Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from POWIR (People's Opposition to War, Imperialism, and Racism)

POWIR [People's Opposition to War, Imperialism, and Racism] unequivocally stands in solidarity with 16 year old Palestinian youth activist Ahhed Tamimi and all other Palestinian child prisoners illegally detained in Israeli prisons.

Ahed has been targeted by the Israeli state for her family’s long standing anti-colonial activism that opposes the Israeli occupation and the continued annexation of their village lands by Israeli settlements. On January 1, Ahed was indicted with 12 charges for activism, including assault of an IDF soldier and incitement based on social media posts. This punishment has also been collectively extended to her mother Nariman and her cousin Muhammad Tamimi who was shot in the face with rubber bullets at an Anti-Trump action.

Since the year 2000, over 8,000 Palestinian children have been detained in Israeli jails. These children are often not allowed legal counseling or even allowed contact with their parents. Israel, using its “emergency rules,” operates under 1,500 military laws that can be arbitrarily changed. This often denies Palestinians the right for legal representation or trial, leading to indefinite detainment. Mass arrest is commonly used as a tool of collective punishment which is illegal under international law. Israel is the only country to prosecute children in military courts.

We stand against this practice and the larger colonization of Palestinian lands that has been ongoing for decades. We support all those, young and old, who resist Israeli occupation. We denounce the charges against Ahed and the criminalization of young freedom fighters, while violent while IDF soldiers are given free range to abuse Palestinians with no consequences.

In Solidarity,

People's Opposition to War, Imperialism, and Racism

“My daughter is just 16 years old. In another world, in your world, her life would look completely different. In our world, Ahed is a representative of a new generation of our people, of young freedom fighters. This generation has to wage its struggle on two fronts. On the one hand, they have the duty, of course, to keep on challenging and fighting the Israeli colonialism into which they were born, until the day it collapses. On the other hand, they have to boldly face the political stagnation and degeneration that has spread among us. They have to become the living artery that will revive our revolution and bring it back from the death entailed in a growing culture of passivity that has arisen from decades of political inactivity.” Bassem Tamimi, Ahed Tamimi's father.

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