Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Samidoun: Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners! Week of Action January 15-22, 2025

Originally posted January 12th at:  samidoun.net/2025/01/free-ahmad-saadat-and-all-palestinian-prisoners-week-of-action-january-15-22-2025/  Wikipedia on Ahmad Sa'adat (alternatively Ahmed Sadat or Saadat,  أحمد سعدات ;  also known as Abu Ghassan), born in 1953 in al-Bireh in the West Bank:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Sa%27adat  Seized from a PA prison in Jericho by Israel in a heavily armed attack, with tanks, armored bulldozers (from Caterpillar?), and helicopters, going on for several hours, destroying much of the building and killing two PA security officers; with the complicity of the US and UK? --  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Bringing_Home_the_Goods


[Now that a ceasefire seems to have been set up:  open.substack.com/pub/dropsitenews/p/israel-refusing-to-release-marwan-barghouti-ahmad-saadat ]


[January 20th – Not much reported?? Leonard Peltier to be released – peoplesdispatch.org/2025/01/20/leonard-peltier-its-finally-over-im-going-home/ ]  [Release date February 18th? -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Peltier ]


[I might have missed coverage, but the first and so far only mention of Leonard Peltier's sentence being commuted (to indefinite house arrest) that I heard was on NPR around the 21st, saying that two police/sheriff associations condemn the Biden and Trump pardons.  Coverage later in the week mentioned only Trump's pardons.  


[January 28th:  blackallianceforpeace.com/bapstatements/welcome-home-leonard-peltier ]


[ redphoenixnews.com/2025/01/27/partial-amnesty-for-leonard-peltier-is-insufficient-belated-scramble-to-appeal-to-masses/ ]


[ www.struggle-la-lucha.org/2024/10/03/leonard-peltiers-80th-birthday-statement-released/ ]


[[January 20th] Trump pardoned around 1,200 January 6, 2021 defendants at least one of whom objected to being pardoned, and was interviewed by the BBC this week (Pamela Hemphill?):  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon_of_January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack_defendant  Those pardoned included "QAnon Shaman" (or "Q Shaman" or "Yellowstone Wolf") Jacob Anthony Angeli Chansley, born in 1988 (and from Phoenix, Arizona?).  He is a veteran of US Navy, mid-"War on Terror," and I thought I had read that he tried to run for political office (in Arizona?).  He is reportedly back on X/Twitter (at x.com/AmericaShaman ??, formerly at @USAwolfpack ?).  WUNC reported on those pardoned from North Carolina.]  


With the inauguration of Donald Trump, it seemed like Syria had been forgotten, but no, on the 23rd NPR suddenly had three or more stories.  First, at 2pm, there was a woman with a British accent who allegedly found Syrian government documents revealing a network of people who had been coerced, etc. into doing domestic surveillance for the government, something the Israeli government does routinely when it finds Palestinian sexual minorities, etc.  I think I read that Israel keeps dossiers for blackmail on every Palestinian.  What will happen to the compromised Syrians if or when their names are revealed to the Islamist government?  In Western Europe I don't think every alleged Axis collaborator was outed by the government immediately after WWII (?) or every alleged Stasi informant in the GDR after German reunification.  I think I heard something about the Netherlands and alleged WWII collaborators being outed just a few days ago.  I think the 3pm story was about Syria's wrecked economy, due to horrible mismanagement, outrageous corruption, and, lastly, sanctions.  On "All Things Considered" there was another story.  Did I forget an earlier one?  And then in the morning on the 24th there was a story from Emily Fang (?), now based in the region, and someone else about rebuilding somewhere in Syria (Damascus?), where they regularly dig up bones from the civil war (?).  Bones, buried or not, and unexploded ordinance, are no doubt going to turn up for years, decades, even 100 years plus, after the war in Gaza ends.  NPR and the BBC admit that unburied bodies are lying around, eaten by probably starving domestic and feral animals, in addition to remains buried in the rubble [only ~10,000?] or hastily interred.  On the 24th NPR also mentioned something about Afghan 'opposition' hopes for more attention under Trump, so that line of attack isn't over yet either.  Around the 23rd there were also two or more stories, from the usual suspect, about how a Russian proxy force seized eastern Ukrainian cities, used the Minsk agreements to prepare the current war of aggression, and a claim that new polls say that the Ukrainian people don't think that there can be peace unless they get back every bit of territory taken by Russia. On the 24th it was claimed that British and French forces could garrison western Ukraine after the war.  Militant Russophobe Estonia favors Trump's new demand (?) that countries devote 5% of their GDP to military spending, when the highest percentage is ~4%, and the USA spends about 3% of GDP.  What is their purpose?  There was something else, besides China being blamed for the new cold war.] 


[At the very beginning of the day on the 24th the BBC's news headlines were something like, first, Trump wants the remaining files on the JFK, RFK, and MLK assassinations to be released (and I think the BBC just stated that people think Cuba killed Kennedy, and maybe that disclosure won't make a difference), and there was something about talking with Kim Jong Un.  At 9am they had Gerald Posner ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Posner ) on to say that there aren't any conspiracies here, the CIA and FBI are just trying to avoid embarrassment, the government doesn't want to release tax information, etc. about people long since dead, etc.  RFK Jr didn't seem overjoyed about the news?  Also this week NPR condemned Trump's novel legal theories (unlike when Democrats put forward novel legal theories), etc.  Apparently Trump-Vance are admittedly "flooding the zone."  For what purpose?  There is a debate about whether rightist Elon Musk gave Nazi salutes recently, while it has been like WWII in the Middle East, for years even.  I saw a claim that there are many more US oligarchs now than when Biden became president.  Musk gave the common rightist 'defense' that he is a Zionist (?).]'


[On "All Things Considered" January 24th – Juana Summers and Lisa Hagen (?):  Free speech is  protected by the 1st Amendment and Joe Biden, the social media giants, 'disinformation researchers,' etc. did nothing wrong, and Trump is the only one threatening the 1st Amendment, like Hungary's Viktor Orban or "populists."  Don't believe in the "Twitter Files," etc.] 


[On the 23rd NPR claimed that Trump only supports Federal recognition of the Lumbee Indians in North Carolina because Lumbee stronghold Robeson County, NC supported him multiple times.  I'm not sure if NPR offered any evidence for this claim.  The Lumbee have long had State recognition, but other tribes have opposed the Lumbee bid, apparently over resources, etc., and apparently the Lumbee haven't been able to get bill through the US Senate, though they have gotten through the House.  Apparently it can be complicated to convince the Federal government that a new applicant, even one recognized by a state, is Native, etc.  And there are issues over who can be an enrolled member of a recognized tribe.]      


[More current events at:  durhamspark.blogspot.com/2025/01/a-2025-new-years-message-from-usmlo-few.html , for now]

 

[A statement – liberationroad.substack.com/p/the-ceasefire-in-gaza-relief-fear ]  [National Lawyers Guild and American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee statements to be added.]  [And from UNAC.]


[Over the first weekend NPR and the BBC made sure to predicate everything on a brutal, criminal act by Palestinian militants, though they did admit that Israel is releasing "prisoners and detainees" (I think one of them added "prisoners"), or hostages they seized.  NPR and the BBC have been hiding that the Resistance forces were able to effectively fight back and have regrouped and recruited new soldiers during the fighting.  They hardly ever (like 2-3 times in 15 months??) mentioned the hundreds of Israel soldiers lost in small Gaza alone (I thought I heard a figure around 400 on the 20th or 21st [in addition to military casualties on October 7, 2023 and in Lebanon, etc.]), and around the 21st I thought I heard them say that the Palestinians have been hitting armored or entrenched Israeli artillery (carrying out artillery duels, as in the war in Ukraine??).  Palestinian rockets have been mentioned, very briefly, but the media makes sure to give the impression that the drones and missiles fired by Resistance forces have been basically useless, unlike Israel's bombs (NPR and the BBC liked to talk about Syrian "barrel bombs," but say nothing about the charges that Israel used "barrel bombs" ).  A left liberal US view says that this is a massacre, not a war, because the Palestinians can't respond.  For 15 months the coverage has been about brutal if not criminal Israeli impunity and their suffering, powerless neighbors (and Biden and Harris were also powerless and "frustrated," and nothing is said about how many votes they lost for Israel; and now at the very end, just when the very bad, heinous "orange man" (and he is with the warmonger party) enters office there is ceasefire.  Regarding president Carter NPR recently denied the theory that Reagan conspired with Iran to have the US embassy hostages released after Carter had left office, though they did mention president-elect Nixon's role with Vietnam.  I noticed that WRAL's graphic for the war has the Israeli flag and a green flag with Arabic writing in white that must be a Hamas flag, though the war includes several groups and countries.  It wasn't just members of Hezbollah being targeted and killed in Lebanon, but the media called it an Israeli-Hezbollah coflict.  They deny that there is a larger war going on.  The media doesn't talk about Lebanon or Syria now, and pretends that the war is ending.  Why did Trump fill his cabinet with very anti-Iran "hawks?"  The Israelis say that they aren't done yet, and hundreds of settlers just rampaged in the West Bank to 'retaliate' or get vengeance for the existence of a ceasefire.  


The mainstream media isn't mentioning that Israel told the Palestinians not to celebrate the return of the prisoners and hostages held by Israel, and apparently did carry out threatened violent reprisals.


[ fair.org/home/media-credit-trump-for-gaza-truce-sidelining-palestinian-resistance-and-solidarity/ ]


[ jackrasmus.com/2025/01/24/bidens-pernicious-presidential-legacies-print/ ]


[ www.stephensemler.com/p/how-the-most-unpopular-us-president ]


[ diario-octubre.com/2025/01/24/trump-promete-contactar-con-kim-jong-un/ ]


[ diario-octubre.com/2025/01/24/trump-quiere-facturar-a-la-union-europea-por-la-presencia-de-las-tropas-estadounidenses/ ]






[Image]


15 January 2025 marks the 23rd anniversary of the detention of Ahmad Sa’adat – Palestinian national and leftist leader, and the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – by the so-called “Palestinian Authority,” as part of its “security coordination” with the zionist occupation. Since then (23 years!), he has been detained, first in the PA jails. Later, he was abducted by the zionist entity on March 14th, 2006.

Join us to take action on 15-22 January 2025 for the Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners!

>> Click here to Endorse the Week of Action (Organizational Endorsements) <<

This annual call to action is particularly urgent this year for two reasons:

1) The collaboration of the treacherous Palestinian Authority, which inflicts repression on the Palestinian people to maintain its own position of privilege and collaboration with the zionist entity. With the funding and support of the imperialist powers, this has accelerated in a particularly dangerous manner amid the ongoing genocide. Since 7 October 2023, the PA has taken the lives of 18 Palestinian martyrs and is currently waging an ongoing siege against the resistance in Jenin camp. It continues to imprison dozens of Palestinian political prisoners, including Palestinian students, while firing on the resistance forces defending Palestinian land.

2) This is an urgent moment for the potential prisoners exchange sought by the Palestinian Resistance. Contrary to zionist and imperialist propaganda, the Resistance is the primary force seeking a meaningful prisoner exchange combined with the complete withdrawal of the genocidal zionist forces from the Gaza Strip. One of the highest priorities of the prisoner exchange is releasing the leaders of the resistance held in Zionist jails, with high sentences, that the regime has refused to release in past exchanges, including Ahmad Sa’adat, Marwan Barghouti, Abdullah Barghouti, Abbas al-Sayyed, Hassan Salameh, Ibrahim Hamed, Mahmoud al-Ardah, and others.

Palestinian prisoners are Resistance leaders, on the front lines for justice and liberation, enduring hunger strikes and struggling relentlessly with an unbreakable will toward freedom amid the most dire conditions of torture, abuse, medical neglect and deliberate killing. Since October 2023, they are facing exponential violence from the zionists, a violence that led to the martyrdom of over 50 Palestinian prisoners, with extreme violence particularly directed against the undisclosed number of Palestinians from Gaza abducted by the occupation and held in notorious torture camps like Sde Teiman.

Ahmad Sa’adat is a leader in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the Palestinian national liberation movement and a Palestinian, Arab and international symbol of resistance to Zionism, capitalism, racism, apartheid and colonization. Targeted for his political role and clarity of vision, he remains unsilenced and unbroken, despite the oppression imposed upon him and thousands of fellow Palestinian political prisoners.

23 years after his arrest, it is long past time for freedom for Ahmad Sa’adat, his fellow Resistance leaders and all Palestinian Prisoners in Zionist, imperialist, reactionary and Palestinian Authority jails.

32 years after Oslo, it is long past time to expose the so-called Palestinian Authority and bring down its  “security coordination” and treachery against the Palestinian people, in Jenin camp and everywhere. 

76 years after al-Nakba, it is long past time for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea!

We call for an international week of actions from January 15th to January 22nd, calling for the liberation of Ahmad Sa’adat and his fellow resistance leaders, advancing the demand for a prisoner exchange and an end to the genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine, and highlighting the malevolent role of the “Palestinian Authority” in the Palestinian liberation struggle. Take action to escalate against the zionist genocidal colonial entity, organise for justice in Palestine!

What can you do at you local level?

  • Endorse the Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners.
  • Educate through your networks: organise a discussion on Resistance leaders and political prisoners, share resources about Ahmad Sa’adat and Palestinian prisoners on social media and in your community
  • Organise or join a protest or demonstration against the ongoing Zionist-imperialist genocide in Palestine with a contingent, signs or banners for Ahmad Sa’adat and the Palestinian prisoners
  • Organise a demonstration at a PA embassy or similar location to demand an end to the Palestinian Authority’s offensives in Jenin Camp and throughout the West Bank against the People and the Resistance.
  • Organise an event, protest, teach-in stand or letter-writing meeting for the Week of Action.
  • Organise events, actions and protests to demand freedom for Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners. Protest in public spaces, campuses and community spaces.
  • Join the social media campaign. Post a photo or a video message calling for freedom for Ahmad Sa’adat and his fellow Palestinian prisoners.
  • Support the liberation of Abla Sa’adat, Ahmad’s wife, imprisoned since September 2024.
  • Use the hashtags #freeallpalestinianprisoners, #freeahmadsaadat

“The Palestinian struggle for national liberation is part and parcel of the international movement of peoples for national liberation, international racial and economic justice, and an end to occupation, colonialism and imperialism.” – Ahmad Sa’adat

Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea! 

[Graphics to download]

Statements and Writings by Ahmad Sa’adat

Resources and Articles on Ahmad Sa’adat






[An email Samidoun sent out the evening of January 21st: 



The Flood of the Free/Toufan al-Ahrar: The March to Liberation || Take action for Palestinian prisoners and all of Palestine


[Flood of the Free broken chain image]

Dear supporter of Palestine,

 

In the early morning hours of Monday, 20 January, 90 Palestinian prisoners were liberated from the jails of the Zionist occupation regime in the first day of the Flood of the Free (Toufan al-Ahrar) prisoner exchange, achieved by the Palestinian Resistance as part of the first stage of the ceasefire agreement imposed upon the occupier. Despite hours and hours of delays created by the occupation, repeated invasions of Jerusalemite Palestinian prisoners’ family homes in an attempt to prevent them from celebrating, and the firing of tear gas and rubber-coated metal bullets on the crowds awaiting the prisoners’ release in Beitunia, the Palestinian people celebrated and received their beloved, liberated prisoners and the Resistance and sacrifices of the people of Gaza that obtained their freedom.

 

They included multiple liberated prisoners who had earlier been released by the resistance in the first prisoner exchange of Al-Aqsa Flood, in November 2023, only to be targeted for re-abduction by the occupation, including Wala’a Tanja, Ahmed al-Khashan, Haneen al-Masaed, Rawda Abu Ajamiyeh, and Samah Hijjawi, as well as several well-known, leading prisoners, such as Khalida Jarrar, the prominent Palestinian feminist, leftist and scholar; Abla Sa’adat, the wife of Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and writer Zahra Khadraj of Qalqilya; journalists like Israa Lafi, Bushra al-Tawil, and Rula Hassanein; students like Jenin Amr, Raghad Amr, Shaima Rawajbeh, Tamara Abu Laban, Duha al-Wahsh, Amal Shujaia, Ola Jouda, Dunia Shtayyeh, Aseel Eid al-Yassini, Baraa Fuqaha, Shatha Jarabaa, Dania Hanatsheh, Raghad Mubarak, sisters Shaima and Alaa Ramadan, and Al-Yamama Hreinat; educators like Hadeel Shatara and Fatima al-Rimawi; and three members of the Al-Arouri family, targeted and imprisoned because of their relation to the assassinated martyred Hamas leader, Salah al-Arouri: Dalal al-Arouri, Fatima al-Arouri, and Fatima’s daughter, Alaa Saqr.

 

As we prepare for the next day of the prisoner exchange on Saturday, 25 January -- and stand with the released prisoners who have revealed the torture, abuse and suffering they endured in occupation jails -- action for Palestine is critically important, especially as the Zionist regime escalates its genocidal assaults, now targeting Jenin Camp in the West Bank of Palestine.

 

Read our report below -- as well as these important articles:

We urge you to join these 2 important events on January 22 in Paris and New York City:

 

NEW YORK CITY:

Protest & Rally: Wednesday, Jan. 22 | 3-5pm | The comprador “Palestinian Authority” Mission to the UN (115 E 65th St, New York, NY 10065).

 

PARIS:

On Wednesday, January 22, at 5 pm, at the Place de la Sorbonne, organized by the Student General Assembly and the Unitary Campaign for the Liberation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, rally to free Georges Abdallah and Ahmad Sa’adat.


[Two flyers and six images from the  Flood of the Free prisoner exchange]


Several of the women prisoners required immediate health care, and the clear signs of medical neglect and abuse stood in sharp contrast to the health of the three Zionist captives who had been released by the Resistance earlier in the day, despite their circumstances under a genocidal bombing and siege in Gaza. Khalida Jarrar emerged from prison with the signs of her mistreatment — including five months and one week held in solitary confinement with only a small slit with which to breathe the air — evident on her face and body, while Margaret al-Rai emerged from the bus with a broken hand, injured by the assault of occupation prison guards. Many of the prisoners had lost tens of pounds during their imprisonment due to the occupation’s starvation policy directed against the prisoners.

 

Prisoners like Ahmad Sa'adat, and his fellow Resistance leaders like Marwan Barghouti, Abdullah Barghouti, Hassan Salameh, Anas Jaradat, Ibrahim Hamed and Abbas al-Sayyed will potentially be liberated in the second stage of the exchange, part of the second stage of the ceasefire. Therefore, it is particularly urgent to publicize their names and cases -- to highlight the prisoners with lengthy sentences and support the resistance’s demand for their liberation, while celebrating the exceptional accomplishments of the Flood of the Free and the Resistance on a daily basis.

 

The names on the list published by the occupation are exciting and inspiring, including so many of the great leaders of the Palestinian liberation struggle; three of the heroes of the Freedom Tunnel; Nael Barghouthi, the longest-held Palestinian prisoner; Mohammed Abu Warda, with 45 life sentences; Khalida Jarrar, the leading Palestinian academic and leftist; Ammar al-Zaben, the first Palestinian prisoner to conceive a child through “smuggled sperm;” Dirar al-Sisi, the Palestinian engineer kidnapped from Ukraine in 2011; Hadeel Shatara, the Palestinian educator and activist; Iyad Jaradat, who endured years in solitary confinement; Wael Jaghoub, the Palestinian leader and writer behind bars; Bushra al-Taweel, the tireless chronicler of the Palestinian prisoners’ cause; the ill strugglers like Moatassem Raddad and Mansour Muqtada; Abla Sa’adat, the wife of Ahmad Sa’adat — and so many more.

 

However, we also know that the exchange will be completed in stages and throughout the 42 days, and that the Resistance — the great Resistance that achieved their liberation — is the only trustworthy source of information, and will be coordinating the release of the lists of names of prisoners to be exchanged each day of the releases.

 

1,737 male and female prisoners will be released from Israeli occupation prisons by the Resistance as part of the FIRST PHASE ONLY of the Flood of the Free.

 

We urge everyone, around the world, to join with the Palestinian people in Gaza and everywhere, to celebrate the achievements of the Resistance and the humiliation of the occupier, and to celebrate and welcome each liberated prisoner as the heroes of our global movement that they are, in public events, with posters and public education, with actions and events exposing Zionism and imperialism everywhere.

 

The Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners is continuing amid the Flood of the Free — this is an excellent opportunity to highlight the prisoners with lengthy sentences and support the resistance’s demand for their liberation, while celebrating the exceptional accomplishments of the Flood of the Free on a daily basis. 

 

We urge all supporters of Palestine and Palestinian and Arab communities to receive and honour the prisoners virtually and symbolically — and pledge to continue the movement until all of them are free, and all of Palestine is free, from the river to the sea.


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