PFLP: We will continue to pound on the walls until victory and freedom
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following August 7 statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
The heroic battle for freedom waged by the prisoners of the Popular Front, led by the General Secretary, Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat in support of their comrade Bilal Kayed, who has been on open hunger strike for 54 days, continues with growing escalation of protest by prisoners. The prisoners are confronting the fascist occupation which continues in its attempt to suppress the strike through a series of continuous retaliatory measures. We are confident that the occupation is losing its strength for this battle and that the question of the victory of Bilal and his comrades is now a matter of time. This victory will not only have a positive effect on the prisoners’ movement and the struggles inside the prisons, but also at the level of the overall struggle of our people in Palestine and in exile.
The prisoners of the Front and their cadres and organizations in the prisons of the occupation are on the verge of defeating the occupation prison service in their attempt to transfer comrade Bilal and set an example for all prisoners completing their sentences, to move them to administrative detention. This new battle is reminiscent of the previous heroic battles waged by the prisoners’ movement against the occupation, through which were achieved many important accomplishments.
To the struggling masses of our people…
The action of General Secretary Sa’adat and his brave comrades serves to guide the flow of the river of the Palestinian cause on its natural course and to draw attention again to the issue of the prisoners after years of neglect. The struggle of prisoners has not witnessed for many years the strong momentum and international solidarity achieved by the case of Comrade Bilal Kayed. There is a coherent and solid block today in the Palestinian street and on the Arab and international levels standing clearly behind the struggle of the prisoners.
To the masses of our people and the progressive forces of the world..
In the context of the struggle for victory in the battle of our comrade Bilal Kayed, as we continue to confront the attacks of the occupier, we in the prison branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine emphasize the following:
1) While our General Secretary and many leaders of the Front join our cadres in the ongoing hunger strike (including Nasser Abu Khdeir, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Kamil Abu Hanish, Wael Jaghoub, and many more cadres of the Front) new groups of prisoners will join the open hunger strike on Sunday, especially in Ofer prison.
2) The PFLP organization in the occupation prisons is confident in its discussions with the prisoners movement as a whole for its escalation of the battle. From the first day of the strike, the entire movement has always confirmed that Comrade Bilal’s battle is not only a battle for him alone or a battle of the Front, but the battle of the entire prisoners’ movement, and his victory is a victory for all.
3) We reaffirm the need to continue to organize days of anger with mass confrontations, marches and demonstrations, in the squares, refugee camps, mosques and churches, especially the protests on Friday that march to confront the sites of the occupation.
4) We greet our people in the occupied Palestinian lands who give us constant support along with our people throughout occupied Palestine and everywhere in exile and diaspora, and call on them to participate widely in the demonstration in front of Barzilai hospital on Tuesday under the slogan, “From Jerusalem to Asqelan, Freedom for Bilal Kayed.”
5) We salute all of the struggling forces in the Arab world and especially our comrades in the Tunisian Popular Front and in Egypt, Morocco, Kuwait and elsewhere and urge them to continue and escalate their events of solidarity with the brave prisoners.
6) We salute our comrade, the internationalist struggler George Abdallah and his comrades in French prison who declared days of solidarity and hunger strike with us. We also salute the Lebanese and Palestinian youth organizations that are preparing to bang on the walls of the tank with us in Beirut and throughout Lebanon.
7) Finally, we call on the Boycott National Committee to issue an immediate alert to all of the boycott and BDS committees in the world to take up the campaign to defend the prisoners through the international boycott of the occupation and its institutions, and boycott of its complicit corporations, led by the G4S security corporation.
To the masses of our people…
We commit to our promise that we will be victorious in this battle and that we will achieve another victory for the prisoners’ movement over the fascist occupation. The leaders of the Front are determined to continue and lead this battle alongside their comrades with determination to secure the freedom of Comrade Bilal Kayed.
Victory is inevitable
The leadership of the PFLP in Israeli jails
August 7, 2016