Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Palestinian Prisoners Campaign

The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.
  
Find out more at www.inminds.com/caged

Friday, December 13, 2013

Alaa Hammad resumes hunger strike



Alaa Hammad, the Palestinian prisoner with Jordanian citizenship who has carried on an open-ended hunger strike since May 2, resumed his hunger strike on Sunday, December 9 after a brief suspension of his strike.

Hammad suspended his strike after the Israeli prison authorities agreed to facilitate family visits with his wife and children, and with his aunts and uncles. His aunts and uncles visited on Saturday, December 8 but no progress was made by the prison authorities to allow Hammad’s wife and children to visit him.

Therefore, Hammad, who has been denied family visits for 7 years, resumed his strike.

Read more here

http://samidoun.ca/2013/12/alaa-hammad-resumes-hunger-strike-appeals-for-international-support/

Thursday, December 12, 2013

The International Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and all Palestinian prisoners





Ahmed Kathrada is an anti-apartheid leader. He launched the Release Mandela Campaign and was imprisoned a year later, spending 26 years in apartheid jails. On October 27 on Robben Island, he launched the International Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners.

Saturday, December 7, 2013

Palestinian teenager shot dead by israeli sniper near Ramallah

Palestinian teenager shot dead by Israeli sniper near Ramallah
Published yesterday (updated) 07/12/2013 22:08


(MaanImages)

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- A Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in al-Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah on Saturday.

Wajih Wajdi al-Ramahi, 14, was shot with live bullets in the back by an Israeli sniper in front of his school.

Al-Ramahi was taken to the hospital, and placed in the ICU until he died.

Locals told Ma'an that the area where al-Ramahi was shot had no clashes or any kind of rock-throwing incidents that might have provoked the killing.

The teenager father's said Israeli soldiers target youths and kill them, in order to amuse themselves.

He added that his son was shot by an Israeli soldier from a watchtower in Bet El with one bullet while he was walking near a school in the camp. He was hit directly in the back, and there was no clashes in the area, he added.

Al-Ramahi family said that their son was "executed" and "assassinated in cold blood," because he was shot in the middle of the day in the camp.

An Israeli spokeswoman said that they had opened an investigation into the matter, but had no further details.



More than 30 Palestinians have been killed so far in 2013 by Israeli forces.

Amnesty International's 2013 report on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories highlighted the lack of accountability for Israeli soldiers' crimes against Palestinian civilians, pointing out that, "The authorities again failed to independently investigate killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza or to prosecute those responsible."

The internationally recognized Palestinian territories of which the West Bank and East Jerusalem form a part have been occupied by the Israeli military since 1967.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

FREEDOM FOR THE HARES BOYS !

Friday 6th Dec: PROTEST IN SOLIDARITY WITH THE HARES BOYS / AGAINST G4S COMPLICITY IN TORTURE OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN

Solidarity with 5 Palestinian children tortured and caged by Israel for a crime that never happened


Date: Friday 6th December 2013, 2pm - 4pm
Location: G4S HQ, 105 Victoria Street (Closest public transport: Victoria Tube/Rail station), London


G4S - HARES BOYS

On 14th March 2013 in what appears to have been a car accident when a speeding illegal Israeli settler car crashed in to the back of an Israeli truck which had stopped to change a flat tire, on a illegal Jews-only road in the West Bank, resulted in four people being hurt. At the behest of angry settlers, the incident was later presented as an attack by Palestinian stone throwing youth.

The truck drivers earlier testimony that he had stopped due to a flat tire was replaced with the new reason being that he had seen stones by the road, and an accident that nobody saw suddenly became a terror attack with 61 witnesses including the police!

Over the next few days over 50 masked Israeli soldiers with attack dogs stormed the local village of Hares in the early hours of the morning and in waves of violent arrests kidnapped the children of the village. In total 19 children were taken to the infamous G4S secured children's dungeon at Al Jalame and locked up in solitary confinement for up to 2 weeks in filthy windowless 1m by 2m cells with no mattress. The children were violently tortured and sexual threats were made against the female members of their families in order to coerce confessions from the boys.

With the confessions and the new “eye-witness” statements, five of the Hares boys were charged with 25 counts of attempted murder each, even though there were only four people in the car. Apparently the military court had decided that 25 stones were thrown, each with an "intent to kill". The five boys - the "Hares Boys" - Ali Shamlawi, Mohammed Kleib, Mohammed Mehdi Suleiman, Tamer Souf, and Ammar Souf are currently locked up in another G4S secured facility - Megiddo prison where G4S provides the entire central command room.

With no evidence of a crime the military court keeps on postponing the hearing dates for the children. All the October and November military court dates were cancelled and new ones for December (starting next week) issued by the Israeli military to the families of the boys, meanwhile the boys remain caged now for nearly 9 months now. Not that evidence, or lack of it, has any bearing in an Israeli military court - a study conducted by the Israeli NGO 'No Legal Frontiers' over a 12 month period concluded that 100% of Palestinian children brought before the military court are convicted. If the five boys are convicted they will be locked up for over 25 years - five young lives ruined with no evidence of a crime let alone their guilt.

We are demanding the immediate and unconditional release of all the children and hold G4S complicit in Israel's crimes, particularly in the torture of Palestinian children.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

UFree Network calls for the release of Palestinian political prisoner and activist Thamer Saba'neh



Representatives from UFree Network and Yousef Al-Sedeeq institute for prisoners' protection (YAIPP) visited the family of Palestinian political prisoner Thamer Saba'neh, 35, who has been detained for more than 9 months in Israeli jails.

The visit came in light of the efforts in support of Palestinian activists, journalists and writers who are being targeted by Israeli occupation authority in an attempt to cover up its violations and crimes.

Thamer Saba’neh has served a total of 4 years in Israeli jails, where he first spent 40 days in 1998 and one year in 2000 while he was studying at al-Najah University. He was then arrested in 2006 and sentenced for 2 more years. His last arrest was on the 6th of March, 2013 that still continued without charge or trial.

Sab’aneh is well known by his support to the prisoners’ issue. He has written several articles and books in to highlight on the plight of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, led to his repeated arrests by Palestinian and Israeli authorities.
Read more here
UFree Network http://ufree-p.net/index.php/site/index/news/337/3