Hands off Samidoun!
FRFI sends unconditional solidarity to Charlotte Kates, international coordinator for the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, a network of principled anti-imperialists who work to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle to be liberated from Zionist prisons, who was recently arrested and charged by the Vancouver Police Department with ‘public incitement of hatred’ and ‘willful promotion of hatred’ on 29 April. This was after giving a speech supporting the Palestinian resistance and calling for Palestinian resistance factions to be removed from Canada’s terrorist list on 26 April. This arrest follows a months-long campaign of pro-Zionist imperialist states targeting Samidoun across Europe and North America. It is clear that the ruling class fears a growing principled pro-Palestine trend in the imperialist heartlands that stands with the Palestinian resistance as they fight to liberate themselves from Zionist occupation.
Principled anti-racists see through the disingenuous attempts to smear anti-Zionists as racist, especially when they come from a racist state such as Canada; a state built on the genocide and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people and whose MPs gave two standing ovations to Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian veteran of the Nazi’s Waffen-SS Galicia Division, on 22 September 2023 when he was invited to attend the Canadian Parliament during a visit from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 600 members of this division were allowed to live in Canada after the defeat of Nazi Germany despite the division’s massacres of Polish and Jewish civilians.
State attacks on anti-imperialist organisations around the world come as the Palestinian armed resistance moves from strength to strength and opposition to Israel’s genocide increases. FRFI supporters are among the hundreds arrested by the racist British police since October 2023, many of them under the pretence that statements of solidarity ‘incite racial hatred’. In the US, over 2,900 student protesters have been arrested and threatened by their own universities with suspensions and expulsions. The imperialist ruling class is desperately trying to criminalise Palestinian solidarity – anti-imperialists everywhere must collectively organise to ensure they are not successful.
Hands off Samidoun!
Drop the charges against Charlotte Kates!
Palestinian solidarity is not a crime!
Thanks to FRFI
I recently bought the April/May 2024 edition of FRFI for the first time. I feel I might have found a ‘home’. At last, a paper where many articles are saying what I’ve been thinking.
The front page article ‘Palestine: A crisis for the ruling class’ was excellent. I’ve been thinking and saying for a long time that calling for a ceasefire was the wrong approach; sanctions are what’s needed. Hit the money and you hit the heart of imperialism! What was said about PSC and the examples of their Manchester and Birmingham branches is also something I’ve been thinking about. It seems as though the PSC don’t realise that ‘to make an omelette, you have to break eggs’.
The PFI article is something that needs pointing out a lot more. I’ve spoken to many doctors who have said that this is a massive drain on resources. If, as the polls suggest, we are heading for a Blair 2.0 government, PFI or something similar is going to raise its ugly head again!
I could go on but I’ll just say thank you and look forward to the next issue.
Steve Marriott
London
Palestine solidarity repression in Scotland
I write as one of Dundee’s Tesco 2 from 1984. Charges against us were dismissed in court then. A wee victory after the police had stupidly decided that calling for people to boycott fruit from racist South Africa was a crime. In Dublin that year, women workers at Dunnes Stores refused to handle goods from that murderous apartheid state. Now, 40 years later, I am one of the Lidl 4 charged with ‘Threatening and Abusive Behaviour’ for calling for a boycott of Israeli products. Political opposition to British support for Israel has led to the Starmer 2 in Glasgow facing court for calling out the Labour Party leader’s complicity in murder. The numbers of those charged here are rising as arms factories such as Thales, Elbit and BAE are picketed, blockaded, and shut down.
Tory and media stooges are hysterically calling for the mass criminalisation of the Palestine solidarity demonstrations that have marched on regularly since the attack on Gaza. Let us move on to build the isolation of apartheid Israel through Boycott, Sanctions and Divestment. Isolate the Zionist State! Sanctions Now! Build the People’s Boycott!
Micheal MacGregor
Dundee
Guardian covers up for Gaza slaughter
The pernicious role of The Guardian in conflating Zionism with Judaism cannot be overstated. It repeatedly cites the Community Security Trust (CST) as a credible source about anti-Semitic assaults without mentioning that it is a Zionist outfit. On 12 May, chief leader writer Sonia Sodha wrote lengthily about ‘fearful Jewish students’ in universities without attempting to explain what they were fearful of – expressing support for genocide, perhaps, or being resolutely opposed to it? The inference was clear – she was talking dishonestly about ‘fearful’ Zionists. On 15 May The Guardian published an article by Jo-Ann Mort defending the Israeli settler state. The next day it included one from a David Rich about anti-Semitism – without stating that he is head of policy at the CST. It is a constant drip-drip of Zionism as the genocide in Gaza continues. None of these articles express any opinion about the slaughter.
Robert Johnson
Liverpool
Victory for pro-Palestine protester
On 9 December 2023, my comrade and I were arrested at a pro-Palestine protest at Whitehall. I was accused of obstructing a police officer, following police attempts to arrest a 17-year-old boy for wearing a PFLP headband with Arabic writing. Netpol had previously reported on ‘worrying reports of police repression and surveillance at Palestine marches’ including arrests of people targeted for their use of chants, especially if they are in Arabic.
During the aggressive police manoeuvres, my comrade was also arrested for allegedly ‘assaulting a police officer’ by throwing a lit cigarette towards them. The young man was released at the scene and my case was dropped a few months later. However, in a ridiculous example of petty police vindictiveness against pro-Palestine protesters, my comrade was charged and, five months later, appeared before Southwark Crown Court. After viewing police footage of the alleged ‘assault’ – which clearly shows the cigarette falling to the ground – the judge pressed the prosecution to reconsider if they really thought it was in the public interest to proceed with the case. And still they insisted on going ahead. It took another week and another court appearance before they would accept that there was absolutely no evidence on which to proceed, and finally the case against my comrade was dropped. A victory to celebrate in the long line of persecution by the police, on behalf of the British state and Zionist agencies – from arrests for holding Palestinian flags, chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ and ‘victory to the intifada’, for chanting in Arabic, upholding the rights of the Palestinian people or simply portraying ‘a clear blue sky’ on a peace banner. As our barrister put it, ‘history will not be kind to those who have brought these prosecutions’.
Many of our comrades arrested for such trumped-up offences have still not been charged. Such delaying tactics by the Met police are designed to instil fear and uncertainty and put people off protesting in solidarity with Palestine – although it’s also true that they simply cannot find a criminal charge that will stand up in court, and our comrade’s victory in May is further proof of that. We will not be deterred from our legitimate right to stand with the Palestinian people against Zionist genocide.
Naomi Hayger
London
Eyewitness account: Columbia Palestine protest
During the first arrests at Columbia, I joined the droves of students protesting the NYPD coming onto our campus and arresting peacefully protesting students. Just after the arrests began, the Columbia university president sent communication stating that she ‘regretted’ having to call the NYPD onto campus to arrest students. It turned out that she retroactively changed the student code of conduct to suspend these students so that the NYPD could arrest them for trespassing. The protesters inside the encampment sat in concentric circles, chanting pro-Palestinian mottos. The protesters on the outside yelled at the police each time someone was arrested. Soon after the final arrests, organisers encouraged students to jump a fence to another lawn, thus starting an encampment that lasted until the Hamilton (renamed: Hind’s) Hall arrests. The energy was high; the encampment in the new lawn was easily triple the size of the original.
Another friend witnessed the arrests at Hind’s Hall. As news spread of an imminent raid, he was able to enter campus amidst growing protests at the gate. At the same time, hundreds of NYPD officers began to mobilise, closing off surrounding streets to traffic and pedestrians and marching en masse. He and other bystanders tried to stay within view of Hind’s Hall in order to observe and film the raid, but officers were sent in every direction to push bystanders back into buildings where they were barricaded for three hours.
Whenever I visited the encampment, the community focus was always evident. Food and medicine abounded for those in need, and each night, there was a community meeting detailing instructions for discipline and to move on community actions. All things were done with the needs of those in the encampment in mind.
Sumi Roy
Columbia University student
FIGHT RACISM! FIGHT IMPERIALISM! 300 June/July 2024
