Solidarity Hunger Strikes Continue in Tampa, FL for Khader Adnan
By Dezeray Lyn
Several organizers of a BDS group in Tampa continue hunger striking as mass action is planned this week at the Red Cross building in Tampa in solidarity with hunger striking Palestinian prisoners.
In a Tampa courtroom today, a Palestine solidarity activist made a statement on the criminalities of the occupation of historic Palestine and the West Bank as well as the siege on Gaza. Charged with criminal trespass for locking down to a car blocking lanes entering the Port of Tampa to delay the unloading of an Israeli cargo ship, the activist was fined and released after making a declaration of the egregious trespass against the human rights of Palestinian children, women and men on a daily basis.
The activist on trial was one of three in the Tampa area who continue a, now weeklong, hungerstrike in solidarity with Khader Adnan and his demands for a trial or release from administrative detention. The group had engineered a global 24 hour solidarity hunger strike which included 170 people from 11 countries on 4 continents who sent in messages of support to Khader and his family in addition to engaging in a 24 hour fast to raise awareness, and pressure, in the case of Adnan whose condition is extremely critical as he nears 50 days of starvation.
On this Thursday, June 25th, a mass action is planned at the Tampa Red Cross building at 4pm where many are expected to converge to demand justice in the case of father of 6 young children, Khader Adnan. In the continued violation of international law and the human rights of Palestinian prisoners, Israeli officials refused to unshackle Adnan from his hospital bed so Physicans for Human Rights could conduct a physical examination of him. In response, Adnan rejected the examination.
As the dire situation reaches fever pitch, the world is rising up in response to Khader’s unjust imprisonment and the Israeli prison establishment at large whose system of administrative detention mass jails Palestinians on ‘secret evidence,’ holds them for months- or years- without charge or trial and inhumanly renews and extends the 6 month stretches of detention typically on the final day of imprisonment.
In Belfast, London, Miami, Gaza and Nablus, solidarity demonstrations have taken place. Tampa’s action planned for this coming Thursday will be a continued show of resistance to the violation of Adnan’s human rights. The three hunger strikers have vowed to continue their strike until Adnan receives the justice that he has been so systematically denied.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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