Portuguese NGOs deliver protest on Palestinian prisioners to Israeli Embassy
The announcement that the Israeli authorities were forced to accept the end of the "administrative detention", the end of the containment isolation in prison and visits from family members of detainees, among other claims, means the success of the fair and courageous struggle of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners, who conducted a hunger strike in Israeli jails.
Given the strength of Palestinian political prisoners and the growing solidarity with their heroic struggle, the Israeli authorities were forced to yield.
However, as history sadly demonstrates, there are so many agreements signed by the Israeli authorities with the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority and Israel as those they do not fulfill.
As pointed out, the struggle of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails illustrates the tragedy of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, the crushing of their identity and of the fulfillment of their legitimate rights.
In fact, without the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails there will not be a just solution to the Palestinian question.
In solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle, the signatory organizations took the following position, which is open for subscription, and that was delivered to the embassy of Israel on May 17, in a public ceremony attended by the representatives of the underwriters and many people sympathetic to the cause of the Palestinian people:
The hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails was a cry of alarm about the condition of the martyred Palestinian people.
With their courageous actions, more than two thousand Palestinian prisoners denounced the violence of Israeli occupation and their determination to continue the struggle for the realization of their legitimate rights.
About 5,000 Palestinian prisoners, many of them imprisoned for years without having been pronounced against them a single charge, are subject to inhumane and undignified conditions, isolation, sometimes for years, the ban on family visits or their own lawyers , beatings, torture and blackmail.
The health status of many Palestinian prisoners - some having gone beyond seventy days of starvation - is extremely serious.
The condition of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails illustrates the tragedy of the Palestinian people under Israeli occupation, the violence of an everyday life made of systematic repression, of continuous dispossession of land, of destruction of houses and fields, of expulsions, of the continuous expansion of settlements, of the meticulous application of a policy aimed at crushing their identity and the suppression of their rights, namely the constitution of a state in the territories occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and a just solution to the situation Palestinian refugees.
Thus, the signatory organizations:
- Express their solidarity with Palestinian prisoners who carried out the hunger strike and, through them, with all the Palestinian victims of Israeli occupation
- Demand from of the Portuguese sovereign bodies a firm and determined action to blame Israel for the situation of Palestinian prisoners and requiring compliance by that state with the principles and norms of international and humanitarian rights that is required by its condition as of the United Nations
- Appeal to the Portuguese public opinion to be mobilized in the denunciation of the crimes of the Israeli occupation and assert its solidarity with the people and the Palestinian political prisoners, fighting for their liberation
- Decide to promote a public act of solidarity for delivery of that decision, on 17 May, at the Israeli Embassy in Lisbon.
Lisbon, May 15, 2012
Subscribing Organizations:
Associação de Intervenção Democrática - ID
Associação dos Agricultores do Distrito de Lisboa
Casa do Alentejo
Colectivo Mumia Abu-Jamal
Confederação Geral dos Trabalhadores Portugueses - Intersindical Nacional
Confederação Portuguesa das Colectividades de Cultura Recreio e Desporto
Conselho Português para a Paz e Cooperação
Ecolojovem - Os Verdes
Federação dos Sindicatos de Agricultura, Alimentação, Bebidas, Hotelaria e Turismo de Portugal
Interjovem - CGTP/IN
Juventude Comunista Portuguesa
Movimento Democrático de Mulheres
Movimento pelos Direitos do Povo Palestino e pela Paz no Médio Oriente
Sindicato dos Trabalhadores Civis das Forças Armadas
Sindicato dos Trabalhadores do Comércio, Escritórios e Serviços de Portugal
União de Resistentes Antifascistas Portugueses
União dos Sindicatos de Lisboa - CGTP/IN
Voz do Operário
Quinta, 17 Maio, 2012 - 00:00
