The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine denounced the Zionist prison services’ decision to deny visits to Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Sa’adat was denied family visits for a period of three months; no reasons were given for this decision. “This is a desperate and futile attempt to break the will and resolve of Palestinian leaders and symbols of the Palestinian national prisoners’ movement, which is a part of the systematic campaign of persecution waged by the prison administration against prisoners throughout the occupation prisons,” said the PFLP.

The Front noted that Sa’adat refused to sign the paper stating this decision, just as he has consistently rejected the legitimacy of the occupier and its military court, and that this decision will be met only with increased determination to struggle against the violations and repression exercised by the occupation prison authorities against all prisoners. These violations have escalated in the past few months, using the Zionist aggression on Gaza to implement a range of repressive measures against first the prisoners of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, followed by those same measures being implemented against the prisoners of the Popular Front. These attacks on the prisoners have included the denial of family visits, barring them from accessing the canteen, confiscation of TVs, banning of Arabic language satellite channels, frequent transfers from one prison to another, and ongoing, violent invasion of prisoners’ sections and rooms, destroying belongings and ransacking cells.

The PFLP called for a broad response to this campaign of attacks against the prisoners and more actions to demand the freedom of Sa’adat and his comrades, up to open hunger strike.