[Pnews] 8 Years After the Attack on Jericho Prison: Free Ahmad Sa'adat and All Palestinian Prisoners

Sat Mar 15 15:59:33 EDT 2014

*_ 
<http://freeahmadsaadat.org/2014/03/15/eight-years-after-the-attack-on-jericho-prison-free-ahmad-saadat-and-all-palestinian-prisoners/>_*

On March 14-15, 2006, eight years ago, Israeli military forces 
surrounded the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho 
<http://freeahmadsaadat.org/2006/03/14/urgent-call-to-action-occupation-forces-attack-jericho-prison/>, 
where Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat was imprisoned with his 
comrades, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar and Hamdi 
Qur'an, attacking and destroying the prison itself while abducting the 
Palestinian prisoners of freedom held inside. While in Jericho, Sa'adat 
and his comrades -- and fellow prisoner Fouad Shubaki -- were held under 
United States and British guard, who left Jericho prison in advance, 
knowing that it would soon come under heavy attack from Israeli weaponry 
(often itse*_Eight Years After the Attack on Jericho Prison: Free Ahmad 
Sa'adat and All Palestinian Prisoners 
<http://freeahmadsaadat.org/2014/03/15/eight-years-after-the-attack-on-jericho-prison-free-ahmad-saadat-and-all-palestinian-prisoners/>_*lf 
US-manufactured, funded and supplied.)

Sa'adat and his comrades were kidnapped as the Israeli army laid siege 
for twelve hours, attacking the Palestinian Authority prison ith 
bulldozers and tanks, killing two Palestinians and injuring twenty-three 
more. Eight years on, as Sa'adat and his comrades number among 5200 
Palestinian political prisoner <http://addameer.org/>s behind bars of 
the occupation, it is more urgent than ever that people act and demand 
their freedom, and the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners. We 
particularly note the crisis of sick prisoners facing death 
<http://samidoun.ca/2013/11/urgent-action-demand-release-and-proper-medical-care-for-ill-palestinian-prisoners/> behind 
prison walls.

Today, Ahmad Sa'adat called for escalating the campaign, focusing 
specifically on the sick prisoners suffering medical neglect and abuse 
in the dungeons of the occupation, urging international exposure of the 
crimes of the occupation in order to "save the lives of the prisoners 
held for slow death in the Ramle prison clinic."

This anniversary demands, once more, that it is long past time to bring 
the Palestinian Authority's shameful, dangerous, threatening policy of 
security cooperation with the Zionist state to an end. This policy is 
responsible for the imprisonment of Sa'adat and his comrades in a 
Palestinian Authority prison to begin with; it plays a significant role 
in continued suppression of resistance. Its echoes are felt in the 
ongoing arrest raids and assassinations targeting Palestinian activists. 
Sa'adat and his comrades were not abducted from their home but from a PA 
jail which had held them -- contrary to Palestinian law and Palestinian 
court orders -- for over four years.

Furthermore, the case of Ahmad Sa'adat and his comrades highlights the 
central complicity and responsibility of the U.S. and British states, 
and their historical and present-day imperial and colonial interests in 
Palestine, in the imprisonment of Palestinian leaders and fighters and 
the colonization of Palestine by the Zionist movement. United States and 
British guards' presence was justified as "protection," when in fact 
they left in a coordinated fashion immediately prior to the attack of 
occupation forces, leaving an open area for their assault. This 
collusion must be exposed once more, particularly when Palestinian 
Authority officials seek to accept imperial "NATO forces" on Palestinian 
land suppressing resistance <http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/18505>.

Meanwhile, on the political level, the US not only funds and provide the 
weaponry that attacks, abducts and assassinates Palestinians, but 
provides the critical political foundation for the so-called 
"negotiations" process 
<http://www.alternativenews.org/english/index.php/politics/politico/7727-palestinian-leftwing-forces-reject-us-lead-negotiations> that 
threatens the core of the Palestinian cause, the right of return of 
Palestinian refugees, and seek to impose a defeatist solution upon the 
Palestinian people to serve the interests of US imperialism.

And it should not be forgotten that some of the earliest pages of 
Palestinian prisoners' poetry were written in British jails 
<http://newjerseysolidarity.org/resources/kanafani/kanafani4e.html> as 
they were imprisoned en masse as they fought the colonialism of the 
British and the Zionist movement in the 1920s and 1930s, and that 
Palestinians were detained without charge and their homes demolished by 
British military orders as a British lord sought to grant the land of 
Palestine <http://www.al-awda.org/balfour_legacy.html> to the settler 
colonial Zionist movement.

Yet, despite these forces arrayed against the Palestinian liberation 
movement and resistance, eight years after the abduction of Ahmad 
Sa'adat and his comrades, the resilience and steadfastness of 
Palestinian prisoners remains legendary. They are an international 
symbol of political steadfastness in the face of colonialism. Their 
names echo in salute to comrades in the struggle for liberation around 
the world: Nelson Mandela, Bobby Sands, Victor Jara.

And the call for the freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat is also a call for the 
liberation of all prisoners of racism, imperialism and settler 
colonialism: from Leonard Peltier <http://www.leonardpeltier.net/>, 
Mumia Abu Jamal <http://www.freemumia.com/>, and Oscar Lopez Rivera 
<http://www.prolibertadweb.org/oscar-lopez-rivera>, to Zara Alvarez 
<http://samidoun.ca/2013/11/zara-alvarez-philippines-political-prisoner-struggling-for-justice/>, 
Ricardo Palmera <http://www.freericardopalmera.org/>, the Cuban Five 
<http://freethefive.org/>, and every prisoner of freedom held for 
seeking the liberation of their people. It must also be a call for the 
freedom of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah 
<http://liberonsgeorges.over-blog.com/> and all Palestinian political 
prisoners held in international jails; Abdallah has been victimized for 
over 28 years in French prison on trumped-up charges and remains 
imprisoned today because of the power of US imperialism to undercut even 
French court rulings.

*The valiant struggle of Palestinian prisoners achieved the end of 
isolation of Sa'adat and fellow Palestinian leaders after over three 
years in a mass hunger strike. Their daily confrontation with the 
occupation behind bars must remind all of us internationally of our 
duties to seek justice, freedom and liberation for these thousands of 
Palestinians and for the self-determination, return, and liberation of 
the entire land and people of Palestine itself.*

*Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat*

*Take Action!*

1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your 
location 
<http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/abouttheministry/pages/web%20sites%20of%20israeli%20missions%20abroad.aspx> and 
demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi 
Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar, Hamdi Qur'an, and all Palestinian political 
prisoners.

2. Distribute the free downloadable Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat 
materials <http://freeahmadsaadat.org/resources/> in your community at 
local events.

3. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human 
rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly 
to demand that prisoners' rights are recognized. Email the ICRC, whose 
humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at 
JER_jerusalem at icrc.org <mailto:JER_jerusalem at icrc.org>.

4. Use the form 
<http://freeahmadsaadat.org/2014/01/05/freedom-weeks-call-to-action-january-15-30-2014/#event> to 
let the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat know about your local action or 
email us at campaign at freeahmadsaadat.org 
<mailto:campaign at freeahmadsaadat.org>.

*WHO IS AHMAD SA'ADAT?*

Ahmad Sa'adat <http://freeahmadsaadat.org/>, the General Secretary of 
the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was elected to his 
position in 2001 following the assassination of the previous General 
Secretary, Abu Ali Mustafa, on August 27, 2001 by a U.S.-made Apache 
missile shot from an Israeli military helicopter as he sat in his office 
in Ramallah. PFLP fighters retaliated by assassinating Rehavam Ze'evi, 
the racist extremist Israeli tourism minister and head of the Moledet 
party, notorious for his political platform based on the "transfer" or 
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, on October 17, 2001.

Sa'adat was abducted by Palestinian Authority security forces after 
engaging in a meeting with PA officials under false pretenses in 
February 2002, and was held in the Muqata' PA presidential building in 
Ramallah until April 2002, when in an agreement with Israel, the U.S. 
and Britain, he and four of his comrades were held in the Palestinian 
Authority's Jericho prison, under U.S. and British guard.

He remained in the PA jails, without trial or charge, an imprisonment 
that was internationally condemned, until March 14, 2006, when the 
prison itself was besieged by the occupation army and he and his 
comrades were kidnapped. While imprisoned in the PA jail in Jericho, he 
was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council. Since that time, he 
has been held in the prisons of the occupation and continually refused 
to recognize the illegitimate military courts of the Israeli occupation. 
He was sentenced to thirty years in prison on December 25, 2008 solely 
for his political activity, including membership in a prohibited 
organization, holding a post in a prohibited organization, and incitement.

Born in 1953, Sa'adat is the child of refugees expelled from their home 
in the village of Deir Tarif, near Ramleh, in the 1948 Nakba by 
attacking Zionist forces and is himself a refugee denied his right to 
return along with six million others in Palestine, in the refugee camps 
in the Arab world and in exile and diaspora internationally. A math 
teacher by training, he is married to Abla Sa'adat, herself a noted 
activist, and is the father of four children. He has been involved in 
the Palestinian national movement since 1967, when he became active in 
the student movement. Prior to his abduction from Jericho in 2006, he 
had been held at various times as a political prisoner in Israeli jails, 
for a total of ten years.

*Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat*

*http://freeahmadsaadat.org <http://freeahmadsaadat.org/>*

*info at freeahmadsaadat.org <mailto:info at freeahmadsaadat.org>*

*Twitter: @FreeAhmadSaadat*

This is a campaign of human rights activists and concerned people from 
around the world, coming together to address the travesty of justice 
taking place, and calling for justice and freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and 
all Palestinian political prisoners. We are asking you now to join us in 
building international solidarity for the freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat and 
his fellow Palestinian prisoners. Ahmad Sa'adat is a prisoner of 
conscience, subject to the illegitimate military courts of an illegal 
military occupation.

Hundreds of organizations and activists around the world have signed on 
to the campaign's calls for freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and his fellow 
Palestinian prisoners here. *Learn more about the campaign and its 
supporters at our website. 
<http://freeahmadsaadat.org/campaign-supporters/>*

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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