Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
15 April
RESISTANCE LEADER SEIZED AND HELD IN ISRAELI DUNGEONS
On this day in 2002, Marwan Barghouti was seized by the Israeli Army and sent to the 'Russian Compound' in Jerusalem, infamous for its torture practices. He had survived an Israeli assassination attempt in 2001, five years after he had been elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council. From jail, Barghouti has called for an end to Palestinian divisions and urged the Palestinian Authority to endorse and support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement worldwide.
القبض على زعيم المقاومة وأسره في الأبراج الإسرائيلية
15 أبريل
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 2002 ، احتجز الجيش الإسرائيلي مروان البرغوثي وأرسله إلى "المجمع الروسي" في القدس ، سيئ السمعة والمشهور بممارسة التعذيب . وكان قد نجا من محاولة اغتيال إسرائيلية عام 2001 ، بعد خمس سنوات من انتخابه في المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني. دعا البرغوثي من السجن إلى إنهاء الانقسامات الفلسطينية وحث السلطة الفلسطينية على تأييد ودعم حركة المقاطعة وسحب الاستثمارات وفرض العقوبات (على اسرائيل) في جميع أنحاء العالم.
Israel claims all 800,000 Palestinian prisoners it has arrested since 1967 are ''terrorists''
Members of liberation movements either end up in jail or in the grave. That is why Palestinians call themselves "prison graduates." When you are a Palestinian nationalist, Israeli jails are where you end up. When you belong to an occupied people, the occupying power's judicial system condemns and convicts you. It is therefore no surprise that the conviction rate of Israeli military courts has in recent years ranged from 90 to 99 percent.
We are guilty of being Palestinians, of aspiring to freedom, of refusing to surrender to a military and colonial occupation. While the oppressor may not want to acknowledge that injustice and oppression are the cause of provocation and conflict — and that freedom and dignity would pave the way to peace — it is the moral duty of the international community to remind and compel Israel to accept this undeniable truth.
When 1,500 Palestinian prisoners go on hunger strike to struggle for their rights, the jailer will use every diversionary tactic in the book to ensure that nobody asks the only relevant question: are their demands just and justified? Let me be the voice of the hunger strikers now, since many of them are in solitary confinement as punishment for having protested their detention conditions peacefully.
They are asking for the end of arbitrary and punitive measures against them, the end of torture and ill-treatment, of medical negligence, of the transfer of prisoners in cruel conditions, especially women, the end of the severe restrictions on their family visit rights and contacts with their loved ones, and respect of their right to education. These demands are not only legitimate; they are grounded in international law.
In a blatant attempt at distortion and misdirection, Israel claims that they "are all terrorists,'' all 6,500 prisoners including 300 children, 56 women, 13 parliamentarians, 28 journalists and the 500 administrative detainees held without charge or trial for indefinite periods of time, the worst form of arbitrary detention.
It claims all 800,000 Palestinian prisoners it has arrested since 1967 are ''terrorists'', the equivalent of 40% of our male population in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. And certainly, all the Palestinian people are ''terrorists'' by virtue of their identity.
9-minute video of Marwan Barghouti interviewed by a hostile BBC journalist after 19 years in Israeli prison
https://www.youtube.com/embed/nPiVcaRGgSQ