PFLP On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day 17 April

* PFLP Prisoners call upon all to support Prisoners’ Hunger Strike
* PFLP calls for broad national movement in support of the prisoners’ struggle for freedom and dignity

* On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, PFLP: Occupation practices against the prisoners, the land and the people are war crimes and state terrorism
 

PFLP Prisoners call upon all to support Prisoners’ Hunger Strike

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 07:34 AM PDT
 

To the masses of the Palestinian people, and all of your forces, organizations and institutions-

We greet you and your revolutionary steadfastness, which is bound to achieve a triumphant victory despite the long night of the hateful occupation.

In light of the urgent need to confront the Israeli Prison Services and their ongoing and escalating inhuman practices, and to escalate the prisoners’ struggle, and after lengthy and in-depth dialogue among the prisoners’ movement for over two years, a united national position including the majority of the sectors and forces of the prisoners’ movement has come forward to fight the battle of the empty intestines – the battle of the prisoners’ spring. This battle comes amid a spirit of defiance and steadfastness among the prisoners, and determination to confront solitary confinement, the denial of visits to prisoners from Gaza, demand the abolition of the “Shalit law,” demand the right to education, and the restoration of prisoners’ rights that have been trampled on in recent years.

We call upon all of our comrades throughout the prisons to be at high readiness and great pride to fight this battle. Despite the passage of less than six months after our last battle for freedom, demanding an end to solitary confinement and isolation, we are committed to this great struggle. Comrade Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh will be our representative in the Higher National Leadership Committee to coordinat and lead the strike.

We also call upon the masses of the Palestinian people everywhere they are, upon our national and Islamic institutions, upon the Arab nation and upon all progressive forces around the world to take up and engage with the struggle of the prisoners who need your support and action.

Together, we will march forward until the spring of prisoners blossoms on the road of the Palestinian Spring.

Leadership of the Prison Branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
 

PFLP calls for broad national movement in support of the prisoners’ struggle for freedom and dignity
 

Posted: 17 Apr 2012 07:33 AM PDT
 

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine called for the broadest national action to support the prisoners’ movement, their strike and their goals, which begins on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. The Front called upon Palestinians in Palestine and all areas of exile and diaspora, and for all official and popular institutions to plan to engage effectively – as the struggle of the prisoners is the struggle of the whole Palestinian people. The Front said that the prisoners are the vanguard of the Palestinian people, inside the camps and prisons of the occupation, and are key to ending the occupation, racism, colonialism, and achieving the rights of our people to liberation, self-determination, and return.

The Front called for the urgent formation of a national committee involving all Palestinian forces to support the document approved by the prisoners’ representatives from all political forces in the prisons, and to develop a comprehensive national strategy to engage on Palestinian, Arab and international levels to confront the occupation internationally for its violations of international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions, to hold it accountable for its war crimes, racism and apartheid nature.

The Front noted that it is important to refer back to the principle – and the UN resolution – that Zionism is a form of racism – and demand the UN and its institutions fulfil their responsibilities to act for the Palestinian people and prisoners to enable our people to achieve our freedom, sovereignty, self-determination and return.

On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, PFLP: Occupation practices against the prisoners, the land and the people are war crimes and state terrorism
Posted: 17 Apr 2012 07:31 AM PDT
 

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, that the policies and practices of the occupation – of racism, oppression, military and settler police and their courts, of the military and its legal system – against thousands of prisoners, men and women, children and elders, and against the land and the people, are war crimes and state terrorism. These are organized and systematic attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause and deny the Palestinian people’s right to freedom, to return, to independence and self-determination, as are shared by all other peoples of the earth.

The PFLP greeted the Palestinian prisoners with appreciation and pride, freedom and dignity on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. It saluted the Palestinian and Arab prisoners, young and old, men and women, those with long sentences, the members of the Legislative Council and the leaders of our people, led by Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, general secretary of the Popular Front; Marwan Barghouti, member of the Central Committee of Fateh; and our brother Aziz Dweik, sopeaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The Front also greeted with pride and gratitude the families of the prisoners and the martyrs, saluting their steadfastness, commitment and pride, emphasizing that it is a national duty to protect and provide for their moral, legal, political and material needs and to fulfil the steadfastness and mountainous sacrifices provided by our imprisoned people.

The PFLP said that the movement of prisoners, despite the brutality of the occupation and its fascist wardens, stands as a model of unity, resilience, struggle and innovation, saluting their experience of struggle and their battle of the empty stomachs, saying that the will of the prisoners is stronger than the whip of the occupation and that all of the prisons of the occupation will come crashing down. The PFLP affirmed that the prisoners’ movement will bring to an end isolation cells, solitary confinement, administrative detention, kidnapping, murder and deportation and will play a central role in ending occupation and colonization throughout Palestine.

The Front called upon the Palestinian people and all of its forces to support the struggle of the prisoners, emphasizing the great importance of integrating all forms of national struggle and including the issue of the freedom of the prisoners as a constant of the Palestinian national cause. It said that this is a component of the national struggle for liberation, return and self-determination, and necessary to strengthen the Palestinian, Arab and international official and popular struggle for legal, human, moral and funamental rights. It emphasized that Palestinian prisoners are prisoners of war, because of their struggle for freedom, and that the occupation must be compelled to comply with international humanitarian law and the Geneva Convention. The Front noted that the international community is nearly mute on the issues of Palestinian prisoners, saying that the occupation and its leaders should be brought before international tribunals to be held accountable for their crimes, and that the occupation state must be internationally delegitimized and isolated as was apartheid South Africa.

The Front praised international popular action to support prisoners, and called upon parliaments of the world to advocate for the release of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council and all Palestinian prisoners, urging the expulsion of the Knesset, the parliament of the occupation state, from the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The Front called for the Human Rights Council to send an international committee to examine the damages caused by settlements, occupation and aggression and called upon all international authorities to reject the International Criminal Court’s decision to not consider the crimes of the occupation.

The Front called on Prisoners’ Day for popular resistance and diverse struggle everywhere, challenging the occupation and the jailer inside the prison cells and outside the front doors of the jails, calling for broad participation in the rally in front of the Ofer Prison at 1pm on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day.