Typically to the dealings of Israeli courts in “security” charges brought against Arabs, the judge totally ignored all the claims of the defense lawyers and worked hard to pitch the contradictions and holes in the prosecutions claims. Most outstanding was his total oblivion of the fact that comrade Muhammad Kana’ane is accused only of political meetings, carried out in his role as a leader of a legitimate political organization, working for a democratic and peaceful solution to the bloody path that the Zionist racist regime is forcing on the Middle East. By criminalizing all Palestinian political activity as “terrorist”, the Israeli oppressive apertures want to push us farther away from any political solution and into more bloodbaths. As our comrades are already detained for more than 3 months, and as the court hearings for Muhammad and Husam is not going to start before July and September respectively, they are expected to spend a long period in prison even before being tried.

The court decision today, May 13, 2004, came at the very day when the leaders of the Islamic Movement, Sheikh Ra’ed Salah and his 4 comrades, completed a whole year in Israeli detention, while the court proceedings in their case is grounding slowly.

Israeli courts, together with the Shabak “security services”, the occupation army and the police proves themselves once again as part of one racist oppression machine dedicated to the systematic uprooting of our Palestinian people.

* Free the Abnaa elBalad leaders!

  * Free all Palestinian Freedom Seekers from Israeli Racist Prisons!

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Together we will confront the detention of Abnaa elBalad comrades and our mass leaders
Stop fascist attacks on our Arab Palestinian masses in the 1948 territories

 The Israeli oppressors detain Comrade Muhammad Kana’ane – Abu As’ad – the secretary general of Abnaa elBalad movement and two other comrades since February 7. The detention was executed with excessive brutality and violence, beating his mother, his wife, his brother and his child, and causing destruction in his house. At the same night, Israel’s security vandals invaded the movement’s centers in ‘Arabeh and Haifa and caused systematic damage to furniture, books and whatever came under their hands and boots. All this is another step in the escalation of the political persecutions against Abnaa elBalad and the Arab Palestinian masses in the 1948 territories.

This detention campaign came on the background of the racist incitement campaign carried by the fascist regime against the Arab Palestinian masses in the 1948 territories under the slogan of “the demographic danger”! This racist campaign is accompanied by proposal to “exchange” some of our people and some of our villages and town against colonialist settlements in the West Bank and Gaza – putting on the same level the aggressor and the victim – proposal that we reject, as it was rejected by the whole of our people and our Arab nation. The current detention follows systematic persecution and interrogations against comrade Kana’ane, the last interrogation took place only few days before his detention, in addition to the decrees that restricted his movement, prevented him from entering the West bank and Gaza and from going abroad. All this is a clear proof to the political nature of these persecutions, and the goal of the fascist racist regime to cut us off from our families and from the rest of our people and from our Arab nation.

Our political activity and our work in nurturing the connection between our people ‘inside’ and the rest of our Palestinian people and our Arab nation, of which we are a live and inseparable part, and our connections with the freedom loving and democratic people all over the world, cause the rage of the regime. For this reason they persecute us, as they persecute other leaderships of our masses… Sheikh Ra’ed Salah, the leader of the Islamic movement, and his brothers are still in jail, for more than 9 months, and members of elTagamu elWatani elDemocrati are also detained. All these persecutions are designed to terrorize us and to shut our voice.

Our political position is clear and well known, as is our identity as part of our Palestinian people and Arab nation. Our concept of democracy and freedom is incompatible with the oppressive regime in this fake “paradise of democracy”. We will never give up our democratic rights, and will continue to pursue our right to free political expression, together with all real democratic and freedom seekers around the world, in spite of all the terror and oppression that we endure.

We call on all the political parties and movements, and all activists and institutions and leadership of our Palestinian people ‘inside’, and on all our people, to stand up and work together to confront the vicious attack of the regime against Abnaa elBalad and against Sheikh Ra’ed Salah and his brothers and members of elTagamu and the whole of our people ‘inside’, until we fail all oppressive attempts to humiliate our people, and we will raise our clear voice together for the freedom of our freedom seeking political prisoners. We also call on all freedom seekers in the world, and especially in the Arab world, to raise their voices and act against the wild racist campaign of the oppressive regime that targets our Palestinian people ‘inside’. Support us in our struggle to free our political prisoners and for our democratic and national rights.

We promise all of you that our flag will continue to fly high in the face of their racist plots and oppressive policies.