[News] Rasmea Odeh Breaking the Silence in Berlin

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://samidoun.net/2019/03/rasmea-odeh-breaking-the-silence-in-berlin-rasmeaspricht-rasmeaspeaks/ 



  Rasmea Odeh Breaking the Silence in Berlin: #RasmeaSpricht #RasmeaSpeaks

29 March 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wednesday evening, 27 March, Rasmea Odeh 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/growing-worldwide-support-for-rasmea-odehs-right-to-speak-add-your-statement-rasmeaspricht-rasmeaspeaks/>‘s 
voice and words were heard in Berlin, Germany, despite a harsh, 
repressive campaign that included yet another ban on her speaking in 
person issued by Berlin’s Senator for the Interior. The successful event 
at be’kech in Berlin’s Wedding district brought crowds to the space 
despite a large police presence; the space was so crowded that many 
people stayed outside to watch the event through glass windows.

The evening marked a significant achievement for Rasmea Odeh and all 
those defending the right to organize and advocate for Palestine in 
Berlin <https://facebook.com/rasmeaspricht/>. Despite all attempts to 
prevent it from taking place, Rasmea’s voice was heard in Berlin and 
celebrated by people of conscience.

Once again, as was the case on 15 March 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/last-night-in-berlin-the-attack-on-rasmea-odeh-is-an-attack-on-palestine/>, 
when Rasmea was to join Palestinian poet and former prisoner Dareen 
Tatour 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/defend-palestinian-women-prisoners-under-attack-hear-rasmea-odeh-and-dareen-tatour-tonight-in-berlin/> 
for an evening of solidarity and celebration of Palestinian women’s 
struggle, the venue itself was subject to harassment and threats. 
Another media smear campaign 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/israels-official-anti-bds-ministry-behind-attacks-on-rasmea-odeh/> 
was launched against Rasmea along with attempts to demand that she once 
again be prohibited from speaking.

On Wednesday afternoon, only hours before the event, Berlin Interior 
Senator Andreas Geisel, an SPD politician who had earlier declared that 
speaking “against the state of Israel” crossed a “red line” 
<https://www.berlin.de/sen/inneres/presse/pressemitteilungen/2019/pressemitteilung.793082.php> 
that justified the violation of freedom of speech, once again banned 
Odeh from delivering a public speech 
<https://www.berlin.de/sen/inneres/presse/pressemitteilungen/2019/pressemitteilung.797177.php> 
at the event. However, organizers presented a video from Odeh, ensuring 
that her message and her story would be able to be heard by supporters 
in person and everyone around the world who supports her and the 
struggle for justice in Palestine.

Once again, several vans of police filled the area (although a smaller 
presence than that surrounding the 15 March event). They searched the 
crowd for Rasmea, but left partway through the event after it was clear 
that she was not attending in person. A claimed counter-demonstration by 
pro-apartheid Zionist organizations was not immediately visible, but 
there may have been several participants at the corner of the street.

The moderator of the evening opened the event with a stirring call 
against the silencing of oppressed and marginalized people, especially 
Palestinian women. She noted the growing support received by the event 
and the campaign to defend Odeh by a number of organizations, including 
the Internationale Liga für Menschenrechte, which sent a statement to 
the organization. The event was supported by Samidoun Palestinian 
Prisoner Solidarity Network, Berlin Muslim Feminists, Bündnis gegen 
Rassismus, HIRAK (Palestinian Youth Mobilization, Berlin), The Coalition 
Berlin, Bloque Latinoamericano Berlin, Brot und Rosen international 
socialist women’s organiation, Revolutionäre Internationalistische 
Organisation – Klasse Gegen Klasse, Berlin Against Pinkwashing, Jüdische 
Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost (Jewish Voice for a Just Peace), 
RefrACTa Kollektiv Brasilien-Berlin, BDS Berlin and the Kali feminist 
collective.

The event also included a speech by a Palestinian student on behalf of 
HIRAK, emphasizing that this week also marks the one-year anniversary of 
the Great March of Return in Gaza 
<https://samidoun.net/2018/04/new-yorkers-protest-gaza-massacre-support-great-return-march/>. 
Just this week, Israel has been shelling Gaza, causing further 
destruction after taking hundreds of lives in the past year as 
Palestinians participated in collective, popular protests for their 
right to return and break the siege. She urged people to get involved in 
struggles here in Berlin, including Palestinian community organizing, 
the solidarity movement and the BDS campaign.

The organizers next showed a video from 2013 in which Rasmea speaks 
about her life as a Palestinian woman. The video was made when she 
received the 2013 Outstanding Community Leader award from the Chicago 
Cultural Alliance:

The screening was followed by a 20-minute video presentation – the main 
speech of the night – in which Rasmea discussed her situation in Berlin 
as well as presenting more broadly on Palestinian women, Palestinian 
prisoners and the continuing struggle for liberation. *Full video coming 
shortly!*

As Rasmea spoke, including discussing her personal experience of 
torture, people in the packed room were silent, watching and listening 
closely to the Arabic speech and the subtitles in German and English. 
The conclusion of her speech was met with loud and prolonged applause 
and cheers as the event’s moderator noted that “this is what they did 
not want you to hear.”

The event continued with a cultural evening featuring anti-colonial 
poetry by Wind Ma, a silent theater sketch by Maher Draidi of Almadina 
Theater, a musical performance of songs and guitar by Nicolás Miquea and 
a closing dabkeh performance by the Yafa Dabkeh Troupe. The event 
concluded with a stirring moment as people chanted together, “Viva, viva 
Palestina! Free, free Palestine!”

Rasmea Odeh 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/silencing-rasmea-odeh-an-anti-democratic-attack-on-freedom-of-expression/>, 
born in 1947, is a lifelong struggler for Palestine and a well-known 
feminist organizer and activist. After surviving torture and sexual 
assault under interrogation by occupation forces and serving 10 years in 
Israeli prison, she came to the United States, where she organized over 
800 women in Chicago in the Arab Women’s Committee, a project of the 
Arab American Action Network. In 2013, she was targeted by the FBI and 
U.S. immigration authorities 
<https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/01/rasmea-odeh-verdict-organizing/> and 
accused of lying about her time in Israeli prison, despite the fact that 
it was publicly known; she even testified before a Special Committee of 
the United Nations 
<https://unispal.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/0/68B222A27C07C25F0525658C00691A57> 
about her experience under torture and imprisonment. After a years-long 
court battle that won widespread grassroots support, she was deported to 
Jordan in 2017. She was one of the initial signatories of the call for 
the International Women’s Strike.

After she was invited to speak in Berlin on 15 March, the U.S. 
ambassador (with ties to the German far right) Richard Grenell, Israeli 
Minister of Strategic Affairs Gilad Erdan 
<https://samidoun.net/2017/04/israeli-minister-gilad-erdan-threatens-to-force-hunger-strikers-to-a-field-hospital-isolation-in-negev-desert-prison/>, 
charged with fighting Palestine solidarity and the BDS movement 
internationally, and the Israeli ambassador in Germany launched calls to 
censor her. Media propaganda falsely labeled her an “anti-Semite,” when 
she is in reality a longtime anti-racist struggler who developed strong 
connections with other oppressed communities, particularly the Black 
liberation movement. In the U.S., Angela Davis and Jewish Voice for 
Peace were among her supporters. In this context, Berlin politicians 
yielded to the demands of Trump and Netanyahu, and when Rasmea arrived 
at the event location, she was given a sheaf of papers. Her Schengen 
visa was ordered cancelled and she was directed to leave the country; 
she was banned from speaking at the event.

Most of the allegations in the documents simply restated attacks by 
pro-apartheid media publications, including labeling the BDS campaign 
“anti-Semitic”. The German authorities also claimed that allowing Rasmea 
to speak and retain her visa would “damage the relationship between 
Germany and Israel.” Thus, Rasmea Odeh’s voice, experience and analysis 
was ordered suppressed and silenced through the joint complicity of the 
German, U.S. and Israeli governments.

Rasmea is committed to fighting back in court. Her lawyer, Nadija 
Samour, 
<https://mondoweiss.net/2019/03/international-following-pressure/> said 
that “cancelling a visa based on what has happened so far in the past is 
a completely new concept from a legal point of view.” However, she and 
her supporters are aware that this is not simply a legal question but a 
clear political battle that requires support from the broadest number of 
people in Germany and internationally.

Supporters of Rasmea in the United States, including the US Palestinian 
Community Network, Committee to Stop FBI Repression, Rasmea Defense 
Committee and many other groups have worked to support the growing 
campaign in Germany 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/growing-worldwide-support-for-rasmea-odehs-right-to-speak-add-your-statement-rasmeaspricht-rasmeaspeaks/>, 
and more organizations have been adding their voices to express support 
for Rasmea. By cancelling her Schengen visa, German officials are not 
only attempting to silence Rasmea’s speech in Berlin but to prevent her 
from traveling elsewhere in Europe to speak about her experiences and 
her views – thus denying people across the continent the opportunity to 
hear from a leading transnational feminist and Palestinian organizer.

Rasmea was ordered silenced based on a desire to stop her from sharing 
her words and her experience, telling her story and presenting her 
analysis. The U.S. government is apparently committed to chasing Rasmea 
around the world in order to persecute her wherever she goes; meanwhile, 
the Israeli state continues its intensive attack on people’s right to 
support Palestine everywhere in the world, which has included the 
promotion of anti-BDS laws and falsely labeling Palestinian human rights 
defenders and solidarity groups as “terrorists.” The German state and 
Berlin authorities also chose to join this campaign, issuing two 
separate bans in less than two weeks against Rasmea Odeh to prevent her 
from delivering a live speech about her experiences, her involvement in 
women’s organizing and her view of Palestine.

In many ways, Rasmea’s case does not stand alone; in Germany, it comes 
alongside the Humboldt 3 case and the prosecution of activists 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/humboldt-3-head-to-court-challenging-israeli-apartheid-while-confronting-silencing-attempts/> 
for speaking up against war crimes, attempts to block Palestine events 
from taking place in any location and far-right campaigns particularly 
targeting migrant communities. It also comes alongside the pursuit of 
anti-BDS laws in the US, the use of “anti-terror” frameworks to 
criminalize Palestinian community work and the use of visa denial to 
suppress political and cultural expression, such as in Australia’s 
recent denial of a visa to Palestinian American poet Remi Kanazi. 
<https://www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/overturn-visa-ban-let-palestinain-poet-into-australia?bucket&source=facebook-share-button&time=1553820924&fbclid=IwAR3R2N0oYwOCGp6MfskAKc3uzy4ivWpyAliAOC0DbLFZgQHmjHZUy46F5Qo>

In a particularly disturbing media article containing propaganda against 
<https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/media/jewish-leaders-urge-government-to-deny-speaking-visa-for-terroristsupporting-palestinian-activist/news-story/18ae2edcf9a9a409735039ce5913f935> 
Kanazi, pro-apartheid groups demand that Kanazi is barred for, among 
other things, supporting Rasmea and other Palestinian political 
prisoners. They also use the recent far-right, white-supremacist 
massacre in Christchurch, New Zealand, as a justification for banning 
him, despite the fact that this was an attack targeting Muslims, linked 
to racist, anti-Muslim and anti-Arab propaganda, based on white 
supremacy, and which took the lives of a number of Palestinians 
specifically. It is clear that there is a global attack, backed by Erdan 
and the Israeli government, aimed at all Palestinians and supporters of 
Palestine – and especially aiming to isolate Palestinian prisoners from 
the international movements that continue to defend their rights.

*The campaign to defend Rasmea Odeh is not ending with this event – 
instead, it marks a strong beginning of a resurgent movement against the 
silencing of Palestinian women and for justice in Palestine. It also 
made it clear that Palestinian women, on the frontlines of struggle from 
inside Israeli prisons, to the Great Return March in Gaza to organizing 
for justice in Berlin, will not be silenced. Samidoun Palestinian 
Prisoner Solidarity Network urges people and organizations around the 
world to get involved and join this campaign by following the Facebook 
page, Rasmea spricht <https://facebook.com/rasmeaspricht/> (Rasmea will 
speak) and sending statements of solidarity 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/03/growing-worldwide-support-for-rasmea-odehs-right-to-speak-add-your-statement-rasmeaspricht-rasmeaspeaks/> 
to samidoun at samidoun.net <mailto:samidoun at samidoun.net>.*

-- 
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