of the Palestinian resistance — for blatantly violating the freedom of expression and association of activists for Palestine.
Samidoun NY/NJ organized the protest action outside the French consulate. The New York City action came alongside a growing series of international protests against this attack on public expression and action in France, including protests and marches in Toulouse, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, Charleroi, Barcelona, Napoli and a number of other cities over the weekend.
Participants in the protest spoke out against the French state’s escalation of attacks on the Palestine movement as well as its ongoing imprisonment of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine whose life is profiled in the documentary film “Fedayin,” has been jailed in France for over 37 years despite being eligible for release since 1999. The US government has been aligned with the French state in keeping Abdallah locked behind bars rather than returned home to his comrades and family in Lebanon.
The Collectif Palestine Vaincra has campaigned tirelessly for Abdallah’s release.
On Wednesday, 30 March — the Palestinian Day of the Land — Samidoun NY/NJ will join Within Our Lifetime – United for Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, Decolonize this Place, CUNY Law Students for Justice in Palestine, Existence is Resistance, the Defund Racism campaign and other organizers to rally outside the headquarters of the “Friends of the IDF” at 5 pm. All supporters of justice in Palestine are invited to join in the New York action.
French president Emmanuel Macron, only weeks after ordering the dissolution — effectively, the ban — of two Palestine solidarity organizations, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and Comite Action Palestine — met with Isaac Herzog, president of the Israeli apartheid regime on Sunday, 20 March. Despite the fact that French-Palestinian citizen, lawyer and human rights defender Salah Hamouri is currently imprisoned by Israel under a three-month “adminnistrative detention” order — that is, imprisonment without charge or trial — Macron chose instead to attack anti-Zionist activists and boast about his censorship of pro-Palestinian, anti-racist voices in France.
Speaking in Toulouse alongside Herzog, Macron declared that “anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are enemies of the Republic,” once again equating racism with anti-racism, and Palestinian liberation with European fascism. Further, he specifically boasted of the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra:
“So, I want to thank you Mr. President, dear Isaac for having responded to my invitation, for being here today with your wife by our side…We are here … to remind together that France and Israel, Israel and France are together determined to defeat terrorism in all its forms and on all fronts, and together we are determined to annihilate anti-Semitism, including that which hides under the mask of anti-Zionism. This is why at the end of 2019, the French Parliament has adopted the definition of anti-Semitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This is why, on March 9, the Council of Ministers pronounced the dissolution of two anti-Semitic collectives, including the Toulouse-based Collectif “Palestine Vaincra.”…. anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism are the enemies of our Republic.”
Macron’s language repeatedly equates Jewish people in France with the state of Israel, while disparaging advocates for justice in Palestine whose work has constantly been characterized and motivated by anti-colonialism and anti-racism. Indeed, the French state’s own allegations against the Collectif never even accuse the Collectif or its members of saying anything defamatory or racist against Jews; instead, the French state “accuses” the Collectif of supporting the boycott of Israel, defending Palestinian resistance, and opposing Zionism.
Meanwhile, Salah Hamouri is locked behind Israeli bars with no charge and no trial against him, while he is fighting for the very right to live in his home city, Jerusalem. Like other Jerusalemites, he is being targeted in the systematic ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem; the Israeli regime has announced that it plans to strip him of his residency. While French officials have declared that Hamouri has the right to live in Jerusalem, Macron took the opportunity not to advocate for a French-Palestinian citizen illegally detained and under threat of expulsion but to instead boast of silencing Palestine solidarity organizing in France.
In addition, two days prior, the French state announced its intention to continue the wave of dissolution orders targeting free expression, not only for Palestine organizing, but for anti-racist/anti-Islamophobia organizations and also for anti-fascist groups — those who are willing to confront actually anti-Semitic Nazi and fascist groups. The Antifascist Group of Lyon and Surroundings was informed on 17 March that a procedure to dissolve their work had begun, after originally being threatened with dissolution in December 2021.
In Toulouse, many marchers participating in the rally against racism on 19 March spoke out against the dissolutions as part and parcel of France’s state racist and colonial policies.
Interview de Nico, ex Collectif Palestine vaincra "il faut une réponse unitaire face aux dissolutions d'organisation" pic.twitter.com/HZTNXe9Fy9
— Le Poing Levé Toulouse (@PoingLeveTlse) March 19, 2022
Speakers discussed the formation of a broad committee to combat the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, involving trade unionists, anti-fascist organizers, student groups, Palestine solidarity activists, community activists, anti-racist organizers and progressive and leftist parties, that will soon announce an international week of solidarity (read the text of the intervention below announcing this committee in Toulouse.)
In Auxerre, AFPS 89 spoke at the rally against apartheid and for peace, denouncing the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and the Comite Action Palestine.
As Macron and the French state escalate their attacks on popular movements for liberation and the Palestinian people, actions in defense of the targeted movements and in support of Palestine continue to spread. Actions in New York, Geneva, Frankfurt, Berlin, Charleroi, Belgium, Stockholm, Naples and many other cities have highlighted the dissolutions to demand an end to French state repression in just the past several days.
Robert Abdallah, the brother of Georges Abdallah, spoke out denouncing Macron’s imperial arrogance in dissolving the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, which has worked tirelessly to free his imprisoned brother, a Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine imprisoned in France for over 37 years.
Speech on the formation of the committee to defend the Collectif Palestine Vaincra from dissolution:
On March 9, the government decided on the final administrative dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and another pro-Palestinian organization. The reasons given are purely political.
Today, this Toulouse anti-racist collective, fighting for equal rights and against the colonization of Palestine, has been officially silenced by the French authorities.
For three years, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra has developed anti-racist and anti-colonialist work in support of the Palestinian people.
This dissolution is a new step in the authoritarian, anti-freedom actions of the French government.
Previously, several Muslim and anti-racist associations were dissolved. Today it is the movement of solidarity with Palestine which is attacked, but also the trade union Sud Éducation 93 and the Anti-Fascist Group of Lyon and Surroundings (GALE) which are targeted by dissolution procedures and threats.
These attacks concern everyone: anti-racists, anti-colonialists, anti-fascists, trade unionists, community activists, progressives. In Toulouse, a Committee against the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra is being set up, bringing together numerous trade union, political and associative organizations in order to prepare a week of mobilization against the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and against the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine on the eve of the collective’s appeal to the Council of State against the dissolution.
Join the mobilization!
An attack on one of us is an attack on all!
Palestine will live, Palestine will win!
Call the French embassy or consulate in your area and speak up about the targeting of CPV! Find the closest French embassy or consulate in your area: https://www.embassy-worldwide.com/country/france/ For easy reference, the French embassy in the US can be reached at +1 (202) 944 6000, the French embassy in Canada at +1 (613) 789-1795, and the French embassy to the UK at [+44] (0) 207 073 1000. Find the embassy near you: https://www.embassy-worldwide.com/country/franceWhen you call, say, “My name is _____ and I am calling from _____. I am calling about the Interior Minister’s statement today that he will dissolve and ban two pro-Palestine organizations. This is an outrageous attack on freedom of expression. I stand with Palestine and with the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, and France should stop these attacks immediately.”
Take an individual or group photo or video with the campaign posters (below), make your own sign and share on social media! Tag us on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and use the hashtag: #SolidaritéCollectifPalestineVaincra
Organizations and activists gathered at the call of the Unitary Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Abdallah for a rally in Paris on Friday, 18 March at the Ménilmontant metro station. They expressed their support for the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and the Comité Action Palestine, two Palestine solidarity groups recently ordered dissolved, or banned, by the French government.
Various organizations, including the Unitary Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Abdallah, Palestine Action Committee, Popular Front of Turkey, DIP, OCML VP, PCRF/UJC, NPA, Rete dei Comunisti, and Chile and Algeria support committees, took to the microphone to express their outrage at the government’s actions and show solidarity with the targeted organizations. Many speakers particularly linked the Palestinian people’s struggle with various struggles inside France and outside confronting imperialism and colonialism and expressing solidarity with political prisoners around the world, from Palestine to Chile to Turkey. Speakers also urged the immediate release of Georges Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab Communist struggler for Palestine imprisoned in France for over 37 years despite being eligible for release since 1999.
Samidoun Région Parisienne participated in the action and displayed banners in solidarity with the Collectif Palestine Vaincra.
Following the demonstration, people were appalled to learn that the French government’s drive to dissolve and ban leftist, antifascist and anti-Zionist organizations is continuing. The Antifascist Group of Lyon and Surroundings was informed on 17 March that a procedure to dissolve their work had begun, after originally being threatened with dissolution in December 2021. Once again, this clearly indicates the French government’s desire to repress and silence progressive forces confronting their reactionary and anti-social policies.
In order to confront these attacks and offenses carried out against our social movements, we must strengthen our ties and reaffirm once more that solidarity is our weapon to achieve victory!
⚠️"Ce jeudi 17 Mars des documents de déclenchement de la procédure de dissolution ont été notifiés à des individus considérés par la préfecture comme appartenant à notre groupe." Notre communiqué sur notre site. ⬇️⬇️⬇️ https://t.co/3MVL1QZdVTpic.twitter.com/jL7fSUwf59
Participants in the protest spoke out against the French state’s escalation of attacks on the Palestine movement as well as its ongoing imprisonment of 
