Over 200 organizations have joined together to call for the immediate release of Khalida Jarrar, the imprisoned Palestinian feminist, leftist parliamentarian. Jarrar, a leading advocate for Palestinian prisoners’ rights, has been jailed without charge or trial under Israeli administrative detention for nearly a year.
The organizations who have expressed their support for Jarrar’s freedom include political parties, feminist groups, Palestinian community and Palestine solidarity groups, Indigenous justice, prison abolition and prison justice organizations, human rights organizations, legal groups and more from over 20 countries.
Jarrar has been jailed since 2 July 2017, when she was seized in a night raid on her home in El-Bireh by Israeli occupation forces. On 14 June 2018, she was informed that her detention would be extended for another four months, a sentence that is scheduled to be confirmed in an Israeli military court on 2 July 2018.
We are calling for days of action for the freedom of Khalida Jarrar between 30 June and 2 July. It is more important than ever that our voices are heard and our actions are visible. Protests are already being organized in New York and elsewhere around the world. You can download flyers, materials and visit petitions to join the campaign here: http://samidoun.net/2018/06/take-action-to-free-khalida-jarrar-june-30-july-2-organize-for-freedom/
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You are invited to add your organization’s name to the following statement to demand freedom for imprisoned Palestinian leader Khalida Jarrar! We will continue to update this statement and re-release with additional signatories. To endorse, please use the form or email samidoun@samidoun.net with your group’s name.
Freedom for Khalida Jarrar! End administrative detention!
We, the undersigned organizations, come together to demand freedom for Palestinian political leader Khalida Jarrar, prominent leftist, feminist, prisoners’ rights advocate and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. She has been imprisoned without charge and without trial since July 2017 – and now the Israeli military occupation has declared that her imprisonment will be extended for an additional four months.
On July 2, 2017, Khalida Jarrar’s home was raided by Israeli occupation soldiers in a pre-dawn raid. She was ordered shortly thereafter to administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. She is one of approximately 450 Palestinians held under administrative detention, a relic of the British colonial mandate that has been used by the Israeli occupation to jail thousands of Palestinian community and political leaders, and one of approximately 6,100 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
In December 2017, her detention was renewed for another six months. Now, another military order declares that she will be imprisoned for four more months. Administrative detention orders can be issued for up to six months at a time and are indefinitely renewable. Palestinians can spend years at a time jailed under these orders, never knowing when they could be released, if ever.
As Addameer notes, “This practice of arbitrary detention is a grave violation of international laws and human rights standards, particularly articles 78 and 72 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which state that an accused individual has the right to defend him/herself. This also violates Article 66 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and the basic standards of fair trial.”
On July 2, an Israeli military court is scheduled to approve the detention order. Jarrar, like all administrative detainees, has boycotted these hearings since February, as they are mere rubber-stamp sessions used as a fig leaf to “legitimize” the arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinians.
Jarrar is a Palestinian political leader, representing the Abu Ali Mustafa Bloc, allied with the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in the Palestinian Legislative Council. She is a frequent leader and participant in demonstrations and popular actions for Palestinian freedom, a a long-time Palestinian political prisoners’ advocate and former executive director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and now a member of its board, and chair of the Prisoners’ Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
She has also been active in the Palestinian women’s movement since her earliest days as a university student organizing with other female students to challenge the occupation. She is a leading organizer of International Women’s Day events in Palestine and coordinates closely with Palestinian women’s organizations. “Palestinian women are full partners in the Palestinian struggle,” she emphasizes.
Khalida Jarrar is heavily involved in the fight to hold Israeli officials accountable for war crimes in the International Criminal Court. She is a member of a Palestinian commission charged with bringing complaints and files before the international court about ongoing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, from attacks on Gaza to land confiscation and settlement construction to mass arrests and imprisonment.
Since 1998, she has been forbidden to travel outside occupied Palestine. When she needed medical treatment in Jordan in 2010, she struggled for months in a public campaign before finally receiving it. The Israeli occupation attempted to forcibly displace her from her home to Jericho in 2014, and in 2015, arrested and jailed her 14 months for her political activities.
The extended administrative detention of Khalida Jarrar is an attempt to remove an effective, grassroots leader from the Palestinian national movement. Especially now, when people are taking to the streets throughout occupied Palestine and thousands are marching in Gaza for the Great Return March, leaders like her are targeted for arrest and imprisonment in an attempt to defuse the Palestinian struggle.
Khalida Jarrar is being targeted as a Palestinian leader, a Palestinian voice for justice, and an active Palestinian woman. Her imprisonment is yet another attack by the Israeli colonial state against the Palestinian people struggling for freedom, and administrative detention and the mass imprisonment of Palestinians are two of the weapons used in an attempt to break the Palestinian liberation movement.
We come together today to demand the immediate release of Khalida Jarrar, an end to the policy and practice of administrative detention and freedom for Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. We pledge to struggle for justice through protests, actions, organizing and escalating boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) actions against Israel, in Khalida’s own spirit of resistance.
Signed,
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Al-Awda NY, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition
Action Antifasciste NP2C
Actions4Palestine
Alkarama Movement of Palestinian Women
Al-Quds Day Committee of New York
American Muslims for Palestine – NY/NJ
American Party of Labor
Anticapitalistas
Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland
Anti-Zionist and Anti-Imperialist Friends of Palestine
ArbeiterInnenmacht (Germany)
Arbeiter*innenstandpunkt (Austria)
Association Belgo-Palestinienne
Association des Universitaires pour le Respect du Droit International en Palestine (AURDIP)
Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR), India
Association France-Palestine Solidarité
AFPS 63 (Association France Palestine Solidarité 63)
AFPS 59/62
AFPS Alès-Cévennes
AFPS Paris 14-6
Associazione Amicizia Sardegna Palestina
Assopace Palestina – Italy
ATIK – Confederation of Workers from Turkey in Europe
Balfour Declaration Centenary Campaign
BDS Berlin
BDS France Saint-Étienne
BDS Turkey
BDS UChile (Universidad de Chile)
BDS Vancouver-Coast Salish
BDS Zürich
Belgian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (BACBI)
Black Alliance for Peace
Boycott! Supporting the Palestinian BDS Call from Within (aka Boycott from Within – Israeli citizens for BDS)
Bruxelles Panthéres
Cafe Palestina of the Southern Berkshires
California Coalition for Women Prisoners
Campagne BDS France
Campagne unitaire pour la libération de Georges Ibahim Abdallah (Paris)
Campaign to Boycott Supporters of “Israel” in Lebanon
Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat
Canada Palestine Association
Canadian BDS Coalition
Canadian Friends of Sabeel
Centre de la Communauté Démocratique Kurde de Toulouse
Coalition for Justice – Blacksburg
CODEPINK – Women for Peace
Colectivo Contraimpunidad
Collectif de Soutien à la Résistance Palestinienne 59-62
Collectif Judéo Arabe et Citoyen pour la Palestine
Collectif pour la Libération de Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
Colletivo Palestina Rossa
Comité Internacional Paz,Justicia y Dignidad a los Pueblos
Comité de Vigilance pour la Démocratie en Tunisie
Comité Poitevin Palestine
Committee to Stop FBI Repression – National
Committee to Stop FBI Repression – NY
Committees for a Democratic Palestine – Europe
Communist Party, Sweden
Coordinamento di Solidarietà con la Palestina – Sicilia
Corsica Internaziunalista
Corvallis Palestine Solidarity
Coup Pour Coup 31
Dun Padraig Friends of Palestine
Eye On Palestine Arts and Film Festival
Familles de prisonniers pour la Justice – Belgique
Femmes en lutte 93
F.O.R. Palestine (Berlin)
Free Gaza Movement
Free Palestine Movement
Freedom Archives
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Friends of Sabeel North America
Frihet åt Ahed Tamimi Göteborg
Fronte Palestina
General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS Aix-Marseille)
General Union of Palestine Students (GUPS France)
Gents Actieplatform Palestina
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Greek Front of Resistance and Solidarity with Palestine “Ghassan Kanafani”
Green Mountain Solidarity with Palestine
Greenville for Gaza
Handala Center for Prisoners and Former Prisoners – Palestine
Harakat Shaab – Lebanon
HDP (Peoples’ Democratic Party) Central Women’s Assembly
Hilombé Solidaridad
Human Rights Defenders
ICAHD
Independent Jewish Voices – Canada
Indivisible Midlands
Inminds Human Rights Group
intal
International Action Center
International Association of Democratic Lawyers
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) Spain
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network – Canada
International League of Peoples’ Struggle (ILPS)
International Red Help
International Women’s Alliance
Internationalt Forum – Denmark
Invictapalestina – Documentation Center
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Irish Republican Prisoners Welfare Association (IRPWA)
Irish Socialist Republicans
ISM France
Izquierda Unida – Spain
Jacksonville Community Action Committee
Jacksonville Palestine Solidarity Network
Jericho Movement – National
Jericho Movement – New York City
Jersey City Peace Movement
Jeune Garde Lyon
Jeunes Révolutionnaires Genève
Jeunes Révolutionnaires Vaud
Jewish Liberation Theology Institute
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP)
Jewish Women for Justice in Israel/ Palestine
Jews Against Genocide (JAG)
Jews for Palestinian Right of Return
Justice For Palestinians, Calgary
Justice for Palestinians – San Jose
Karapatan Alliance for the Advancement of People’s Rights – Philippines
Katie Miranda Studios
Kia Ora Gaza (New Zealand)
Kickapoo Peace Circle
LA4Palestine
Labor for Palestine
La Voix des Prisonnier.ère.s Politiques de Turquie et Kurdistan
Le Collectif Rouge Internationaliste pour la libération des prisonniers révolutionnaires (Paris)
Le Comité d’action et de soutien aux luttes du peuple marocain (Paris)
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