Activism

Freedom Theatre’s Zubeidi to start ‘death fast’ to protest indefinite detention in PA prison

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From the Freedom Theatre:

CALL FOR ACTION 

From The Freedom Theatre
Jenin, West Bank, Occupied Palestine 
September 10, 2012

On the 9th of September Zakaria Zubeidi announced that he will embark on a death fast, a complete food and fluid strike, in response to the continuous postponement of his release from Palestinian Authority prison. This effectively means that unless the Palestinian Authority releases Zakaria he will most probably not make it through the week. 

zubeidi

Zubeidi, co-founder of The Freedom Theatre and former leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, has been imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for close to four months. No charges have been made against him, no evidence presented and throughout his imprisonment his rights have been severely violated, as described by among others Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/07/27/israelpalestinian-authority-theater-group-hit-both-sides). 

Being one of the last survivors of Arna’s Children(1), Zakaria joined the armed resistance during the second Intifada and became one of its leading figures. After co-founding The Freedom Theatre in 2006 Zakaria decided to lay down his weapons in order to join a cultural resistance, which he deemed a more powerful tool against the Israeli occupation. Surviving numerous assassination attempts by the Israeli army and vowing to never again enter an Israeli prison, Zakaria is now instead facing death in a Palestinian prison unless immediate action is taken. 

The Freedom Theatre urges all its friends and supporters to:

  • Contact the local representative office of the Palestinian Authority(2) and demand Zakaria Zubeidi’s release. Since the situation is urgent we also ask you to take more direct actions such as organising protests at PA representative offices. 
  • Contact local or regional human rights offices and organisations such as Amnesty International and urge them to take action.
  • Contact your local MP and MEP and urge them to take action.
  • Contact your country’s representative office in the occupied Palestinian territory and urge them to take action(3).
  • Call these numbers to demand Zakaria’s release: +972 (0)599000011 Abo Mohammad Shadeh, Head of the Palestinian Authority President’s Security Office, +972 (0)2000011 Said Abualheja, Ministry of Interior , +972 (0)-597778887 Majd Faraj, Head of Palestinian Intelligence

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  • Twitter: #Freezakaria
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefreedomtheatre, https://www.facebook.com/FreedomForNabilAndZakaria

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from june: https://mondoweiss.net/2012/06/israelis-arrest-palestinian-theaters-artistic-director-at-3-a-m.html

This marks the 6th time in the last 12 months that Israeli forces have arrested a member of the staff or board of The Freedom Theatre. In addition, Palestinian security forces, vaunted for their “cooperation” and “coordination” with Israeli security, have twice arrested Freedom Theatre co-founder Zakaria Zubeidi. At this moment, Zubeidi has been held without charge in a Jericho prison for the last three weeks. And of course, the same Israeli and Palestinian security forces have failed to make any serious investigation of the unsolved murder of Juliano Mer Khamis, co-founder and director of The Freedom Theatre, in April 2011 despite the existence of substantial forensic evidence. Instead the Israelis have repeatedly summoned Palestinian staff members of The Freedom Theatre to the Salem army base for intimidating interrogations. Stanczak said, “Usually these interrogations start with ‘We know you are the one who killed Juliano, why did you kill him?’”

What is The Freedom Theatre’s crime? The theater is well known for its advocacy of art as resistance against occupation. It has mounted critically acclaimed productions of classic and newly written plays that raise the dilemmas of the individual spirit faced with the soul crushing imposition of arbitrary power. These include Alice (an original musical production inspired by Alice in Wonderland), Animal Farm, While Waiting (a Palestinian adaptation of Waiting for Godot), Fragments of Palestine, What Next? Several of these productions have toured in Europe and the United States – although never without extreme difficulty in getting the necessary permissions for performers to travel. In the case of While Waiting, Israeli armed forces arrested the lead performer in the five person production and held him in jail throughout the final two months of rehearsal.

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This is an important story. It illustrates that the entire Oslo process turned into a mechanism for using Palestinians as jailers for Palestinians fighting for justice. The PA, under Abbas, Fayyed and Dayton, have accepted 100s of millions of dollars from the US, EU and SA to become the police force that suppresses spontaneous movements for Palestinian justice. It is correct to see Zubedei’s oppression as part of Israeli policy, but we should fully recognize that it is the PA that is the willing collaborator .

This raises many complicated issues for those of us who support the Palestinian people. For one, the two-state solution is the one backed by the PA. These are the forces that work in collaboration with the Zionists. If the one state solution movement gained ground and real democratic elections happened the current PA officials would lose big time (and they would immediately lose those 100s of millions of dollars of aid that they currently receive).

I think it is very important that we make it clear which Palestinians are being bought off from those that continue to support Palestinian justice.

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