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Solidarity with Khader Adnan on Hunger Strike + New Statements from Ahmad Sa'adat
Solidarity with Khader Adnan on Hunger Strike + New Statements from Ahmad Sa'adat
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
www.freeahmadsaadat.org + [email protected]
Twitter:http://twitter.com/freeahmadsaadat
Please see below for three important updates from the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat - a call to action in solidarity with Khader Adnan, Palestinian prisoner on his 43rd day of hunger strike; Sumoud Sa'adat's statement that "negotiations will not free Palestinian prisoners"; and a new letter from Ahmad Sa'adat's isolation cell, demanding an end to Palestinian Authority political detention and security cooperation.
Solidarity with Khader Adnan!
Khader Adnan, an imprisoned Palestinian activist and a spokesperson for the Islamic Jihad party, has been on an ongoing hunger strike since December 17, 2011. He is facing severe health consequences for his 43-day hunger strike and needs international support and solidarity to publicize his case and that of his nearly 5,000 fellow Palestinian political prisoners inside the jails of the Israeli occupation. He was transferred today to a hospital and is continuing to refuse food, awaiting the arrival of two Palestinian doctors. He is currently in a wheelchair because he cannot walk, due to weakness from his hunger strike.
Addameer details the experience of Khader Adnan with the Israeli occupation. He is currently held under administrative detention (arbitrary detention without charge or trial, based on secret evidence, and renewable indefinitely for repeated periods of up to six months.) Khader Adnan was issued a four-month administrative detention order on January 8, and faces another military court hearing on January 30. This is the eighth time Adnan has been detained, and he has served a total of six years in Israeli prisons - mostly without charge or trial under the administrative detention scheme.
Addameer reports:
Khader was arrested on 17 December 2011, when Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) raided his home outside Jenin at 3:30 am. Before entering his house, soldiers used the driver that takes Khader’s father to the vegetable market, Mohammad Mustafa, as a human shield by forcing him to knock on the door of the house and call out Khader’s name while blindfolded. A huge force of soldiers then entered the house shouting. Recognizing Khader immediately, they grabbed him violently in front of his two young daughters and ailing mother.
The soldiers blindfolded him and tied his hands behind his back using plastic shackles before leading him out of his house and taking him to a military jeep. Khader was then thrown on his back and the soldiers began slapping him in the face and kicking his legs. They kept him lying on his back until they reached Dutan settlement, beating him on the head throughout the 10-minute drive. When they reached the settlement, Khader was pushed aggressively out of the jeep. Because of the blindfold, Khader did not see the wall right in front of him and smashed into it, causing injuries to his face.
Following his arrest, he was taken to interrogation, refused medical care and treatment, subject to physical abuse and mistreatment including being tied to a chair in a stressful position, causing extreme back pain, and pulling on his beard so hard that his hair was ripped out. Khader was subjected to abusive language about his family, and refused to speak any further to interrogators, as well as refusing food. In retaliation, he was placed into isolation and solitary confinement, denied family visits, awakened in the middle of the night and strip-searched. He has refused to end his strike, protesting the illegitimacy of his arbitrary detention by an illegal occupation authority as well as cruel and inhumane treatment and abuse.
This is not his first hunger strike - in 2005 he protested his isolation in Kfar Yuna with a 12-day hunger strike. Khader Adnan's hunger strike has sparked solidarity tents in Gaza, and a planned protest in Ramallah on January 30.
Ahmad Sa'adat and hundreds of other Palestinian prisoners participated in a 23-day hunger strike in October 2011, demanding an end to isolation, abuse, and denial of family visits; Israeli promises to end isolation, aimed to secure the end of the strike, proved to be false, as Sa'adat has now spent nearly three full years inside an isolation cell.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat calls for solidarity with Khader Adnan and all of the steadfast prisoners inside the jails of the Israeli occupation who daily confront with their bodies and their lives the ongoing attacks of the occupation army and prison guards.
Addameer has issued a call to action - we encourage you to take up Addameer's call, linked here, and also:
Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Khader Adnan, Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners. Make it clear that you are watching the situation of Khader Adnan and that Israel is responsible for his health and life, and demand an end to the use of isolation, solitary confinement, and administrative detention. Send us reports of your protests at Israeli embassies and consulates at [email protected].
Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that the prisoners' demands are implemented. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at [email protected], and inform them about the urgent situation of Khader Adnan. Make it clear that arbitrary detention without charge or trial is unacceptable, and that the ICRC must act to protect Palestinian prisoners from cruel and inhumane treatment.
Sumoud Sa'adat: Negotiations will not free Palestinian prisoners
From Al-Masry Al-Youm, January 27, 2012
Sumoud Sa’adat, speaking on behalf of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the daughter of imprisoned Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat, spoke to Al-Masry al-Youm on January 27, 2012, saying that she had no information about the alleged inclusion of the name of her father on a list of prisoners presented by the Palestinian Authority to Israel, calling for their release, in preparations for negotiations.
Sa’adat said that “we reject this approach to negotiations; it is the wrong approach and does not free the prisoners. Negotiations based on the conditions and dictates of Israel and the U.S. cannot achieve any of the Palestinian people’s rights, including the rights of prisoners…we have tried this approach for 28 years and it does not offer anything for our rights or our cause.”
Sumoud Sa’adat said further that “The priority at the present time is implementing internal national unity and reformulating a national program to organize our struggle against the occupation….as long as there is occupation, there will be arrests. Arrests continued after the Shalit deal and are increasing; children are being arrested and threatened with land confiscation; members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are being arrested; all in an attempt to undercut Palestinian national unity.” She also noted that this has extended to the violation of buildings under international protection, including the storming of Red Cross headquarters in Jerusalem and the kidnapping of two PLC deputies from inside the building.
Sa'adat from Isolation: Security Cooperation and PA Political Detention Must End
A new statement was released by Ahmad Sa'adat on January 29, 2012, written in Sa'adat's Israeli prison cell on January 19, marking the tenth anniversary of his abduction. It was taken from the jail by a lawyer for broad distribution to the public. In the statement, in full below, Sa'adat holds the Palestinian Authority accountable for the crimes of security cooperation and political imprisonment, and demands an end to these policies in order to rebuild Palestinian struggle:
To our steadfast people, inside and outside Palestine, I salute you. I salute the martyrs of our people to the national struggle, one by one, who have paid with their lives and their blood, sacrificing for the land, the people and the national cause. I salute the prisoners of freedom in the Zionist prisons and detention centers, and everywhere in the world where the struggle for human freedom confronts injustice, abuse and tyranny. I salute all of you together, and pledge to remain on the path of struggle until the achievements of the objectives of those who have sacrificed, been captured or killed, in the struggle.
Today, I write to commemorate an event directly linked with the policy of political detention and security cooperation, obwing to the dictates of Israeli and U.S. policy, that have degraded and broken all of the rules of the national struggle and attacked the legitimacy of the resistance. Dozens are paying the price for this with their liberty in long years in the prisons of the occupation. Accordingly, this is a call and a cry to stop political arrests on the basis of membership in a political organization, or engaging in resistance to the occupation, and especially, that this policy must not continue or, worse, expand its scope under the auspices of the division to take on new names and dimensions. This is a call for an end to all violations of the freedom and rights of Palestinian citizens, and for democracy in all of its expressions. It is a call to end the division, implement internal agreements, and build consensus to achieve reconcilaiation and move away from fragmentation and conflict, splits and lack of democracy. National unity opens the door and lays the foundation for rebuilding the Palestinian house on a national and democratic basis, using the mechanism of direct elections and a system of proportional representation for all institutions, particularly the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO must be a mechanism for the unity of our people and national struggle, and represent all shades and expression of our political and social polity. National unity will result in re-building and the formulation of a national program to organize our movement and conflict with the occupation, setting as a priority our central and main struggle – confronting the occupation.
Such a program must remove us from the cycle of futile negotiations under any excuse or name (such as “exploratory meetings.”) It is an indisputable reality that these negotiations are entirely outside any reference to international law or United Nations resolutions, as it is a reality that they have failed, gone entirely to a dead end, and even served as a cover for the crimes of the occupation against the people, land and holy sites. What is needed is a program based on the resistance and confidence in our people’s ability to achieve victory, and based in political and diplomatic struggle to implement United Nations resolutions and move our cause there. The international community must be held accountable for its responsibility to make the occupation comply with international law, and to make it clear that the occupation is not above the law, and to force it to implement the international resolutions that protect our people’s national rights, foremost the right of return, self determination, and the establishment of a sovereign state with its capital in Jerusalem.
Finally, this is a call to prioritize the struggle of the prisoners, in order to preserve the achievements of their struggle, support their just and humanitarian demands, and mobilize efforts to build their struggle on an international level, in particular emphasizing their political and legal status as prisoners of war under international law and the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, and to provide protection for them in the context of demanding protection for all of our people.
In conclusion, I salute you and assure you that the road is full of challenges, but I am confident that we will be able to achieve victory, not only by achieving our national unity, but with Arab revolutions and regional and international change.
Glory to the martyrs, freedom for the prisoners, and dignity for our people.
Victory is ours!
Ahmad Sa’adat
January 19, 2012
From isolation in Nafha prison
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
[email protected]
Twitter: @FreeAhmadSaadat
Khader Adnan's Hunger Strike: Palestinian Resistance, Steadfastness and Courage
Khader Adnan's Hunger Strike: Palestinian Resistance, Steadfastness and Courage - Act Feb. 19-26
US Palestinian Community Network
www.uspcn.org + [email protected] + Twitter @USPCN
Khader Adnan’s Hunger Strike: Palestinian Resistance, Steadfastness and Courage
Week of Action: February 19-26, 2012
Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike for 63 days – one day for each year of the occupation of Palestine; one day, one year, of steadfastness, resilience, resistance, and dignity in the face of occupation and oppression. His courage and commitment must inspire us all to act to amplify his message, support his action, demand his freedom – and the freedom of Palestine.
“I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on…It is time the international community and the UN support prisoners and force the State of Israel to respect international human rights and stop treating prisoners as if they were not humans.” – Khader Adnan, from his hospital bed
BACKGROUND
Khader Adnan was abducted by Israeli occupation soldiers on December 17, 2011 at 3:30 am. Addameer reports:
“Before entering his house, soldiers used the driver that takes Khader’s father to the vegetable market, Mohammad Mustafa, as a human shield by forcing him to knock on the door of the house and call out Khader’s name while blindfolded. A huge force of soldiers then entered the house shouting. Recognizing Khader immediately, they grabbed him violently in front of his two young daughters and ailing mother.”
He was then taken to interrogation, where interrogators forced him into stress positions, ripped out chunks of his beard and rubbed his face with dirt as they insulted his wife, sister, children and mother. Throughout this ordeal, he refused to say a word to his interrogators or take a bite of food. He was never charged with any crime, but instead placed in administrative detention, a mechanism in which Palestinian prisoners are held for months at a time, renewable again and again, without charge or trial, on the basis of secret evidence.
Since then, Khader Adnan has been on hunger strike for 63 days. Past 50 days, a hunger striker is in immediate danger of organ failure and death. He has lost eighty pounds, cannot walk, and remains shackled hand and foot to his hospital bed. And still he insists upon his strike, upon his humanity and dignity in the face of a system that would obliterate it.
ACTION
While the Western media has been almost entirely silent about the case of Khader Adnan, he has become an international symbol of resistance to injustice through grassroots movements and social media. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Carter Center have joined the call for his release.
Khader Adnan is demanding not only his release but the end of administrative detention. He is one of 307 administrative detainees and nearly 4500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. 40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank and Gaza have spent time in the occupation’s jails. Palestinian prisoners have long utilized the hunger strike as a mechanism of struggle, and Khader Adnan is the latest – and longest-term – inheritor of that great and heroic tradition of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. The Palestinian prisoners have always been the conscience of the Palestinian national liberation movement, and Khader Adnan’s steadfastness is the emblematic example of that role.Khader’s struggle and sacrifice calls us home to the fundamentals of the struggle, to the freedom of our people and our land, the return of our refugees, to opening the gates of the occupier’s prisons, and must call us now to action.
Protests have taken place in many cities in the past weeks and thousands of letters have been written. At this critical time, the next week – February 19-26, 2012 must be a week of action for Khader Adnan and all Palestinian prisoners. On Monday, February 20, join AMP, USPCN and others in a national day of fasting for Khader Adnan. Hundreds have already joined a “Fasting for Freedom” campaign and protests are planned in New York, Oakland, Los Angeles and elsewhwere. We call on all USPCN chapters and members, the Palestinian community, and the supporters and friends of the Palestinian people to:
1. Join and organize such actions at Israeli embassies and consulates, in public squares, on campuses, and in communities. Join in the solidarity hunger strikes and Fasts for Freedom. Please email us at [email protected] or send us the Facebook link to your events.
2. Organize call-in centers and hunger strike events to bring together solidarity fasters and people calling the State Department. Please email us at [email protected] or send us the Facebook link and we will publicize your call-in centers.
3. Continue the Social Media and Twitter campaigns to publicize the case of #KhaderAdnan. The twitter hashtag #HungerStrike63Days trended worldwide today – when the mainstream media is silent, we must speak in our own voices.
4. Continue the phone-call and letter pressure. Call the office of Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs at 202.647.7209 and insist the US take a stand and demand that Israel release Khader Adnan and end the practice of administrative detention. Write letters to the occupation authority to make it clear that thousands around the world are with Khader Adnan: http://samidoun.ca/2012/02/take-acti...-khader-adnan/ and sign the petition to the International Committee of the Red Cross: http://signon.org/sign/khader-adnans...d&r_by=2447156
I dont give a shit about a fucking islamist.
Isn't this enough of a reason -- ?
(In the spirit of the united front strategy we should support all who are to the left of an oppressive, brutal national security state, with the finer political points left for later.)
Starving for Freedom: Six Years on the Abduction of Ahmad Sa'adat - One Month on the Hunger Strike of Hana Shalabi
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
www.freeahmadsaadat.org + [email protected]
Twitter:http://twitter.com/freeahmadsaadat
March 14-15, 2012 marks the sixth anniversary of the attack on Jericho prison and the Israeli abduction of Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat and his comrades, who had been held under U.S. and British guard in a Palestinian Authority prison.
For the past three years, since March 18, 2009, Ahmad Sa'adat has been in isolation in an Israeli occupation prison, subject to solitary confinement, poor health care and intense repression. Similarly, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, one of his comrades also abducted from Jericho in 2006, has been in isolation for many months. The demand to end the isolation of Ahmad Sa'adat - and his fellow prisoners in solitary confinement - sparked the September-October 2011 hunger strikes that swept through the occupation's prisons.
As we mark this anniversary, a Palestinian prisoner's hunger strike has once again captured the attention of the world, very soon after the heroic 66-day hunger strike of Khader Adnan. Hana al-Shalabi, released in the October 2011 prisoner exchange, was re-abducted on February 16, 2012, and is held under administrative detention without charge or trial. She has now been on hunger strike for 28 days.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat echoes the call of Hana al-Shalabi's parents for a day of action this Saturday, March 17:
"We call upon...all Palestinians to go to the streets and participate in the support action planned on Saturday March 17 in solidarity with our daughter Hana Al-Shalabi and all administrative detainees. We will continue supporting our daughter’s hunger strike and we want to let our daughter Hana know: we are with you in your hunger strike until you achieve your demand; your immediate release from the unjust Israeli jails.
Your support to Hana is necessary to achieve Hana’s immediate release; it is also needed to support our daughter in her open hunger strike which she has started on February 16, 2012.
Finally, we call upon all administrative detainees to join Hana’s hunger strike until you achieve your own immediate release and put an end to the unjust Israeli policy of administrative detention which violates human rights and International law."
Similarly, we join in the call for people around the world to take action on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners' Day, for Ahmad Sa'adat, Hana Shalabi, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Khader Adnan, and all of the nearly 5,000 Palestinian prisoners held within the jails of the occupation:
"On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Tuesday, April 17, we ask that all supporters of the Palestinian political prisoners’ movement bring Khader Adnan’s spirit of resistance to the doorsteps of his captors and would-be killers...Let Khader Adnan’s hunger strike mark the beginning of a revitalized global movement for Palestinian prisoners, their rights, their families, and their struggle. Together, we can make it so."
Ahmad Sa'adat, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Khader Adnan and Hana al-Shalabi - alongside their nearly 5,000 sisters and brothers - are paradigmatic examples of the steadfastness of Palestinian prisoners. Despite the abuse and isolation they have suffered, Palestinian prisoners - and the Palestinian people as a whole - will continue to resist occupation, racism, and settlement in order to obtain their rights to freedom, self-determination and return.
On this, the sixth anniversary of the storming of Jericho prison and the abduction of Ahmad Sa'adat, the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat reiterates that it is long past time to end the dangerous and damaging policy of Palestinian Authority security coordination with the Israeli occupation. This policy is responsible for ongoing political repression and for the imprisonment of Palestinians in both PA and Israeli jails. It must be noted that Ahmad Sa'adat and his comrades were abducted not from their homes but from the Palestinian Authority jail that had held them - contrary to Palestinian law - for over four years at the time of the military siege.
The policy of security coordination is the policy that kept Ahmad Sa'adat, a Palestinian national leader, behind bars for four years before the Israeli attack and abduction. It poses a deep danger to the Palestinian cause, and represents the inverse of the unity and national solidarity displayed overwhelmingly by Palestinian prisoners standing together across all lines to confront occupation. It endangers the accomplishments of the Palestinian revolution and dishonors the struggles of the Palestinian people over its decades.
In addition, it must also be emphasized that United States and British guards maintained the prisons that held Ahmad Sa'adat and his comrades in Jericho, and that they were warned and exited the prison in a coordinated fashion prior to the Israeli occupation attack - when their presence there had been repeatedly, and falsely, justified as "protection." The actions of the US and British guards and monitors in Jericho prison are yet one more example of the active complicity and responsibility for occupation by these states. Further, we call upon international authorities, including the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, to take up their responsibility to address the ongoing suffering and abuse of Palestinian political prisoners by occupation forces.
Six years after the abduction of Ahmad Sa'adat from Jericho prison, the Palestinian people and Palestinian prisoners are steadfast as ever, unbowed by repression, confronting the occupier from behind its own bars. They are a living beacon of steadfastness and inspire our struggle for the liberation of each prisoner - and the liberation of all of Palestine, its land and its people.
Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
Take Action!
1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa'adat, Hana al-Shalabi, and all Palestinian political prisoners. Join in March 17 actions and events!
2. Distribute the free downloadable Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat flyer 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 [email protected], and inform them about the urgent situations of Hana Shalabi and Ahmad Sa'adat. Make it clear that isolation is a human rights violation and a form of torture, and that the ICRC must stand up and play its role to defend prisoners' rights.
4. Email the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat at [email protected] with announcements, reports and information about your local events, activities and flyer distributions.
WHO IS AHMAD SA'ADAT?
Ahmad Sa'adat, 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, and has spent three years in isolation at the present time.
The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/
[email protected]
Twitter: @FreeAhmadSaadat
ckaihatsu
i DO give a shit - Thanks very much for the update
R.I.P Juan Almeida Bosque
"The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely
the oppressive situations which we seek to escape,
but that piece of the oppressor which is
planted deep within each of us." Audre Lorde
Well that makes *two*, anyway...!
= )
Thanks!
