The Palestinian Prisoners Club stated on Saturday that “the expansion and continuation of global campaigns supporting our national cause and our prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons is no longer merely a symbolic act of solidarity, but has become an active element in confronting a settler-colonial system that is relentlessly targeting the Palestinian presence with systematic tools of annihilation, in what is considered the most dangerous phase in the history of our cause.”
The club added this in a statement coinciding with widespread solidarity events taking place in several cities around the world as part of the “Red Ribbons” campaign demanding the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club explained that Israeli prisons and military camps “have become central arenas for the crime of genocide, having been stripped of any legal or humanitarian framework and transformed into closed spaces where physical and psychological torture, slow killing, and systematic humiliation are practiced against prisoners and detainees.”
It added that “the global calls to organize vigils and solidarity events in support of thousands of Palestinian prisoners reflect the awakening of the global human conscience and, in essence, represent a direct condemnation of the system of international impotence and silence, which has not only failed to stop the crimes but has also contributed to providing cover for their continuation.”
It further stated that “the occupation regime has killed more than one hundred Palestinian prisoners since the beginning of this genocide, while continuing to impose policies of systematic torture, starvation, and deliberate denial of medical treatment, in addition to widespread daily arrest campaigns targeting more than 21,000 citizens in the West Bank over the past two years, as well as thousands from Gaza, in an attempt to break the Palestinian social fabric and deplete its capacity for resilience.” The Palestinian Prisoners Club affirmed that “the voices of free people and those in solidarity around the world constitute a leading moral and humanitarian front in the battle to defend our cause, including the cause of the prisoners. They contribute to dismantling the colonial narrative of the occupation and re-characterize what is happening as a crime against humanity and a crime of genocide that does not only concern Palestinians but also strikes at the very heart of justice and universal human values.”
The Club added that “continuing popular and international mobilization is not an option but a moral and legal necessity to exert pressure to stop the systematic crimes against male and female prisoners, to rescue them from one of the most dangerous arenas of ongoing genocide within Israeli occupation prisons, and to ensure accountability before international justice.”
