In March of 2022, Salah Hammouri, a French-Palestinian from Jerusalem was taken by armed Israeli forces from his home in Kufr Aqab, and put in administrative detention without charge or trial–a practice illegal under international law.
Hammouri, 37, and father to one boy and one girl, is a lawyer, human rights defender, and researcher. Since September 2020, he has been targeted by Israeli authorities to have his permanent residency status in Jerusalem revoked under the pretext of a “breach of allegiance.” Hammouri continued to remain in Jerusalem despite the attempt to drive him out through various Israeli pressure tactics and harassment of him and his family.
Yet today, Hammouri is being held in Ofer military prison in the West Bank, a military base that is notorious for illegally imprisoning and mistreating Palestinian detainees (including children and minors).
In his attempt to defend human rights by defying Israeli measures of dispossession and displacement through legislation, Hammouri is being coerced into accepting being driven out of Jerusalem.
In an appeal to the right to be a protected citizen, Hammouri writes to the French president Emmanuel Macron. As of yet, Macron and French representatives have not sought protection or support for Hammouri, despite the continued recognition of Israel’s practice of ethnic cleansing and apartheid, as well as its persecution of Hammouri not only as a Palestinian born in Jerusalem, but also as a French citizen.
To The French Republic president Emanuel Macron
From Prison Cell No. 4 of Ofer prison on 03 July 2022
Mr. President,
I write you this letter in the run-up to July 14, this date of utmost significance to the world, and which brought forth the values of humanity and democracy that underpin the French motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity”. This slogan captured the will of hundreds of thousands of French citizens in their struggle to eradicate the injustice, oppression and hunger that blighted their lives. The storming of the Bastille on July 14, and the liberation of those prisoners unjustly held by the Ancien Régime, has shaped my conviction that the right to self-determination will always be claimed and enjoyed by the people themselves.
“…even Zionist leader Menachem Begin described [administrative detention] as ‘tyrannical, and unethical’ in a Knesset debate in 1951.”
Open letter from Hammouri to Macron, July 3, 2022
Today I am in a Bastille called “Ofer” in the occupied Palestinian Territory, being held for a third time under “administrative detention.” There have been no charges issued against me, and I and my fellow prisoners are subject to military courts similar to those that sentenced General De Gaulle to execution and citizenship revocation.
Mr. President, did you know that we, Palestinian political prisoners, are incarcerated in prisons established and operated by an occupying state considered to be practicing Apartheid by many human rights organizations and the United Nations? Do you know that one reason for this designation is the unjust use of ‘administrative detention,’ to imprison us without even the pretense of a trial? So far is this law from the standards of humanity that even Zionist leader Menachem Begin described it as “tyrannical, and unethical” in a Knesset debate in 1951.
Mr. President, what is the reason behind your double standard in the treatment of people living under oppression? I have seen you on several occasions defending the people of Ukraine and speaking up for the pain and torture they are facing, while you seem to have forgotten, or are deliberately ignoring, that we Palestinians have been facing injustices and occupation for 78 years now. This occupying, colonial state has been continuously ethnically cleansing the Palestinian people from their land, yet you treat it with impunity and, by your actions, show that you consider it above the law.
Today, I truly believe that I am a fourth or fifth-class citizen of the French state. This is evident due to the state’s consistent negligence and lack of action to end my continued detention, which is taking place without any charges or trial.
Your excellency should be aware that the values of freedom, justice, and equality are indivisible and should be enjoyed by all peoples, along with their inalienable human rights. I hope that you will find the courage to act with a clear conscience and pressure the occupying state to ensure my immediate release.
Salah Hammouri
Visit the campaign website demanding freedom for Salah Hammouri here.
You would have had the support of the masses who stormed the Bastille and started that great revolution, but not those entrusted with that same revolution today. How painful is that.
Keep fighting.