Freedom for Ahmad Sa'adat and all Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails!

MPPM – the Portuguese Movement for the Rights of the Palestinian People and for Peace in the Middle East welcomes, and associates itself with, the International Week to Free Ahmad Sa’adat, which takes place from January 15 to 22, 2019.

Ahmad Sa'adat, who is a Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (parliament), was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment in December 2008 by an Israeli military court that accused him of leading an «illegal terrorist organization», that is to say, for being a leader of the Palestinian resistance to the Zionist occupation and repression – as General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, elected after the previous General Secretary was assassinated by Israel.

Even in jail Ahmad Sa'adat continued the struggle , joining all hunger strikes, protests and struggles of the Palestinian political prisoners' movement. He was subjected to over three years of solitary confinement, until in 2012 a massive hunger strike obtained his return to the general prisoners’ regime.

Ahmad Sa'adat and other prominent imprisoned activists and leaders of the Palestinian people’s liberation cause, such as Marwan Barghouti, Khalida Jarrar and Karim Younis, are a symbol of steadfastness and heroism in the resistance to the criminal Zionist regime that for decades has occupied Palestinian land and oppressed the Palestinian people, defying international law and UN resolutions.

Some 5500 Palestinian political prisoners are currently held in Israeli jails, for resisting the Israeli occupation, including 540 who are serving a life sentence and 480 who are in administrative detention, under which Israel can keep Palestinians imprisoned for indefinitely renewable periods of six months, , without trial or charge and without even justifying the reasons for the arrest. Palestinian political prisoners, including children and women, are subjected to the harshest and most unjust conditions of incarceration and violence, which have been repeatedly denounced by Palestinian and international human rights organizations.

In addition to being a humanitarian issue of the most basic justice, the release of Palestinian political prisoners from Israeli jails is one of the key political issues – together with the end of the occupation of the West Bank and of the siege of the Gaza Strip; the status of Jerusalem; and the issue of refugees – for a just settlement of the Palestinian question.

MPPM reaffirms its solidarity with Ahmad Sa'adat and demands his immediate release, as well as that of all Palestinian prisoners and detainees who are victims of the Israeli regime’s repression.

MPPM appeals to all those persons, organizations and institutions in Portugal that cherish freedom and justice to give voice to Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.

MPPM demands that the Portuguese State strives to force Israel to respect international law, and denounces that country’s daily human rights violations against the Palestinian people.

January 15, 2019
The MPPM National Directorate