Éirígí Activists Across Ireland Prepare To Mark Palestinian Prisoners Day 2024
This year, Éirígí activists from all across Ireland will mark Palestinian Prisoners Day with a postering campaign highlighting the plight of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners abducted and jailed by the forces of Apartheid Israel.
Palestinian Prisoners Day is a day when the people of Palestine and their supporters around the world highlight the abduction, imprisonment and torture of thousands of political prisoners currently held in jails and internment camps set up to imprison any man, woman or child which Apartheid Israel deems a threat to it’s ‘security’.
As of April 2022, there were 4,450 Palestinians imprisoned by Apartheid Israel - of this number more than 530 were held in 'administrative detention', a form of internment where prisoners are held indefinitely without trial. In addition to this, there were also more than 160 children, ranging in age from 12 to 17, being held in the Israeli jails. Since October last year the situation has gotten drastically worse.
The forces of Apartheid Israel abducting, stripping and humiliating Palestinian civilians, many of whom have not been heard from since.
As part of Apartheid Israel’s current genocidal campaign against the people of Gaza, work permits for those working outside the territory were revoked, with up to 5,000 Palestinians who were working in Israel at the time of this revocation of their permits being abducted by the forces of Apartheid Israel. Those fortunate enough to have survived their ordeal at the hands of the IOF report being tortured and deprived of food, water and medicine.
In addition to this, thousands have been abducted by the IOF in Gaza itself, with those abducted suffering humiliation, sexual abuse and torture, with many being disappeared altogether.
Those abducted and imprisoned by Apartheid Israel have always been kept in inhumane conditions, along with being subject to the most barbaric forms of torture, but under the present racist, fascist government of Benjamin Netanyahu, the situation has gotten worse.
The poster that Éirígí activists across Ireland will be using to highlight the plight of the thousands of Palestinians who have been abducted and imprisoned by the forces of Apartheid Israel.
Among those currently held by Apartheid Israel is Ahmad Sa'adat, the Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Sa'adat has been imprisoned since 2002.
In March 2006, the IOF stormed the Palestinian Authority controlled Jericho Prison, abducting Sa’adat and hundreds of other political prisoners. Two years later, an Israeli military court sentenced the General Secretary of the of the PFLP to thirty years in prison, with Sa’adat being held in solitary confinement for a number of years after this verdict.
On the 27th of September 2011, Sa'adat and hundreds of other members of the PFLP being held by Apartheid Israel began a hunger strike against degrading prison policies and solitary confinement. Sa'adat and the other PFLP prisoners ended their hunger strike on the 17th of October, the 21st day of the hunger strike, after prison authorities agreed to end the policy of forced isolation.
Nevertheless, Sa’adat continues to be held by the forces of Apartheid Israel, being just one of thousands imprisoned for not bending the knee to an occupier who is attempting to annihilate the Palestinian people off the face of the earth.
Éirígí activists in North Dublin calling for Ahmad Sa’adat to be released.
We in Ireland have long experience of mass imprisonment and internment without trial. Those tactics didn't work in Ireland and they won't work in Palestine!
Éirígí For A New Republic has a long history of standing in solidarity with the heroic people of Palestine. We encourage all Irish people to add their voices to the call for the release of Ahmad Sa’adat and the thousands of other Palestinian political prisoners currently being held hostage by the Apartheid state of Israel.