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#FreeTheElbit2: Solidarity with Palestine Action political prisoners!

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is republishing and distributing the statement below from Palestine Action on the campaign to #FreeTheElbit2, two Palestine Action political prisoners jailed for taking direct action against the headquarters of Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms manufacturer, on 15 May 2022, the commemoration of the Palestinian Nakba.  These activists have been denied bail, and their next hearing is upcoming on 15 June. We join Palestine Action in affirming that these two Palestine Action activists, Ronnie Barkan and Stavit Sinai, are jailed as political prisoners for resisting the Zionist war machine, and in calling for action to support the campaign to #FreeTheElbit2.

It is no surprise that the British state is imprisoning strugglers for justice in Palestine; after all, it is Britain that continues to provide ongoing support on all levels to Zionist colonization after its responsibility for creating the Nakba, issuing the Balfour declaration and colonizing Palestine through its imperial Mandate. We urge all supporters of Palestine to take the actions below and to protest at British embassies in your area to #FreeTheElbit2! 

Two Palestine Action activists remain imprisoned, after being arrested by police for taking action on May 15th, Nakba Day, the commemoration of the 1948 Nakba which saw 800,000 Palestinians ethnically cleansed from Palestine, at Elbit Systems Bristol HQ Offices. Elbit Systems is Israel’s largest private arms company and markets its weapons as “combat proven” on Palestinians. Alongside seven other activists, they made their way onto the premises of the site, covering the outside of the building in red paint before breaking through an office window and making their way inside while other activists blocked road access to the site.

Once the activists gained access to one of the office rooms inside, they damaged equipment belonging to Elbit. The Bristol location, which is leased from Sedgemoor District Council, is Elbit’s main operational facility in Britain. These activists took direct action against Elbit Systems to demand an end to British complicity with Israeli Apartheid.

The two activists, Ronnie Barkan and Stavit Sinai, are both foreign nationals. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) argued that they were both a flight risk and at risk of “reoffending”, due to having been charged with actions taken against Elbit, during the bombing of Gaza in May 2021. The next opportunity to appeal for their release is at their plea hearing at Bristol Crown Court on 15th June 2021. If they are refused bail at this hearing, they will remain imprisoned until their trial (no date set).

This represents a concerted and intensified attempt by the British State to repress Palestine Action amidst increased actions against Elbit Systems operations throughout the country. Palestine Action’s success to date has been used by the CPS as a means in which to target activists in order to protect Israel’s arms trade in Britain. We refuse to backdown to the crackdown and are calling on our supporters to show their solidarity with the two political prisoners.

Palestine Action declares that these activists are being held as Political Prisoners in the ongoing attempt to repress our growing movement and to defend Israel’s largest arms company from being challenged.

This crackdown of Palestine Action and our activists is a testament to the real threat that Palestine Action pose to Israel’s Arms industry in Britain. But as long as Britain continues to maintain complicity with Israel’s apartheid regime, there will continue to be people of conscience who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle to end it.

74 years of British-backed colonization – it’s time to end the complicity. Palestine Action won’t backdown to the crackdown.

You can Support the political prisoners by:

Stop the Race – Don’t Collaborate with Israeli Apartheid

The following call to action comes from Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) in Montréal, campaigning to stop the participation of the “Israel Premier Tech” team (previously known as “Israel Start-Up Nation“) in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, in Québec on 9 September 2022 and in Montréal on 11 September 2022. Read the call below and click here to sign on at PAJU’s website.

PALESTINIAN AND JEWISH UNITY (PAJU)
AGAINST THE PARTICIPATION OF ISRAEL PREMIER TECH IN THE GRAND PRIX CYCLISTE DE MONTRÉAL ET QUÉBEC

NO TO THE PROMOTION OF ISRAELI APARTHEID AT THE GRAND PRIX CYCLISTE DE MONTRÉAL

Palestinian and Jewish Unity (PAJU) invites you to join the Quebec and Canadian campaign to exclude Israel Premier Tech, self-proclaimed ambassador of Israel, from the Grand Prix Cycliste Montréal and Québec

Québec : September 9 2022

Montréal : September 11 2022

According to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, B’Tslem and the former President of the United States, Jimmy Carter, Israel is an Apartheid state. Apartheid is an international crime against humanity.

Facing such serious crimes, silence means approval. The argument that we should not mix politics and sports is false. Government financing of sports is clearly political when a participant has the aim of promoting Israeli Apartheid.

The Union Cycliste International (UCI) has banned Russian and Belarus teams from its international calendar including the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal and Québec. Most Russian and Belarus athletes have not taken a position on the war in Ukraine.

The Israel Premier Tech (Israel Start-up Nation) has proclaimed itself an ambassador of Israel to the world and requires that all its racers also be ambassadors for Israel. The Grand Prix must not be used to promote Israeli Apartheid.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

We ask you to :

  1. Join the campaign to encourage the organizers of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal and the city of Montreal to reject the participation of Israel Premier Tech in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal and Québec,
  2. To encourage your members and friends to participate in the campaign.
  3. If the organizing committee and the city of Montreal allow Israel Premier Tech to take part in the race, we ask you to join our non-violent activities to stop the normal functioning of the race.

Join the campaign: https://paju.org/grand-prix-cycliste-montreal/

Samidoun to participate in International League of Peoples’ Struggle 5th Assembly in Canada

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is preparing for its participation in the 5th Assembly of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle in Canada. In addition to joining other organizers for Palestine and global justice movements on a series of panels and workshops, it is organizing a meeting for chapters and supporters throughout Canada to strategize about Samidoun’s work to struggle internationally to support the liberation of Palestinian political prisoners.

The meeting will also discuss the boycott movement as well as the campaign of solidarity with the Lebanese Communist struggler imprisoned in France, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, and Palestinian and Arab prisoners in imperialist and reactionary regime prisons.

Samidoun has been a part of the ILPS since Samidoun’s founding around 10 years ago. As a member of the ILPS, Samidoun works to confront U.S. imperialism and expose the ongoing crimes of the colonial occupier against Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails. Through the ILPS, Samidoun builds its relationships with organizations and movements challenging U.S. and Canadian imperialism, especially building ties to strengthen the movement to liberate political prisoners in occupied Palestine, the Philippines and everywhere around the world.

In 2015, Mohammed Khatib, coordinator of Samidoun in Europe, participated in the international assembly of the ILPS in Manila, the Philippines, joining in the establishment of the Palestine-Philippines Friendship Association and many global campaigns for solidarity with political prisoners around the world, especially in the Philippines, occupied Palestine and India.

The ILPS includes about 350 parties, organizations and international associations that works to confront imperialism and militarism around the world, challenging hegemony, economic and political domination internationally while confronting racism, colonialism and repression in each country, especially attacks on the rights of the popular and working classes, migrants and refugees .

The conference discusses the reality of Canadian imperialism as a primary strategic partner of the American empire, and highlights the role of Canadian companies in exploiting and plundering the wealth of Indigenous peoples, as well as in Asia, Africa and Latin America, while giving exceptional importance to the liberation struggle and comprehensive resistance in the Philippines and occupied Palestine.

Speakers at the conference will also include Hanna Kawas, president of the Canada Palestine Association, speaking about Canadian imperialism and Palestine, historically and at present, and Palestinian writer Khaled Barakat, co-founder of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, speaking about Indigenous struggle internationally, alongside urban indigenous organizer Natalie Knight.

This conference is taking place as Palestinian writer Barakat and Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network are confronting Zionist campaigns of harassment and anti-Palestinian racism in Canada. The Canada Palestine Association in Vancouver is organizing campaign in solidarity with Samidoun and Palestinians targeted for repression in the face of smear campaigns that aim to criminalize the Palestinian resistance and the Palestine solidarity movement.

Follow this link to learn more and register for the conference

Samidoun statement to Berlin demonstration against police repression

Samidoun in Berlin participated in a demonstration on Friday, 27 May against police repression. The demonstration, organized together with leftist German, Turkish and Kurdish groups, challenged a series of repressive acts by Berlin police throughout May, including multiple bans on Palestinian demonstrations, attacks on Kurdish protests and the Revolutionary May 1 march and bans on Soviet flags at the commemoration of the victory over fascism on May 8.

A Samidoun comrade delivered the following speech to the rally:

Dear comrades, warm greetings to all of you.

First of all, on behalf of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, I would like to greet all political prisoners in Germany, prisoner Georges Ibrahim Abdallah in France and the political prisoners imprisoned in Turkey, Greece, the Philippines and in the prisons of the Arab regimes.

We all stand here, Arabs, Kurds, Turks and Germans, students and workers, believing in our international struggle and the justice of the struggles of our peoples. We are fighting together against oppression, united in an international coalition that opposes the brutality and violence of the German police and the apparatus of oppression and systematic state terror against our struggle. We stand united in the face of these attempts to prevent us from exercising our most basic rights, namely to express our opinions in a country that claims to be democratic!

This terror, repression and violence carried out by the police and the government are nothing but a blatant expression of these institutions’ fear of the voices of justice, freedom and resistance.

I would like to express some positions on behalf of Samidoun Network and the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement:

*Despite the policy of isolation, repression and terror, we at Samidoun Network promise the political prisoners and our Palestinian people that we will continue the struggle and mobilization because of our absolute belief in justice and freedom. We say to Israel and Germany: today, after all these attacks, we are stronger and more robust and we are building our revolutionary experiences, which enables us to continue the struggle and not to capitulate and succumb to the policies of European occupation and colonialism.

* The classification of the Samidoun network as a “terrorist organization” by the Zionist occupation will not change our positions in the slightest. Rather, we say that the real terrorist is the terrorism of the state, the police, colonialism and its instruments, and that it must be countered with revolutionary actions. As for resistance in all its forms, it is continuous and in constant development, and it is the right of the Palestinian people and all oppressed peoples.

“Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea!” is for us not only a slogan of justice and liberation and confrontation with Zionism and imperialism. The liberation of Palestine, all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, is a project that we work on every day and it is not just mere words. We believe that our Palestinian people will continue to struggle until victory, return and liberation.

* We invite all of you and all progressive and revolutionary forces in Germany and Europe to participate as broadly as possible in the alliance against repression, to oppose this repression and violence and to provide an opportunity for the unity and collective work of all revolutionary forces.

We repeat what the prisoner Georges Ibrahim Abdallah said: Together we are victorious, and we are victorious only together.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

28 May, Webinar: Tell FIFA to Kick Out Israeli Apartheid

Tell FIFA to Kick Out Apartheid! Join the webinar on the campaign 

Webinar: Saturday, May 28, 10 AM PT, 1 PM ET, 8 PM Palestine

Register: https://bit.ly/ApartheidFreeFIFAWebinar

Join Panelists

Roger Waters, musician & activist

Gonzalo Boye, former head of the legal unit of the Palestinian Football Association

Jonathan Kuttab, cofounder of Al-Haq & Exec Director of FOSNA
and others

English with Spanish and Arabic translation.

Webinar initiated by Just Peace Advocates and Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA)

Read the statement on FIFA here, endorsed by Samidoun and over 50 other organizations: https://www.justpeaceadvocates.ca/fifa/

Samidoun statement in solidarity with MEP Manu Pineda, denied entry to occupied Palestine

Khaled Barakat and Charlotte Kates with Manu Pineda, MEP Photo: Izquierda Unida Europa

Last Monday, a European Parliament mission to occupied Palestine was to begin, meaning that an official delegation would observe first hand, from the beginning of the pandemic, the consequences of the apartheid imposed by the Zionist regime specifically focusing on the West Bank, including Jerusalem. A few days before this visit took place, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied entry to Manu Pineda, the chair of the European Parliament’s EU-Palestinian Relations Committee, which has led to the cancellation of the entire delegation’s visit.

This is not the first time that Israel has denied access to representatives of foreign countries or institutions that maintain diplomatic relations with the Zionist state. In August 2019, it did not allow entry to two U.S. Democratic Members of Congress, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. The EU Delegation to Gaza was also prohibited and expelled, and for more than a decade they have not allowed access to Gaza for anyone from the European Parliament so as to avoid any report on the situation of Palestinians living there.

https://twitter.com/ManuPineda/status/1528333192515788802

It is not by chance that the entry ban comes after Manu Pineda brought the murder of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh to the plenary session of the European Parliament. The Zionist entity maintains by all means at its disposal its policy of opacity and enforced silence: it assassinates journalists and international activists, imprisons aid workers and attempts by all means to deny Palestinians the ability to expose Zionist colonisation and apartheid under which they suffer and struggle to bring to an end. Israel seeks complete control of the Palestinian territory to continue its Zionist expansion plan that includes physical control but also information control that operates through concealment, propaganda and whitewashing strategies.

At its core, the Israeli project requires the oppression of the Palestinian people and the control of their land. These are an essential and necessary part of the Zionist system. Therefore, the regime blocks any attempt to investigate its crimes; even if it comes from the same EU which has pampered it since its foundation, that is still a preferential trading partner and which has always looked the other way to the colonial barbarism imposed in Palestine, without daring to impose any sanction against this apartheid state.

From Samidoun we show our full support to all the representatives of the Delegation, to all the groups that have signed the joint statement of rejection and especially to Manu Pineda, who has been fighting for years to raise the voice of the Palestinian people in Europe.

We demand that, in the face of this tacit sanction, the European Parliament urgently push for sanctions and international isolation of the Zionist state. We expect the European Parliament to recognize that it is the responsibility of all the signatory states of the Geneva Convention to take measures to force the outlaw state of Israel to return to international legality, to comply with UN resolutions, to end the military occupation, apartheid and colonisation, to return all stolen lands, to return the Palestinian refugees expelled during the Nakba and to provide justice and reparations.

Despite all this, the Palestinian people remain rooted to their land and are still resisting. We will continue to unconditionally support their legitimate struggle for their liberation.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Samidoun salutes Japanese revolutionary Fusako Shigenobu upon her liberation

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Japanese internationalist and revolutionary, Fusako Shigenobu, on the day of her liberation in Tokyo, alongside her daughter May and all of the comrades and friends who have stood by this courageous freedom fighter throughout nearly 22 years in Japanese prisons.

Like Georges Abdallah in France, Fusako Shigenobu is and was an internationalist struggler for the liberation of Palestine, deeply engaged in the revolutionary movement that swept the world and found expression through direct engagement in anti-imperialist struggle, particularly the Palestinian struggle. Fusako is a co-founder of the revolutionary organization, the Japanese Red Army (JRA), which struggled for a revolutionary future for Japan as well as working hand in hand with Palestinian revolutionaries in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for a liberated Palestine.

Fusako Shigenobu worked directly with Ghassan Kanafani when she worked with the PFLP’s public and international relations office where Al Hadaf, the Front’s magazine, was published. She facilitated the making of the film, “Red Army/PFLP Declaration of World War” and wrote many reports and calls to action for Japanese leftist newsletters and magazines, urging action for Palestine.

Three Japanese fighters for Palestine took part in a military operation at al-Lydd airport (“Ben Gurion Airport”) and had planned to sacrifice their lives in the operation. One fighter, Kozo Okamoto, however, was captured and imprisoned for decades until being released in a prisoner exchange with the Palestinian resistance.

Fusako was forced to live underground, where she gave birth to and raised her daughter, May Shigenobu, while serving as the leader of the Japanese Red Army. While the JRA engaged in armed struggle, it eventually became an organization engaged in grassroots solidarity organizing in support of Palestinian liberation. Fusako was detained in Japan in 2000 in Osaka and taken to Tokyo; she has been imprisoned since that time, writing books and poetry. She has continued to hold firm to her anti-imperialist principles and her commitment to Palestinian liberation.

Fusako Shigenobu’s legacy of internationalist commitment and sacrifice for Palestinian liberation is an honorable, inspirational life of struggle that reminds all of us of our responsibility to act, to organize and to resist imperialism. On this day of her liberation, we salute her and all those who have struggled alongside her, and we pledge to act to move the day forward of the liberation of all prisoners of the Palestinian cause and the anti-imperialist struggle, from the Zionist jails to the imperialist prisons of the U.S. and France, and beyond.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!

Read the bio of Fusako Shigenobu below prepared by Fusako’s daughter May and fellow comrades, and follow the Instagram account @freedomfighterfu and the Facebook Fusako Shigenobu page for more details.

Fusako Shigenobu Bio/Story

Fusako Shigenobu (1945- ) is a political prisoner, poet, writer, mother, and revolutionary fighter for the liberation of Palestine. She was imprisoned for 21.5 years after dedicating her life to the fight against global imperialism.

She joined the student movement in the late 1960s while attending night school at Meiji University in Tokyo and gradually became committed to revolutionary politics, and later joined the Red Army Faction (RAF) in 1969. The RAF was a communist party that advocated for revolution against the imperialist governments of the U.S. and Japan. Fusako became one of the senior leaders in 1970 and was tasked with starting an International Relations Bureau.

In 1971, Fusako left Japan due partially to her disagreement with Mori Tsuneo, the new default leader of RAF after mass arrests of its leadership. But the main reason for leaving Japan was to seek international solidarity with other ongoing revolutions and struggles against imperialism around the world. She headed to the Middle East after she learned about the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation.

Upon arriving in Lebanon on March 1, 1971, Fusako started working with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a secular Marxist-Leninist organization founded by Palestinian doctor George Habash. Fusako started her solidarity work at the PFLP’s Public Relations office and magazine publication center, Al Hadaf. This was an era with very limited access to media and information, so her main focus was dispersing the information she gained about the Palestinian struggle and about the situation in the Middle East back to Japan by writing reports for Japanese leftist newspapers and magazines, as well as corresponding with different activists, artists, medics, journalists, and other specialists to encourage them to come and volunteer in the Palestinian camps or inform the Japanese public and create grassroots support.

In May 1971, she helped introduce Masao Adachi and Koji Wakamatsu to the Palestinian freedom fighters Fidayeen and facilitated the making of their film Red Army/PFLP Declaration of World War. She accompanied them to Jordan’s Jarash mountain Palestinian camp where they filmed the first-ever footage of Palestinian fighters in the Fidayeen’s daily life. These Fidayeen were massacred only two days after they left.

On May 30, 1972, three Japanese men volunteered to take part in a military operation at Lydda Airport (known to Israelis as Ben Gurion Airport ) that targeted Aharon Katzir, the lead scientist for Israel’s biological weapons. Twenty-five civilians were killed in the crossfire with Israeli security forces. Israel denied access to an international inquiry commission to investigate how so many civilians were killed in the incident. An independent investigation would have revealed who was responsible for killing civilians.

The three Japanese volunteers had planned to sacrifice their lives during the operation by using hand grenades, but one participant Kozo Okamoto survived and was captured. In the Israeli interrogation, it was revealed that he was a Red Army Faction (RAF) member.  The three volunteers called themselves the Arab Red Army, and this was leaked to the Israeli media. The Israeli media named them the Japanese Red Army and thus the name existed before the organization came into existence in 1974.

Fusako was forced underground in fear of Israeli reprisal against the Japanese working with the Palestinian liberation movement. Even though Fusako had no involvement in the operation, Israel attempted to assassinate her by bombing the buildings where she resided. I Decided to Give Birth to You Under an Apple Tree, 2001).

Around this time, she became pregnant with her daughter who was born on March 1, 1973. Fusako and her daughter May lived underground for the next 28 years. May was named after the Japanese word for revolution (Kaku-mei) with the Kanji character meaning “life.”(命)

While remaining underground, the Japanese volunteers for the PFLP decided to create a political organization in 1974. Fusako became the leader and spokesperson for this internationalist leftist revolutionary organization that took on the name Japanese Red Army (and Arab-Red Army in its early stages). They conducted several operations against capitalist-imperialist entities such as the Shell corporation in Singapore (1974), as well as demanding the release of political prisoners by occupying the French Embassy in the Hague (1974) and the US Consulate in Kuala Lumpur in (1975).

After the JRA became an independent entity in 1974, it sought to ensure that civilians would not be harmed in any future operations. After a change in policy, all their militaristic operations ceased by the late 1980s. The group decided to continue their work by focusing on grassroots support and solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Fusako states, “The reasons we aborted the 1970s-style armed struggle was because along with the UN recognition of Palestinians (and due to the many deaths) my thinking was to cherish life in every struggle.”  

Fusako authored 10 books while living underground and in prison, including a book of poetry. In her first book, My Love, My Revolution (1974)Fusako wrote: “I would like to see people brought up to help each other regardless of borders.”

In November 2000, Fusako was arrested in Osaka and taken to Tokyo. On many occasions, Fusako has publicly taken accountability for past JRA actions and apologized to all those unnecessarily harmed. On April 14, 2001, she dissolved the Japanese Red Army and stated she would continue the same work in Japan through legal means. The government charged her with two counts of passport forgery and alleged that she must have  “conspired” in the planning of the 1974 hostage-taking operation at the French Embassy in the Hague (an operation that is well known to have been planned by the PFLP Waddie Haddad and led by Carlos, which injured one guard). The prosecution presented no concrete evidence of Fusako’s involvement and relied heavily on forced confession statements taken in the 1970s that were retracted by those witnesses on the stand during the trial. Disregarding such retractions,  the judge sentenced her in 2005 to 20 years of imprisonment for possibly conspiring a “attempted manslaughter”.

Akin to other political prisoners, Fusako has been excessively punished because she openly challenges the legitimacy of the Japanese monarchy and government for perpetuating imperial systems of domination and discrimination. From prison, she wrote, “Japan is not a divine nation; we should become a humane nation.” (December 2000)

In 2008, she was diagnosed with colon and intestinal cancer and underwent three surgeries. In a 2017 letter from Hachioji Medical Prison in Tokyo, Shigenobu writes:

“If anti-nuclear protestors and anti-war protestors can join forces, they can change the future. I am hopeful…You could say that the world is ripe for revolution, in material terms. As long as humanity continues to be denied, the global humanist revolution will surely take place in a future generation.”

26 May, Manchester: Emergency Demonstration for Palestinian Hunger Striking Prisoners

Thursday, May 26
5:30 pm
Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester
Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd0h69Jqt1Z/

All out to demonstrate on Thursday 26th 5:30pm.

The Palestinian prisoners Khalil Awawdah and Raed Rayyan have been on hunger strike for 80 days and 45 days respectively. They continue their hunger strike in protest of their adminstrative detention without charge or trial. As part of the Israeli prisons procrastination policy, the trial date of Ahmad Manasra is now on 19th of June meaning he will be in solitary confinement for one more month, making it 6 months in isolation.

We demand freedom for the hunger striking prisoners, Ahmad Manasra, and all Palestinian political prisoners!

Most recently, the Israeli offensive force has shot dead Amjad Fayed 17 year old. Confrontations are happening against the occupation all over Palestine, demolitions are happening everyday, and Shireen Abu Akleh’s death still pains the heart.

#FreePalestine
#Palestine
#freekhalil
#freeahmadmanasra
#BDS
#Freepalestinianprisoners

Supported by:
Youth Front For Palestine,
Manchester Palestine Action,
Manchester PSC,
United 4 Palestine
People for Palestine Manchester,
Manchester Youth for Palestine,
Manchester Stands,
BDS UoM,
Arthur Solutions,
Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine,
Palestinian Forum In Britain, Manchester,
Greater Manchester Stop the War Coalition,
Greater Manchester Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

27 May, London: Emergency Protest for Palestinian prisoners

Friday, 17 May
5:30 pm
Israeli Embassy, London W8 4QB
Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd1VdotghxB/

EMERGENCY PROTEST FOR PALESTINIAN PRISONERS

Why?

Khalil Awawdeh, father of 4 has been on hunger strike for over 80 days.

Raed Rayyan has been on hunger strike for over 44 days.

Ahmad Manasra has been imprisoned since the age of 13. He is now 21.

We are calling for their immediate release!!!
Looking forward seeing you there. Please share this message around 📨
#FreeThemAll 🇵🇸
🖊 Any questions contact @essad_48 via Instagram or 07340540498 via WhatsApp.

25 May, Montreal: Demonstration to free Palestinian hunger strikers

Wednesday, 25 May
6:30 pm
Guy Concordia and Maisonneuve
Montreal, Quebec
Info: https://www.instagram.com/p/Cd6NjwtOXnm/

Join the Palestinian Youth Movement in Montreal in demanding the immediate release and freedom of Palestinian political prisoners who are under administrative detention — Khalil Awawdeh and Raed Rayyan. Refusing to comply to Zionists’ attempts to silence and repress, Awawdeh has been on hunger strike for 81 days (as of May 23rd) and Rayyan has been on hunger strike for 46 days (also as of May 23rd).

We will be gathering on Wednesday May 25th, at the intersection of Guy Concordia and Maisonneuve at 6:30pm to amplify their voices of resistance.

There are currently over 4,500 Palestinian political prisoners detained by the Zionist Occupation forces. This mass incarceration — with no release date in sight, consistent psychological abuse, denial of family visit, and excessive use of solitary confinement — is a collective punishment to repress all attempts at Palestinian Liberation. In these conditions, hunger strikes are often the only available forms of protesting imprisonment.

MONTRÉAL:
Rejoignez le Mouvement de la jeunesse palestinienne à Montréal pour demander la libération immédiate des prisonniers politiques palestiniens qui sont en détention administrative – Khalil Awawdeh et Raed Rayyan. En refusant de se soumettre aux attaques des sionistes pour les réduire au silence et à la répression, Awawdeh est en grève de la faim depuis 81 jours (en date du 23 mai) et Rayyan est en grève de la faim depuis 46 jours (également en date du 23 mai).

Nous nous rassemblerons le mercredi 25 mai, à l’intersection des rues Guy Concordia et Maisonneuve à 18h30 pour amplifier leurs voix de résistance.

Il y a actuellement plus de 4 500 prisonniers politiques palestiniens détenus par les forces d’occupation sionistes. Cette incarcération massive – sans aucune date de libération en vue, avec des abus psychologiques constants, le refus des visites familiales et le recours excessif à l’isolement – est une punition collective visant à réprimer toute tentative de libération de la Palestine. Dans ces conditions, les grèves de la faim sont souvent les seules moyens disponibles pour protester contre l’emprisonnement.