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<div style="display: block;" id="reader-header" class="header"> <b><small><small><small><a
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<h1 id="reader-title">Palestinian Prisoners Day Statement: In
Struggle, Towards Liberation</h1>
<div id="reader-credits" class="credits">April 17, 2016<br>
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<p><span>On 17 April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Samidoun
Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the
struggle of <a
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/report-647-palestinians-arrested-in-march-750-now-held-in-administrative-detention/">7,000
Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails</a>:
struggling for not only their own freedom, but for the
freedom of the land and people of Palestine.
Palestinian prisoners struggle through torture,
solitary confinement, abuse, repression, denial of
family visits, arbitrary imprisonment and brutal
racism on a daily basis. Yet they not only persist and
exemplify “samidoun” – those who are steadfast – the
Palestinian prisoners are leaders of the Palestinian
liberation movement, and of the global struggle for
justice and liberation.</span></p>
<p><span>Each year, on 17 April, in Palestine and around
the world, Palestinians and supporters of justice in
Palestine come together to review the situation of
Palestinian prisoners and demand their freedom. It is
an opportunity to renew our work and our activity to
free Palestinian prisoners, and to examine the last
year of struggle, inside and outside the prison walls.</span></p>
<p><span>Imprisonment has always been a weapon of
colonialism in Palestine. From the British colonizers
who suppressed Palestinian revolts through mass
imprisonment, home demolitions, and execution – and
who first imposed the <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/briefing_note/join/2012/491444/EXPO-AFET_SP%282012%29491444_EN.pdf">“emergency
law” of administrative detention </a>used against
Palestinians today – to the Zionist colonizers who for
68 years have imposed a system of occupation,
apartheid, criminalization, racism and dispossession
upon the Palestinian people, the colonizers of
Palestine have imprisoned strugglers, leaders,
fighters, and visionaries. Imprisonment targets all
sectors of the Palestinian people: workers,
strugglers, teachers, journalists, doctors and health
workers, farmers, fishers; from Jerusalem, the West
Bank, the Gaza Strip, Occupied Palestine ’48; refugees
in the camps inside Palestine and around the world –
millions denied their right to return and yet pursued
and imprisoned in international jails.</span></p>
<p><span>In the past year, as throughout this history of
struggle, we have witnessed time and again the
resilience, resistance and struggle of Palestinian
prisoners. It is not only the case that <a
target="_blank"
href="http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=78016">thousands
of Palestinians</a> have been jailed since October
2015 in an attempt to stop the rising intifada in the
streets and villages of Palestine; it is also the case
that Palestinian prisoners are engaged in daily
intifada, daily resistance, behind the prison walls.
They are part of the struggle – indeed, leaders in the
struggle – confronting occupation, colonialism,
settlements, home demolition, land confiscation and
extrajudicial executions.</span></p>
<p><span>From Palestinian lawyer <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/09/reports-muhammad-allan-suspends-hunger-strike/">Muhammad
Allan</a>, to Palestinian journalist <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/02/members-of-european-parliament-demand-freedom-for-mohammed-al-qeeq/">Mohammed
al-Qeeq</a>, to baker and resistor <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/07/khader-adnan-qa-it-is-possible-to-break-the-israeli-occupation/">Khader
Adnan</a>, to the strugglers of the <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/09/the-battle-of-breaking-the-chains-posters-postcards-toolkit-for-action/">“Battle
of Breaking the Chains”</a> – Nidal Abu Aker,
Ghassan Zawahreh, Shadi Ma’ali, Munir Abu Sharar and
Badr al-Ruzza – Palestinian prisoners have put their
bodies on the line in hunger strikes, demanding not
only their own freedom but an end to the system of
administrative detention without charge or trial that
currently holds approximately 700 Palestinians in
Israeli prisons. Today, <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/hunger-strikes-continue-against-isolation-and-administrative-detention-55-prisoners-strike-for-khawaja/">Sami
Janazrah, Fouad Assi, and Adib Mafarjah</a> are on
hunger strike against administrative detention. <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/palestinian-prisoner-eyad-fawaghra-on-hunger-strike-for-30-days-demanding-family-visits/">Eyad
Fawaghra</a> is refusing food, demanding an end to
the denial of family visits. <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/isolated-palestinian-prisoner-shukri-khawaja-launches-hunger-strike/">Shukri
Khawaja</a> is demanding an end to solitary
confinement, joined by up to 88 other Palestinian
prisoners expressing their solidarity in daily hunger
strikes.</span></p>
<p><span>Today, 17 April, <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/one-day-hunger-strike-planned-on-17-april-to-demand-end-of-sanctions-attacks-on-nafha-prisoners/">thousands
of Palestinian prisoners</a> are refusing food in a
one-day hunger strike in support of prisoners in Nafha
subject to violent attacks by Israeli occupation
prison guards and special forces on 14 April.
Throughout the prisons of the south, prisoners have
joined across political lines in rejection of the
violent raids that are a constant of Palestinian
prisoner life in Israeli jails.</span></p>
<p><b>Statistics:</b><span> Israeli jails hold
approximately<a target="_blank"
href="http://english.palinfo.com/site/pages/details.aspx?itemid=78016">
7,000 Palestinian prisoners</a>. These include <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.addameer.org/news/palestinian-prisoner%E2%80%99s-day-phroc-calls-end-collective-punishment-israeli-occupation-and">over
400 children</a> and 70 women prisoners, held in 22
prisons and interrogation centers. There have been
4,800 arrests since October 2015, including 1,400
children and minor teens. Approximately 700
Palestinians are held in administrative detention
without charge or trial.</span></p>
<p><b>Women Prisoners</b><span>: The number of women
prisoners is now 68, including 17 girls under 18.
Imprisoned in Hasharon and Damon prisons, injured
women prisoners are being denied access to needed
medical services and are instead supported by their
fellow prisoners. The longest-serving woman prisoner,
<a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/03/international-womens-day-imprisoned-palestinian-women-and-girls-struggle-for-freedom/">Lena
Jarbouni</a>, has been imprisoned since 2001. The
youngest girl prisoner, <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.btselem.org/detainees_and_prisoners/prison_sentence_for_12_year_old_girl">Dima
al-Wawi</a>, is 12 years old. <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/european-parliamentarians-urge-release-eu-action-on-case-of-khalida-jarrar/">Khalida
Jarrar</a>. Palestinian parliamentarian, leftist and
prisoner advocate, serving a 15-month sentence, is
also among the women prisoners at Hasharon.</span></p>
<p><b>Administrative Detainees: </b><span>Approximately <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.addameer.org/news/palestinian-prisoner%E2%80%99s-day-phroc-calls-end-collective-punishment-israeli-occupation-and">700
Palestinians are imprisone</a>d without charge or
trial under administrative detention by Israeli
military order. Administrative detention orders are
issued on the basis of secret evidence hidden from
both the detainee and their lawyer. These orders are
indefinitely renewable and are often renewed
repeatedly over years.</span></p>
<p><b>Sick and ill prisoners: </b><span><a
target="_blank"
href="http://presstv.ir/Detail/2016/04/15/460942/Palestinian-prisoners-ill-Israel-jails-detention-Administrative-detention/">Over
1,700 sick prisoners</a> inside Israeli jails suffer
from various diseases, worsened by ill treatment,
delay and denial of medical care, and dismissal of
medical issues. Dozens of Palestinian prisoners suffer
from serious diseases, including cancer, heart
disease, kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, stomach
ulcers and high blood pressure. There are 24 prisoners
with cancer in Israeli prisons, and 23 Palestinians
permanently confined in the Ramle Prison Clinic,
infamous among Palestinian prisoners for its poor
treatment. Some of them are unable to move from their
hospital beds. Despite severe illness, they are
consistently denied medical release or access to
private physicians.</span></p>
<p><b>Child Prisoners: </b><span>Over 400 Palestinians
under 18 are imprisoned. Many are arrested in
traumatic and violent night-time military raids on
their homes, and Palestinian child detainees report
very high levels of physical and psychological abuse
and torture. Six children are held in administrative
detention. Several Palestinian children between the
ages of 12 and 14 are imprisoned in Israeli jails.
Recent reports from <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.dci-palestine.org/palestinian_children_in_the_israeli_military_detention_system">Defence
for Children International Palestine</a> and <a
target="_blank"
href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/11/palestine-israeli-police-abusing-detained-children">Human
Rights Watch</a> highlight the abuse of Palestinian
children in Israeli detention, interrogation and
imprisonment.</span></p>
<p><b>Former Prisoners, Re-Arrests and Pursuit: </b><span>Former
prisoners, including over 70 released in the 2011 Wafa
al-Ahrar prisoner exchange for captured Israeli
soldier Gilad Shalit, are pursued for renewed arrest
and imprisonment. Under Israeli <a target="_blank"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-reimposes-decades-long-sentence-hunger-striker-released-exchange">Military
Order 1651</a>, released prisoners in an exchange
face the reimposition of their original sentence at
any time on the basis of “secret evidence.” As in
administrative detention cases, Palestinian prisoners
and their lawyers are denied access to this evidence,
which can include allegations such as “association” or
“support” for a “prohibited organization,” a category
which includes all major Palestinian political
parties. 47 former prisoners have seen their sentences
reimposed under this order. The targeting of former
prisoners does not only happen inside Palestine. The
pursuit, attempt to extradite, and killing of <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/days-of-action-for-omar-nayef-zayed-report-on-international-events-and-actions/">Omar
Nayef Zayed</a> in the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia,
Bulgaria emphasizes the global nature of this
targeting. <a target="_blank"
href="http://justice4rasmea.org">Rasmea Odeh</a>,
Palestinian community leader in the United States, is
threatened with imprisonment and deportation on the
basis of her imprisonment – and torture – by Israeli
forces in the 1960s and 1970s.</span></p>
<p><span>Torture is a constant reality of Israeli
occupation arrest, detention and interrogation of
Palestinians, including beatings, psychological
torture, threats and insults, including threats of
sexual abuse and violence and threats to family
members; forced stress positions and shackling; sleep
deprivation; long-term solitary confinement and
isolation.</span></p>
<p><span>Palestinians are facing ongoing and increasing
attacks. The extrajudicial execution of Palestinians
under the control of Israeli occupation soldiers –
including but not limited to the filmed and
photographed executions of <a target="_blank"
href="https://theintercept.com/2016/03/24/israeli-rights-group-releases-video-soldier-executing-wounded-palestinian-suspect/">Abdelfattah
Al Sharif</a> and <a target="_blank"
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2015/09/hashlamoun-extrajudicial-execution/">Hadeel
al Hashlamoun</a> – are a new attack on Palestinians
that is part and parcel of the same system of terror
and repression that carries out mass arrests and
violent dawn raids on Palestinian homes. This comes
alongside the ongoing imprisonment of the bodies of
Palestinians killed by Israeli occupation soldiers.
Some Palestinian corpses have been held for over 30
years. Today, the Israeli occupation forces continue
to <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.addameer.org/news/palestinian-prisoner%E2%80%99s-day-phroc-calls-end-collective-punishment-israeli-occupation-and">withhold
15 bodies of Palestinians</a>. Nearly every week
brings news of a new racist and repressive law being
considered or enacted by the Israeli occupation: the “<a
target="_blank"
href="http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2016/1/israel-must-end-force-feeding-of-hunger-striking-palestinian-prisoners.html">Law
to Prevent Harm Caused by Hunger Strikers</a>”
permitting forced feeding; lengthy sentences for <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/israel-toughen-penalties-stone-throwers-150916054234945.html">stone
throwing</a>; the imprisonment of <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/israel-bill-jailing-palestinian-children-151123144403786.html">12-year-old
Palestinians</a>; threats to <a target="_blank"
href="http://english.pnn.ps/2015/07/12/knesset-to-vote-on-executing-palestinian-prisoners/">execute
Palestinian prisoners</a>.</span></p>
<p><span>The imprisonment of Palestinians is a collective
attack on the Palestinian people and their struggle
for liberation. These are not individual cases, but
part of the comprehensive attempt of a colonial power
to erase and suppress the indigenous Palestinian
people and their collective struggle. We see this in
the criminalization of Palestinian political parties,
all declared “prohibited” by military order, and the
military courts and trials that <a target="_blank"
href="http://972mag.com/conviction-rate-for-palestinians-in-israels-military-courts-99-74-percent/28579/">convict
Palestinians at a rate of over 99%</a> on the basis
of these military orders that govern occupied
Palestine. We see this in the targeting of Palestinian
student organizers and leaders like <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/student-leader-abdullah-ramadan-seized-by-undercover-occupation-forces-in-dheisheh-refugee-camp/">Abdullah
Ramadan</a>, <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/03/international-womens-day-imprisoned-palestinian-women-and-girls-struggle-for-freedom/">Asmaa
Qadah</a> and <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/11/mohammed-abu-aker-among-27-palestinians-arrested-by-israeli-occupation-forces/">Donya
Musleh</a>, the ransacking of student blocs’ offices
and the attempt to disrupt the vibrant political life
of Palestinian students on campuses. We see this in
the increased threats of arrests or denial of
residence made against <a target="_blank"
href="http://mondoweiss.net/2016/04/as-threats-against-bds-grow-it-is-time-for-sumoud-in-activist-communities/">Palestinian
BDS organizers</a> and activists building the
international movement for boycott, divestment and
sanctions against Israel. And we see this, of course,
in the imprisonment of Palestinian political leaders
like <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/03/tenth-anniversary-of-the-attack-on-jericho-prison-and-the-kidnapping-of-ahmad-saadat-by-israeli-occupation/">Ahmad
Sa’adat</a>, General Secretary of the Popular Front
for the Liberation of Palestine; <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/british-members-of-parliament-call-for-freedom-for-marwan-barghouthi/">Marwan
Barghouthi</a>, Fateh leader; <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/khalidajarrar">Khalida
Jarrar</a>, Palestinian parliamentarian and
prisoners’ advocate; <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/palestinian-parliamentarian-hassan-yousef-ordered-to-six-more-months-administrative-detention/">Hassan
Yousef</a>, Hamas leader and Palestinian Legislative
Council member; and the countless local leaders
targeted for administrative detention and military
trials. </span></p>
<p><span>We see this in the imprisonment of over <a
target="_blank"
href="http://en.abna24.com/service/middle-east-west-asia/archive/2016/04/17/747947/story.html">18
Palestinian journalists</a> – <a target="_blank"
href="http://imemc.org/article/report-israeli-army-kidnapped-and-imprisoned-1-000-000-palestinians-since-1967/">43
in the past six months</a> – and the forced closure
of <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/03/palestinian-freedom-of-expression-under-attack-150-arrested-for-facebook-posts-journalists-imprisoned-tv-stations-closed/">Palestinian
TV </a>and radio stations, and in the targeting of
Palestinian researchers and human rights defenders
like <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/02/palestinian-civil-society-leader-eteraf-rimawis-administrative-detention-extended-for-fifth-time/">Eteraf
Rimawi </a>of Bisan Center, and also in the
administrative detention of teachers like circus
trainer <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/brussels-event-highlights-circus-of-solidarity-for-imprisoned-performer-mohammed-abu-sakha/">Mohammed
Abu Sakha</a>, 24, who combined Palestinian identity
with circus performance as he taught numerous
Palestinian children.</span></p>
<p><span>We also see the targeting and imprisonment of
Palestinians and strugglers for Palestine in
international courts and prisons. <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/03/message-of-georges-ibrahim-abdallah-to-unified-solidarity-meeting-on-19-march/">Georges
Ibrahim Abdallah</a>, Lebanese Arab communist
struggler for Palestine, has been imprisoned in French
jails for 32 years, despite being eligible for release
for 16 years. <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/01/hillary-clinton-intervenes-with-french-foreign-minister-to-block-release-of-georges-ibrahim-abdallah/">Hillary
Clinton</a> – today a US presidential candidate –
personally intervened to pressure the French state to
overturn its own judiciary to keep him imprisoned. The
interior minister who agreed to do so, Manuel Valls,
today threatens and supports the <a target="_blank"
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/woman-arrested-france-t-shirt-critical-israel">prosecution
of dozens of Palestine solidarity activists across
France</a> for calling for boycott, divestment and
sanctions against the Israeli state for its ongoing
crimes against Palestinians. In the United States, the
<a target="_blank" href="http://freedomtogive.com">Holy
Land Five</a> are serving lengthy sentences for
fundraising for charity for Palestinians among the
Palestinian community. <a target="_blank"
href="http://justice4rasmea.org">Rasmea Odeh</a>,
torture survivor and community leader, is facing
imprisonment and deportation because of her time in
Israeli prisons. <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/justice4omar">Omar Nayef
Zayed</a> was pursued in Bulgaria for extradition
and renewed imprisonment over 25 years after he
escaped Israeli prisons, only to be found dead inside
the Palestinian Embassy in Sofia, where he had taken
refuge, on 26 February.</span></p>
<p><strong>Towards Liberation</strong></p>
<p><span>Just as imprisonment is a collective experience,
the resistance struggle for the liberation of the
prisoners is also collective. As the Palestinian Human
Rights Organizations Council noted in <a
target="_blank"
href="http://www.addameer.org/news/palestinian-prisoner%E2%80%99s-day-phroc-calls-end-collective-punishment-israeli-occupation-and">their
statement for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day,</a> “The
issues of prisoners transcends one of individual human
rights; it is also one of collective rights of an
entire people – the Palestinian people, who continue
to be deprived of the right to self-determination and
sovereignty.”</span></p>
<p><span>And so the struggle to liberate Palestinian
prisoners – and all political prisoners – is not
simply a struggle for an individual human right, but
for collective liberation from occupation, apartheid
and settler colonialism. This is one reason why this
struggle finds such resonance with other struggles for
justice and liberation, linked in collective
confrontation of oppression, imperialism, settler
colonialism, Zionism and racism.</span></p>
<p><span>The movement to <a target="_blank"
href="http://g4sfacts.org">boycott G4S</a>, the
British-Danish security conglomerate that provides
security systems, equipment and control rooms for
Israeli prisons, checkpoints and police training
centers – and youth imprisonment, migrant detention
and deportation contracts in the US, UK and Australia
– has grown even more in the past year. <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/08/stop-g4s-a-call-to-the-global-boycott-movement-from-palestinian-political-prisoners/">Palestinian
prisoners</a> and Palestinian civil society
organizations joined with hundreds of <a
target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/09/over-220-palestinian-and-international-organizations-demand-united-nations-cancel-g4s-contracts/">international
organizations</a> to demand the UN stop doing
business with G4S, a demand that has achieved clear
victories in <a target="_blank"
href="https://bdsmovement.net/2015/unhcr-ends-g4s-contracts-13593">Jordan</a>
and elsewhere. In the United States, prison divestment
movements challenging the mass incarceration of Black
youth and other oppressed communities in the US have
won divestment from G4S and the cancellation of its
contracts at <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/cornell-universitys-johnson-museum-of-art-to-terminate-g4s-contract-in-victory-for-student-organizing/">multiple
universities</a>. Indeed, the collective movements
against G4S have garnered so much strength that the
corporation<a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/03/g4s-pledges-to-pull-out-of-israeli-market-entirely-following-sustained-bds-campaign/">
announced that it would be selling off its Israeli
subsidiary</a> and exiting other “reputationally
damaging” industries like youth incarceration in the
US and UK within the next one to two years. At the
same time, on a daily basis, G4S and its “security”
technology continue to contribute to the insecurity
and oppression of Palestinians and other oppressed
people. The struggle to boycott G4S <a
target="_blank"
href="https://bdsmovement.net/2016/g4s-announces-plans-to-exit-israel-13794">must
continue</a> until it is out of occupied Palestine
and the prison business.</span></p>
<p><span><a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/08/stop-g4s-a-call-to-the-global-boycott-movement-from-palestinian-political-prisoners/">Palestinian
prisoners called for</a> “the inclusion of our
cause, as prisoners of freedom and fighters for the
freedom of our people, human dignity, and the right to
a dignified life, within the program of the boycott
movement as a major issue of paramount importance.”
The struggle of Palestinian prisoners is an essential
and powerful part of BDS and boycott struggles, and
builds our solidarity and our responsibility to act in
support of other oppressed peoples and communities. </span></p>
<p><span>As the <a target="_blank"
href="http://black4palestine.com/">Black4Palestine</a>
statement highlighted, “</span><span>Israel’s
widespread use of detention and </span><a
href="http://www.btselem.org/statistics/detainees_and_prisoners"><span>imprisonment
against Palestinians</span></a><span> evokes the</span><a
href="http://www.naacp.org/pages/criminal-justice-fact-sheet"><span>
mass incarceration of Black people </span></a><span>in
the US, including the </span><a
href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/32043-beyond-innocence-america-s-political-prisoners-and-the-fight-against-mass-incarceration"><span>political
imprisonment </span></a><span>of our own
revolutionaries. Soldiers, police, and courts justify
lethal force against us and our children who pose no
imminent threat. And while the US and Israel would
continue to oppress us without collaborating with each
other, we have witnessed police and soldiers from the
two countries </span><a
href="http://www.ebony.com/news-views/the-fergusonpalestine-connection-403#axzz3hxNNSlLi"><span>train
side-by-side</span></a><span>.” </span></p>
<p><span>The United States, European Union and Canada are
complicit in the imprisonment of Palestinians, funding
Israel and its military, supporting its military
research and development and defending it in
international bodies from prosecution or condemnation
for its oppression of Palestinians. At the same time,
these states are responsible for the detention and
incarceration of migrants, the mass targeting,
criminalization and oppression of Black communities,
police repression, racist incarceration in countries
throughout Europe, and the colonial repression of
Indigenous people and communities. These policies
represent one logic, that of imperialism.</span></p>
<p><span>At the same time, these forces are confronted by
a <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/on-palestinian-prisoners-day-anti-prison-labor-academic-delegation-takes-stand-against-israeli-state-violence-affirms-solidarity-with-palestinian-people/">growing
movement of joint struggle</a> against racist
imprisonment and mass incarceration, in North America
and around the world. Black communities, migrant
justice movements, Indigenous movements and others
have been leading powerful upsurges against the state
repression, violence and incarceration targeting
entire communities and oppressed peoples. Palestinian
and pro-Palestinian activists and organizations are
involved – and must be more deeply so – in all of
these critical struggles. </span></p>
<p><span>These powerful grassroots movements – including
the movement for justice in Palestine – are witnessing
breakthroughs on a popular level, witnessing real,
mass public demand for an end to the policies of mass
incarceration and the state violence of imprisonment
and police repression. Prison divestment and abolition
movements and demands are growing, gathering allies
and support. </span></p>
<p><span>The movement to free Palestinian political
prisoners – and to free Palestine – is a movement to
confront settler colonialism, Zionism and imperialism.
It is connected deeply to movements to free
international political prisoners imprisoned by the
same forces: <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/04/take-action-defend-the-life-of-mumia-abu-jamal-us-political-prisoner/">Mumia
Abu-Jamal</a>, <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/02/new-york-city-students-and-supporters-protest-to-free-leonard-peltier/">Leonard
Peltier</a>, <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/12/8-january-nyc-73rd-birthday-celebration-of-puerto-rican-political-prisoner-oscar-lopez-rivera/">Oscar
Lopez Rivera</a>, <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2015/09/20-21-september-colorado-free-simon-trinidad/">Ricardo
Palmera</a>, the political <a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/01/samidoun-salutes-philippines-peasant-leader-martyred-political-prisoner-eduardo-serrano/">prisoners
of the Philippines</a>, of the <a target="_blank"
href="http://www.thejerichomovement.com/prisoners">Black
Liberation Movement</a>, and all prisoners jailed
for their struggle for justice. </span></p>
<p><strong>On 17 April 2016, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day,
it is critical to escalate the struggle; to
consolidate and build on the victories achieved in the
G4S campaign; to deepen our collective movements
against mass incarceration, racism, police repression
and state violence; to raise high the voices, ideas
and visions of imprisoned Palestinians, leaders in the
struggle for a free and liberated Palestine; and to do
everything we can, at grassroots, popular and official
levels, to support the demands of the Palestinian
prisoners, to seek the freedom of the Palestinian
people, and to hold accountable and prosecute the
Israeli officials responsible for their oppression and
torture in all international arenas, from prosecutions
in the International Criminal Court to the
international grassroots isolation of settler-colonial
Israel through BDS campaigns.</strong></p>
<p><strong><em>We invite activists and organizations to
build on and intensify their work on Palestinian
prisoners in the coming year, as we seek to do this
in our own organizing. We invite organizers to form
Samidoun chapters in your own cities and areas, or
to form Samidoun committees and subcommittees to
work on Palestinian prisoners in your existing
organizations. To join us, please email us at <a
href="mailto:samidoun@samidoun.net"><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:samidoun@samidoun.net">samidoun@samidoun.net</a></a>.
</em></strong></p>
<p>See also:</p>
<ul>
<li><a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/call-to-action-palestinian-prisoners-day-2016/">Palestinian
Prisoners Day 2016: Call to Action</a></li>
<li><a target="_blank"
href="http://samidoun.net/2016/04/palestinian-prisoners-day-resources-factsheets-posters-and-more/">Factsheets
and Resources for Palestinian Prisoners Day</a></li>
</ul>
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<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863.9977
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.freedomarchives.org">www.freedomarchives.org</a>
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