Georges Ibrahim Abdallah is the longest held prisoner in Europe and a former member of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine.
He was wounded during the resistance to the Zionist invasion of southern Lebanon in 1978. Against the Zionist and imperialist barbarism of the United States, several organizations of Lebanese and Arab fighters decided to lead the struggle of resistance by striking at imperialist and Zionist interests all over the world. This is the case of the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Factions (FARL), which had gone into action in Europe.
Among the main operations attributed to the FARL in France: the execution on January 18, 1982 of Colonel Charles Ray, military attaché at the US embassy and the execution on April 3, 1982 of Yakov Barsimantov, head of the Mossad and second secretary at the Zionist embassy in Paris.
The French authorities arrested Georges Abdallah on October 24, 1984 in Lyon. His incarceration was motivated by the possession of “suspicious” identity papers: a passport legally issued by the Algerian authorities. The French government pledged to the Algerian government that he would be released quickly yet Abdallah was still sentenced to four years imprisonment on July 10, 1986 for possession of weapons and explosives. He refused the trial and did not appeal.
However, the US authorities also began exerting direct pressure on the French government not to release him. The United States of America was a civil party in the French lawsuit against Abdallah, and US President Reagan personally broached the subject during a meeting with French President Mitterrand. There was also no shortage of Zionist pressure. Finally, the French government refused to respect the commitment made to the Algerian authorities.
In the meantime, in 1985-1986, attacks were committed in Paris that left 13 dead and more than 300 injured). They were claimed by the CSPPA (Committee of Solidarity with Arab Political Prisoners). They demanded the release of Anis Naccache, Varoudjian Garbidjian, and Georges Abdallah.
It was in this context, while Georges Abdallah had been incarcerated for more than a year, that the Directorate of Territorial Surveillance (DST) announced the “discovery” of a weapon in an apartment rented in his name, claiming that it had been used in the attack on Colonel Charles Ray and agent Yakov Barsimantov.
A sentence of life imprisonment was handed down, although the Attorney General had only requested a sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.
However, Abdallah’s case remained at the forefront of anti-imperialist struggle. For instance, Greek anarchist political prisoner Dimitris Chatzivasiliadis recently wrote:
the prolonged captivity of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah is a central strategical operation to terrorise the anti-capitalist movement worldwide; it aims at the perpetual disarmament of the global proletariat, at maintaining the military supremacy of the euro-american center on Earth, and especially at maintaining the monopoly of military force within the capitalist metropolis. To that effect, the captivity of the emblematic fighter is also intended to separate the struggle of the metropolitan proletariat from the anti-colonial resistance of the global South, to split the working class into ‘locals’ and ‘foreigners’, ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’, and to foment the turnaround of resistances towards religious wars. By holding Georges Ibrahim Abdallah captive under a state of unlawful extortion, NATO aspires to the subjugation of the movements in the Middle East and Europe.The french metropolis is a crossroads of the European labour movement and the immigrant revolt, a crossroads of the socialist and anti-colonial struggle. These intersecting lines meet in the struggle of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. To defend comrade Georges against the french state and the imperialist counter-revolutionary front means for us to take a position in directly joining the intersecting resistances.
In light of the struggle in Palestine Abdallah’s name has returned in the ongoing prisoner negotiations between Hamas and the Zionist occupying regime. The resistance stated today, “It is very important to note that there are fighters who have played a role in confronting the zionist entity during the exchange process, like the prisoner Georges Abdullah, who is still unjustly and aggressively imprisoned by the French authorities.”
They continued, “It is natural for us to consider including fighters from around the world, such as the fighter Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, in the next exchange.”
If the resistance succeeds in releasing Abdallah not only will this be a huge success for the international movement, but also for the Palestinian cause and anti-imperialists worldwide.
In prison, Georges Abdallah continued to defend the cause of oppressed peoples. In 1999, for example, he was part of a project which brought together a hundred revolutionary, communist, anarchist, anti-fascist and anti-imperialist prisoners in a community of struggle, and took part in hunger strikes in solidarity with revolutionary prisoners in Turkey. Today, that movement, the anti-imperialist movement, may be a step away from liberating him through struggle.