Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike

April 12, 2010

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

PFLP: Support hunger striking prisoners in occupation jails

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine expressed its support for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike inside the occupation jails in the “battle of the empty stomachs” on April 7, 2010. The prisoners' hunger strike demanded an end to occupation abuses of prisoners' rights and recognition of the political and legal rights of Palestinian prisoners as prisoners of war and freedom fighters imprisoned for their struggle for self-determination.

The PFLP said that this strike is a clear message from the masses of prisoners in the Zionist jails to all Palestinian, Arab and international institutions, including human rights organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations to take action. The prisoners' action, the PFLP said, sheds light on the violations of the Geneva Conventions taking place in Israeli prisons as well as the ongoing denial of family visits and abuses of prisoners and their families, and brutal prison conditions. The Front noted that the occupier daily tramples prisoners' rights, meeting only silence from the “international community” and its alleged protectors of “democracy and human rights.”

The Front's statement praised the prisoners' spirit of unity in this struggle, including prisoners from all political factions and parties, and called for our civil, popular and official organizations to mirror the prisoners' unity at Palestinian, Arab and international levels to uphold their rights and expose the truth of the racist, aggressive practices of the occupation and to struggle for and secure the national rights of our people – the right to return, to self-determination, to independence – and thwart the occupier's plans to suppress the Palestinian struggle and demoralize our people.

The PFLP affirmed the necessity of dedicating serious actions through 2010 to the freedom of the prisoners, through upgrading the role of the prisoners' movement in the political leadership of our people and ensuring a national agenda that focuses on achieving prisoners'