Palestine: Political prisoners’ hunger strike reaches critical stage

Detained PFLP Leader Moved To Prison Hospital

Sunday April 29, 2012 15:03, by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News

Palestinian sources reported, Sunday, that detained secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Sa’adat, was moved to the Ramla prison hospital after a sharp deterioration in his health condition.

Sa’adat had been on hunger-strike since thirteen days joining the open-ended hunger-strike declared by the Palestinian political prisoners held in various Israeli prisons and detention center.

The PFLP leader has been in solitary confinement for three years now, with no end in sight; his health condition is gradually deteriorating due to various health conditions that need specialized medical attention.

Palestinian Minister of Detainee, Issa Qaraqe’, stated that the Ministry’s attorney, Rami Al-Alami, went to visit Sa’adat on Sunday but the Israeli Prison Administration told him that Sa’adat was moved to the Ramla Prison hospital.

The Quds Net News Agency reported that detainees of the PFLP rejected an Israeli offer to end their hunger-strike in exchange for removing Sa’adat from solitary confinement, and stated that Israel must stop all of its violations, and put an end to its illegal solitary confinement policies.

All hunger-striking detainees are demanding Israel to treatment in accordance with International Law, and insist on an end to all policies of solitary confinement, and all sorts of attacks and violations against them and their visiting family members.

Detainee Bilal Thiab entered his sixty-second day of ongoing hunger-strike demanding to be released. Several hunger-striking detainees were moved to hospital but refused to break their strike.

Detainee Tha’er Halahla entered his 61 day of hunger-strike at the Ramla Prison Hospital; prison doctors warned Thursday that his body is losing its immune system and his organs might be failing.

Israeli intelligence: Prisoner Swap Deal Doesn’t Include Al-Barghouti, Saadat, Nor As-Syyed

Wednesday October 12, 2011

by Alaa Ashkar – IMEMC & Agencies

http://www.imemc.org/article/62257

The prisoner swap deal, reached by the Hamas movement and Israel, does not include several senior political leaders of the major Palestinian factions, senior sources told the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency early on Wednesday.

The exchange does not include; Fatah senior leader, Marwan Al-Barghouti; the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmed Saadat; several top Hamas leaders, including: Ibrahim Hamed, Hasan Salameh, Abdullah Al-Barghouti, Jamal Abu El-Heija, Abbas Issyd. As well as several other senior Hamas officials, whose names are still anonymous, the Israeli Channel Two reported the Israeli Intelligence Chief saying.

Statement of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt

News from website http://www.uruknut.info Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine PFLP, February 2, 2011 Comrade Hussein al-Jamal, member of the Central Committee of the Gaza branch of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said on February 2, 2011 that “the Front will never stand aside or claim neutrality toward popular revolution or the national liberation movements in the Arab world. Our Front stands beside all of the Arab people, and especially the peoples of Egypt and Tunisia at this time of their great revolutions.” In an interview with Gaza-based Voice of the People radio, Comrade Jamal said that the “clock of the Arab world will not go backwards, but instead forwards toward freedom and emancipation from oppression,” adding that the victory of the Arab revolutions would deal a severe blow to Israel and the Zionist movement. He noted that Israel is currently confused and carefully watching events in Egypt, and warned of attempts by the state meant to subvert the popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt. Comrade Jamal said further that the common factor of these revolutions is their popular base and origin, and have a fundamentally progressive and leftist character.

The long, unjust imprisonment of PFLP general secretary Ahmad Sa’adat

Ahmad Sa’adat: A Prisoner of Conscience

By Stephen Lendman

Ahmad Sa’adat is  the 1967-founded Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s (PFLP) General Secretary, one of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners, sentenced in 2002 to 30 years in prison “for a range of ‘security-related’ political offenses,’ ” including his prominence in a prohibited organization.

A 1993 document stated that: “The strategic aim of the PFLP’s struggle alongside the other forces of the Palestinian revolution is to liberate Palestine from Zionist colonial occupation. The PFLP aims for the establishment of a democratic state on the entire Palestinian land, with its capital in Jerusalem. This state would guarantee legal rights and equality of opportunity to all citizens, without discrimination on the grounds of religion, sex, belief or color. It would oppose Zionism and imperialism and be oriented towards democratic unity with other Arab countries.”

“Achieving this aim presupposes a radical solution for the Palestinian national cause and readiness to wage a prolonged, complicated and difficult struggle (against Zionism), a racist, aggressive, expansionist, settler-colonial entity which aims at elimination of our people.” Great sacrifices are needed to prevent it.

Sa’adat’s Background

Born in 1953 in Deir Tarif village near Ramallah in the West Bank, the son of dispossessed refugees, he became an activist after the 1967 Six Day War. In 2001, he was elected PFLP General Secretary, replacing Abu Ali Mustafa, assassinated by Israel on August 27 that year.

In February 1969, Israel first arrested him for PFLP activities, detaining for three months – then for 28 months in 1970, 10 months in 1973, and 45 days in 1975. That year, he graduated from United Nations WRA’s Ramallah Teaching Training College, specializing in math. In 1976, he was arrested again and held four years. In April 1981, he was elected to PLFP’s Central Committee. In 1989, he was arrested and detained nine months, again in 1992 for 13 months, then released but declared a “wanted person,” subject to re-arrest without cause.

PFLP: The Palestinian Authority is liquidating the right of return of 6 million Palestinian refugees

Uprooted Palestinians.blogspot.com     October 15, 2010

DAMASCUS (PIC)– The Political Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Maher al-Taher, said that Abbas’s Palestinian Authority (PA) is trying to liquidate the right of return of 6 million Palestinian refugees in the diaspora through continuing with direct “peace talks” and the policy of acquiescence to the Zionist occupation, adding that talking about peace is misleading and deceptive.

In a statement to PIC Taher questioned the PA’s motive on insisting on negotiations and suggested that such talks only serve the pockets of some PA officials.

The PFLP leader added during a visit to Tale’e al-Ba’th Camp, where the Lifeline 5 convoy is staying, that 1.3 million Palestinians living in 1948-occupied Palestine constitute a thorn in the side of the Zionist entity which is trying to get rid of them through its “Jewish state scheme.”

He called on Egypt to facilitate the entry of the Lifeline 5 convoy to the Gaza Strip including all the aid carried by the convoy and the international sympathizers who came to express their solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine quits PLO meetings to protest peace talks with Israel

Armed members of PFLP lead march in Jenin

English.news.cn, 2010-09-26

DAMASCUS/RAMALLAH, Sept. 26 — The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) suspended its participation in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) meetings on Sunday to protest direct peace talks with Israel.

“PFLP refuses to work as a cover for the Palestinian National Authority’s (PNA) policy,” Maher al-Taher, leader of the Damascus- based PFLP, said during a sit-in in support of the Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails.  The decision of suspending participation in the PLO meetings is a response to the resumption of direct peace talks with Israel, Taher said.

The U.S.-brokered talks started on Sept. 2 are “concessions, especially as the negotiations were imposed as an alternative to the reference of the United Nations and its resolutions,” Khaleda Jarar, a senior PFLP leader, said in a press conference in Ramallah, following a meeting of the PFLP’s Central Committee.

The PFLP is the second largest member of the PLO after the PNA President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement.

The peace talks which are not aimed at protecting the Palestinian refugees’ right to return will actually serve the interests of the United States and Israel, Taher said.