16 October 2024
The Bronx Anti-War Coalition stands in unwavering solidarity with the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and recognizes that the US and Canadian government’s designation of the organization as a terrorist entity is baseless and politically motivated. By targeting Samidoun with government sanction, the US and Canadian government escalate their Zionist counterinsurgency, weaponizing terrorist designations against the Palestinian liberation movement. It aims to silence the most influential group that exposes the illegal abduction and torture of Palestinians by Israeli prisoner authorities in concentration camps. We demand the immediate removal of all sanctions against Samidoun and urge all anti-imperialist organizations to defend Samidoun and their just cause.
Samidoun, an activist organization founded in 2011, raises consciousness about Palestinian prisoners, the majority of whom Israeli Occupation Forces kidnapped and held without charge, trial, or explanation in Zionist dungeons. Samidoun works to build solidarity with over 10,000 Palestinian prisoners, including children, suffering heinous physical, sexual, and psychological torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers. Before being abducted, imprisoned, and tortured, many Palestinians were leaders in their communities working toward the liberation of their people and land. Among them are teachers, students, doctors, nurses, organizers, and family members of resistance leaders. “Prisons” are a tool of the Zionist colonizer used to punish and retaliate against the steadfast resistance to occupation.
Samidoun was one of the first organizations to offer Western audiences historical context and analysis of the Al Aqsa Flood operation. While Western mainstream media deliberately framed the October 7th operation as a senseless and unprovoked act of terrorism, leaning on Islamophobia and Anti-Arab racism to propagate this narrative, Samidoun held teach-ins to help people in Western countries like the US understand the resistance and its objectives. Through their political education and street demonstrations, people in the West understood that the Al Aqsa Flood operation was a heroic act of liberation. Palestinians in Gaza broke through the open-air prison they’ve been held hostage in an operation that aimed to liberate Palestinian prisoners from Zionist torture camps through prisoner exchanges. Khalida Jarrar describes it as “the revolution of prisoners who long for their freedom and to break through the bars of their prison cells.”
Samidoun has kept the struggle to liberate Palestinian prisoners at the forefront of people’s hearts and minds around the world. As their name suggests—samidoun meaning “steadfast people” in Arabic—this new designation will not frighten nor deter the prisoner solidarity movement from continuing this critical work.
These sanctions are an effort by imperialists and Zionists to silence Samidoun and to suppress stories of Israeli torture and abuse against Palestinians from reaching the public, which they believe will curb criticism of Israel and shield it from accountability. Defending Samidoun is crucial as the US State Department rhetorically demands Israel improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza–a testament to the impact of their work. By sanctioning a major organization that reports on these horrific conditions, they attempt to engineer the appearance of improvement. This political persecution by reactionary governments shows their desperation as they lose the public narrative on the US/Israeli genocide against Palestinians.
The contradictions and hypocrisy of the US and Canada are stark. While labeling Samidoun as financiers of terrorism, they actively finance and arm Israeli terrorism in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond. This hypocrisy is glaring when the US invites Netanyahu to address Congress, receiving standing ovations as he executes genocide…
Read our full solidarity statement with Samidoun here: bronxantiwar.org/statements/samidoun