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Ahmad Sa'adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been held in isolation in a series of prisons since March 16, 2009, with his isolation renewed again and again by occupation courts. He has been transferred from prison to prison, and is currently held in the isolation section of Ramon prison in the Naqab (Negev) desert. The Campaign in Solidarity with Ahmad Sa'adat in Palestine is calling upon all supporters to take action.
Some background:
On August 27, 2001, PFLP General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa was assassinated by a missile shot from an Apache helicopter by the Israeli military as he worked in his office in Ramallah. Following the murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, Ahmad Sa'adat was elected General Secretary of the PFLP.
In retaliation for the murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, on October 17, 2001, fighters from the PFLP's armed wing assassinated Rehavam Ze'evi, the tourism minister in Ariel Sharon's Israeli government, the leader of the Moledet party, an extreme racist party whose program is based on the expulsion and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from all of Palestine. After the killing of Ze'evi, Sa'adat was arrested and held in a Palestinian Authority prison. He stayed there for over four years, and, in January 2006 he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on the Abu Ali Mustafa slate.
On March 14, 2006, the Israeli army laid siege for twelve hours to the Palestinian prison at Jericho holding six political prisoners. Israeli bulldozers and tanks attacked the prison while the Israeli military issued threats of assassination against the prisoners. The assault caused the death of two Palestinians, the injury of twenty-three more, and the abduction of Ahmad Sa'adat and five other political prisoners from Jericho to Zionist prisons. These men had been held in the Palestinian Authority prison at Jericho, under U.S. and British guards. Immediately prior to the Israeli assault on the prison, the U.S. and British guards abandoned their posts, clearing the way for the attack. The U.S. State Department blamed Palestinians for the siege, stating that the democratically-elected Palestinian Legislative Council leadership had indicated its willingness to release these illegally-held political prisoners.
Since his abduction - a blatant violation of Palestinian sovereignty - Sa'adat's trial has been repeatedly postponed and delayed. Israeli Attorney General Menachem Mazuz admitted shortly following the abduction that there was insufficient evidence to indict Sa'adat in the assassination of extreme racist Israeli minister Rehavam Ze'evi in 2001.Instead, Sa'adat was indicted on a wide array of political charges in a hearing on March 28, 2006 at Ofer Military Base in Ramallah.
On December 25, 2008, Sa'adat was sentenced to thirty years in the occupation prisons for these entirely political charges. His extensive sentence is the highest sentence delivered in the occupation courts for a political charge.
On October 22, 2009, Sa'adat faced yet another hearing on his isolation at the Israeli military court at Bir Saba (Be'er Sheva). At the hearing, Sa'adat's isolation was extended by six additional months. His personal books have been confiscated and he is routinely denied access to television, newspapers or any other source of information. He continues to be denied family visits, including visits from his wife Abla. In the prison yard, Sa'adat has been held handcuffed and in ankle shackles and allowed only one-hour of exercise/recreation. All of this has been 'justified' by the occupation authorities as 'punishment' for giving two cigarettes to another prisoner.
Click here to join the campaign to free Ahmad Sa'adat
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