Responding to the call for action on Palestinian Prisoners Day by the Samidoun campaign, supporters of Manchester Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and RCG took part in symbolic protests under lockdown. Along with activists in Britain, international campaigners and Palestinian refugees joined our call for slogans, messages and creative ways of demanding the release of the prisoners of Zionism. These included three generations of Palestinian fighters from one family scattered between Manchester, Istanbul and Gaza, and a France-based socialist and artist.
As we write in the current issue of FRFI, the Covid 19 crisis under capitalism means that prisoners in Britain and around the world are being forced into overwhelming risk, with no let up for immigration prisoners, disabled or other vulnerable detainees. This is doubly so for Palestinian political prisoners, at the mercy of a fascist regime which collectively punishes the population under Israeli colonisation. As 19 year old Noureddine Sarsour, who recently tested positive for the virus at Ofer prison reports, the Zionist regime willfully exposes Palestinian prisoners to potential contagion.
We continue to demand the release of all Palestinian prisoners under Israeli detention and call for action to break British imperialist collaboration with the Zionist state.