The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat expresses its utmost solidarity with the hunger striking prisoners in occupation jails as they struggle for freedom and dignity. Abdullah Barghouthi, on hunger strike since May 2, 2013, is facing a severe health crisis. While he and fellow Palestinian prisoners carrying Jordanian citizenship are striking for three demands:
1. That they be released from Israeli prisons and serve their sentences in Jordanian prisons according to the Wadi Araba Agreement between Jordan and Israel. This agreement was previously applied to the case of prisoner Sultan Al-Ajouli, who was transferred to Jordanian custody in accordance with the agreement.
2. That the Occupation disclose the whereabouts of missing Jordanian prisoners, of which there are 20.
3. That the Occupation remove martyrs from the ‘numbered graves’, where prisoners who died in custody are currently kept in nameless graves.
Israeli prison officials have declared that they will not release Abdullah Barghouthi – even if his strike will kill him. Mohammad Rimawi, a comrade of Ahmad Sa’adat, who started his hunger strike alongside Barghouthi, is vomiting daily, suffering from a heart condition for which occupation prison services refuse to provide him his medicine if he will not stop his hunger strike. Israeli prison officials even attempted to pressure Rimawi’s comrades in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to convince him to give up his hunger strike.
Sa’adat has repeatedly stressed that priority should be given to ill prisoners in releases; the hunger striking prisoners are suffering both as part of the depth of their commitment to their cause, but also because of the institutional medical neglect and mistreatment in occupation prisons.
Alongside Rimawi and Barghouthi, Muneer Mar’i, Alaa Hammad, and Hamza Othman al-Dabbas have been striking under these demands since May 2. Other hunger strikers include Ayman Hamdan, Imad Batran, Adel Hareebat, Ayman al-Tabeesh, Hossam Matar, and Mohammad al-Tabeesh, protesting administrative detention and demanding family visits.
TAKE ACTION!
1. Sign a letter demanding the Israeli state immediately implement the demands of the Jordanian hunger strikers. Tell the Israeli Prison Services that the world is watching! Click here to sign.
2. Join a protest or demonstration outside an Israeli consulate for Palestinian prisoners. Join one or announce your own. Organizing an event, action or forum on Palestinian prisoners on your city or campus? If you need suggestions, materials or speakers for your event, please contact us at campaign@freeahmadsaadat.org.
3. Contact your government officials and demand an end to international silence and complicity with the repression of Palestinian political prisoners. In Canada, Call the office of John Baird, Foreign Minister, and demand an end to Canadian support for Israel and justice for Palestinian prisoners, at : 613-990-7720; Email: bairdj@parl.gc.ca. In the US, call the office of Elizabeth Jones, Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs (1.202.647.7209). Demand that Elizabeth Jones bring this issue urgently to her counterparts in Israel.
