FREE AHMAD SA'ADAT AND ALL PALESTINIAN PRISONERS!

A Letter to Ban Ki-Moon

Please endorse and distribute widely!http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/

Join dozens of organizations, academics and activists to endorse this letter to Ban Ki-Moon, including the National Lawyers Guild, the Palestinian Youth Network, UK MP George Galloway and many more! See full list of initial endorsers below...

We are asking for your endorsement and that of your organization to the belowletter, inspired by the hunger strike of imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa'adat, calling upon United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to uphold his responsibilities and take action to protect the rights, health and lives of Palestinian prisoners and demand the freedom of all 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners. This letter will be delivered to Ban Ki-Moon's office on July 8, 2009. Please send your endorsement as quickly as possible in order to ensure it is included, preferably before July 5, 2009. This initiative is being supported by the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat. Please send endorsements to info@freeahmadsaadat.org. We welcome endorsements from all organizations,individuals, coalitions and institutions in support of the goals of this letter and the rights and freedom of Palestinian prisoners.

Dear Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon;

We, the undersigned organizations and individuals, call upon you to immediately take action in defense of the lives, health and rights of the over 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners held inside Israeli occupation jails. This number includes numerous elected members of Palestinian Legislative Council,among them Ahmad Sa'adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Marwan al-Barghouthi, Fateh leader; Abdel-Aziz Dweik, Hamas leader and President of the Council, just freed after three years in prison, and dozens of other elected political leaders, in addition to thousands of other Palestinian activists, union members, community organizers, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters.

Palestinian prisoners suffer in conditions that violate international standards and norms, and are imprisoned because they refuse to accept a brutal occupation of their land and their people. Ahmad Sa'adat recently waged a nine-day hunger strike in protest of the policy of isolation and solitary confinement that has recently been escalated against Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian prisoners have been denied family visits, at times for years, denied access to all books and magazines, and denied even communication with their fellow prisoners in the isolation units. Palestinian prisoners, including Sa'adat, are currently denied necessary health care and medical treatment.

Palestinian prisoners are placed into isolation because they are national leaders and because the Palestinian prisoner movement has been an inspiration to all Palestinians and all who struggle for freedom. Ahmad Sa'adat's hungers trike has sparked thousands of people around the world to appeal for his release, as a living example who symbolizes the steadfastness and strength of the Palestinian prisoners amid isolation and dire conditions, and it must compel all of those outside the prisons to act. Many Palestinian and international human rights and social justice organizations have called for the release of Sa'adat and to ensure the safety of his life and health, as well as for freedom and protection for all Palestinian prisoners.

The fate of these 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners is a fundamental issue of justice. Palestinians, in Palestine and in exile, are denied their rights -to return home, to self-determination, and to freedom, and those who seek to secure those rights are subject to imprisonment, whether within the open-air prisons of Gaza under siege or the walled-in West Bank, or the jails of the occupation. The silent, and at times, active, complicity of international agencies, particularly the United Nations, in the denial of Palestinian rightsmust not continue.

We call upon you to uphold your responsibilities and exert all pressure to endtorture, cruel and inhuman treatment of Palestinian prisoners, and to free every Palestinian political prisoner from Israel's occupation jails.

 

Sincerely,

Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat

Al-Awda NY
American Iranian Friendship Committee
Arab American Union Members Council
Arab Muslim American Federation
Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine
BAYAN USA
The Freedom Archives
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
International Action Center
International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network
International Socialist Organization
Jericho Movement - NYC
National Lawyers Guild
New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine
New Orleans Palestine Solidarity
NYC Labor Against the War
NY Committee For Human Rights in the Philippines
Palestine House
Palestinian Youth Network
PATOIS: New Orleans International Human Rights Film Festival
Socialist Action
US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN) (Popular Conference)
War Times/Tiempo De Guerra
WESPAC Foundation

MP George Galloway, UK Parliament Member and coordinator of Viva Palestina USA
medical aid caravan to Gaza
Prof. Bashir Abu Manneh, Columbia University
Musa al-Hindi, Omaha, NE
Susan Abulhawa, author, Pennsylvania
Yousef Abudayyeh, California
Prof. Emeritus Naseer Aruri, Dartmouth University
Dr.C.J. Burns-Cox MD FRCP, Gloucester UK
James C. Faris, Director Emeritus, University of Connecticut Program in Middle
East Languages and Area Studies
Sara Flounders, co-director, International Action Center
Prof. Emerita Sherna Berger Gluck, California State University Long Beach
Prof. Emerita Elaine Hagopian, Simmons College
Dr. Tikva Honig-Parnass, Jerusalem
Paul Hubbard, Providence, RI
Monadel Herzallah, San Francisco, CA
Charlotte Kates, attorney
Basem Khader, Chappaqua, NY
Peter Klosterman, Ph.D. Oakland, CA
Michael Letwin, Co-Convener, New York City Labor Against the War; Former
President, Assn. of Legal Aid Attorneys/UAW Local 2325
Dr. Renee Levant, Instructor, Master of Liberal Studies Program, Fort Hays
State
University
Professor Moshé Machover, London School of Economics
Dr. Bruce J. Malina, Dept of Theology, Creighton University
Ali Mili, Phillipsburg, NJ
Harald Molgaard, Twickenham, UK
Ardeshir and Eleanor Ommani, Founders, AIFC,
Dr. Nagesh Rao, Assistant Professor of English, The College of New Jersey
Dr. Ahdaf Soueif, author
Professor Mustapha Soueif, University of Cairo
Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, M.D., USA
Tony Whelan, London, UK


This letter will be delivered to Ban Ki-Moon's office on July 8, 2009. Please
send your endorsement as quickly as possible in order to ensure it is included,
preferably before July 5, 2009. This initiative is being supported by the
Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat. Please send endorsements to
info@freeahmadsaadat.org.

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Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa'adat
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org