‘Attempt to Repress’ – Samidoun Network Undeterred by US, Canada Sanctions 

October 17, 2024 Articles, Features
Samidoun faces severe repression. (Photo: via Samidoun website)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff  

“Our response to this designation is clear: we will keep struggling to stop the genocide, stop imperialist support for Israel, until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.”

The US and Canada have jointly designated the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network a “sham charity” that serves as an international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) movement. The PFLP was declared a “Foreign Terrorist Organization” by the US State Department in October 1997 and a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” in October 2001.

The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the sanctions on Tuesday claiming the PFLP “uses Samidoun to maintain fundraising options in both Europe and North America.”

But Samidoun says the sanctions are “an attempt to repress political organizing in support of the Palestinian people’s struggle against genocide, colonialism and occupation, and the more than 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners that are being tortured and killed by the Zionist entity.”

‘Co-Ordinated Attempt’

The Canadian government listed the organization as a “terrorist entity” under its criminal code.

The listing of an entity is a public means of identifying a group or individual as being associated with terrorism, and the Criminal Code “prohibits certain actions in relation to terrorist groups, including those related to terrorist financing, such as knowingly dealing with any property that belongs to a terrorist.”

“These decisions come at a time when the Zionist entity continues its genocide and massacres in Gaza, all of Palestine and Lebanon with full support from the US, Canada and the European Union,” Samidoun said.

“It is a coordinated attempt by the enemies of the Palestinian people to stop every form of solidarity with the Palestinian people and political organizing efforts to end Israel’s genocide, crimes against humanity and occupation.”

The organization is based in Vancouver, Canada, and has chapters across the globe, including Sweden, Spain, France, Hungary, Brazil, Germany and Iran.

Samidoun (meaning ‘steadfast’ in Arabic) was developed out of the September-October 2011 hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and works to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom, according to its website.

“We work to raise awareness and provide resources about Palestinian political prisoners, their conditions, their demands, and their work for freedom for themselves, their fellow prisoners, and their homeland.”

Global Solidarity

It also “stands in solidarity” with political prisoners in the United States, Canada, and Europe targeted for their work with liberation struggles and freedom movements, including Native and Indigenous liberation and sovereignty struggles, Puerto Rican independentistas, Black liberation organizers, Latino and Chicano activists and many others targeted by racism, colonialism, and oppression.

“Our response to this designation is clear: we will keep struggling to stop the genocide, stop imperialist support for Israel, until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea,” Samidoun said in a statement released on Wednesday.

It pointed out that besides sending weapons and money to Israel, “imperialist powers are repressing the Palestinian diaspora, Arab community and international activists for Palestine that are resisting these countries’ support for the occupation.”

Activists Detained, Imprisoned

Thousands of activists in North America and Europe have been arrested, their houses raided or imprisoned, the organization noted.

Palestinians in various countries have received deportation orders for their political activism, while in Germany, Samidoun said, a ban has been implemented against the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.

Criminalizing Opposition – Biggest Terrorists Seek to Put Anti-Terrorists on Terror List

Samidoun emphasized that “this designation and sanctions should be of serious concern to all who carry out political work, especially for Palestinian liberation, just like the banning of Samidoun in Germany in November 2023.”

“It is meant to introduce a norm in which organizations may be designated as ‘terrorist’” for organizing demonstrations, lectures, publishing posters and “engaging in entirely public and political work that challenges imperialist states’ complicity in Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ongoing genocide in Gaza.”

At a time when more people than ever are speaking out for justice and liberation in Palestine, Samidoun said, the decision “is meant as an attack on the movement as a whole.”

Khaled Barakat

“Organizations like Samidoun masquerade as charitable actors that claim to provide humanitarian support to those in need, yet in reality divert funds for much-needed assistance to support terrorist groups,” said Acting Under-Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Bradley T. Smith.

Smith stressed that the “United States, together with Canada and our like-minded partners, will continue to disrupt those who seek to finance the PFLP, Hamas, and other terrorist organizations.”

Canadian Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs, Dominic LeBlanc, said the “joint action with the U.S. sends a strong message that our two nations will not tolerate this type of activity and will do everything in our power to ensure robust measures are in place to address terrorist financing.”

Also sanctioned was Khaled Barakat, a Canadian citizen, for being “a member of the PFLP” and who “serves as part of the group’s leadership abroad,” OFAC said.

‘Meant to Silence’

Samidoun expressed solidarity with Barakat, a “Palestinian writer and executive committee member of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, who was targeted by the US in the same order as a ‘specially designated global terrorist’.”

“This is meant to silence his effective work and activity in organizing Palestinians in exile and diaspora in the struggle for return and liberation for Palestine,” Samidoun said.

Implications

The action by the US and Canada has many implications including that “non-U.S. financial institutions and other persons that engage in certain transactions or activities with sanctioned entities and individuals may expose themselves to sanctions risk or be subject to an enforcement action,” according to OFAC.

“The prohibitions include the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any designated person, or the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person,” said OFAC.

The US-based National Lawyers Guild (NLG) condemned the action against Samidoun saying it would “have a broad chilling effect on Palestine solidarity work in North America.

“Above all, it is designed to disrupt the unprecedented global tidal wave of support for the liberation of Palestine,” said the NLG the first racially integrated American legal association comprised of lawyers, law students and other activist legal workers.

“The crackdown on our constitutionally protected speech is a worrisome development at any moment in time but in particular right now as social movements confront the US-backed Israeli genocide in Gaza, the Israeli war on Lebanon, and the general global trend toward fascism,” the association emphasized.

(The Palestine Chronicle)

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