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.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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