October 23, 2024
The International Action Center condemns the designation by the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network as “a sham charity.” OFAC has listed the long-time Palestinian-Canadian activist Khaled Barakat “as associated with terrorism.”
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is an international coalition of activists dedicated to supporting Palestinian prisoners in their fight for freedom, stemming from the 2011 hunger strike of prisoners in Israeli jails. (samidoun.net)
This attack is part of a continuing U.S. government and Zionist effort to criminalize, defame and expel from social media those forces who have supported Palestine over many years.
The United States government is desperately seeking to shut down every form of support and solidarity for the Palestinian struggle. Not only is the supply of U.S. weapons exceeding all previous weapons shipments by almost tenfold, but every department of the U.S. empire is being used.
The Department of Education guidelines are aggressively forcing university administrations to shut down Palestine solidarity organizations by threatening funds to schools such as science grants. U.S. funding to United Nations agencies is impacted.
Every police agency from the local to state and national levels is involved in shutting down Palestinian actions and encampments. Now the Department of the Treasury, used against targeted countries, has focused on a small activist group which has focused international attention on the thousands of Palestinian prisoners.
This recent publicized action is the latest government effort, done in coordination with the government of Canada, to block the tidal wave of solidarity with the Palestinian struggle.
The flimsy, unsubstantiated U.S. government claim is that Samidoun serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). In fact, Samidoun does not do fundraising. Samidoun only carries out educational work about the torturous conditions of over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners.
For years Samidoun has provided concrete examples of how prisoners in Israeli jails learned how to survive and develop resistance to a new level. Its consistent support and campaigns for Palestinian political prisoners, in the very countries funding and equipping Israeli genocide, has drawn imperialist outrage.
The imperialist effort to defeat the Palestinian resistance and the Axis of Resistance has utterly failed to crush the drive for liberation. Every Palestinian prisoner, while in prison, learns new levels of resistance. Efforts to shut down this resistance are doomed to failure.
The PFLP, a Palestinian resistance organization, has already been designated as a “terrorist organization” by the very forces guilty of genocide in Palestine.
The latest attack on Samidoun only exposes the enormous fear U.S. imperialism has of solidarity, the most dangerous weapon.
The best defense in the face of government attack is strong immediate support. Political activists have already issued statements and acted collectively to demonstrate their refusal to be intimidated. Every act of support and solidarity, including demands, petitions and statements, must be taken to defend Samidoun’s right to speak, write and act in defense of the Palestinian prisoners who fill the Zionist jails.
The International Action Center will continue to carry these statements; we urge others to sign and support collective statements. Defending Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is an important front in defending the Palestinian resistance. Each wave of U.S. repression and intimidation is an opportunity to develop higher levels of solidarity.
Hands off Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network!
Palestine will win!
