On 15 October 2024, the US baselessly designated the Samidoun Palestinian Political Prisoner Solidarity Network (Samidoun) as a Specially Designated National (SDN) by summarily adding it to the Treasury Department’s list of sanctioned organizations and individuals. At the same time, Canada designated Samidoun as a “terrorist entity” under Canada’s Criminal Code. Samidoun, a longtime target of state repression and liberal zionist counterinsurgency from within the movement, is a principled and unyielding international voice for thousands of Palestinian political prisoners. We categorically reject this illegitimate “terrorist” designation, and we call for international progressive forces to stand with Samidoun.
Imperialists have always weaponized “terrorist” labels to delegitimize liberation movements, but the designation of Samidoun, an unarmed solidarity movement, is a qualitative escalation. Whether it is Cuba being designated as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” Stop Cop City protestors facing domestic terrorism charges, or material support to terrorism (MST) charges being weaponized against anti-zionists, these terror lists and designations must be totally rejected and abolished. The US, Canada, and the zionist entity are the real “terrorists,” the genocidal settler states built on mountains of corpses and rivers of blood, at this very moment burning Palestinians alive in hospital tents, and slandering as “terrorists” those who dare to resist them.
As the US-backed zionist genocide intensifies in Palestine and Lebanon, the counterinsurgency intensifying against the anti-imperialist movement is no surprise. Make no mistake, fascism is already here. This attack on Samidoun is an attack on the entire anti-imperialist movement, and marks the beginning of a wave of broader criminalization and repression of pro-resistance speech, weaponizing laws like MST and RICO to break solidarity. Anti-imperialist forces must rigorously adapt our strategies to this new phase of repression. It is more crucial than ever to voice support for the resistance because the more of us that do, the harder it is for the state to divide and disorganize us. By cowering now, by withholding critical solidarity, by allowing the state to isolate organizations through lawfare and phony “terrorist” designations, we only relinquish our collective power. We must affirm the righteousness of the Axis of Resistance, and also the righteousness of militant resistance in the imperial core.
As Samidoun’s international coordinator Charlotte Kates said in 2023, “We should understand that the reason why terror laws exist, is to maintain imperialist domination in the region and to provide a criminal mechanism of undermining the connection of the diaspora to their own liberation struggle, of cutting off any form of meaningful international solidarity to those who are on the front lines confronting and making a fundamental political change in the way that people advocate and speak about Palestine and other liberation movements…
We’ve got to fight to get resistance organizations off the list, but we’ve got to fight to bring down these structures altogether because the only reason they exist is to extend imperial power. They don’t exist for any other reason. They exist to destroy our movements. They exist to demobilize us, they exist to separate us from one another, and we have to resist that separation, that splitting, that attempt to create an acceptable alternative of the future within imperialism.”
As Samidoun said in their statement, “We Keep Resisting: US and Canada sanction Samidoun,” on 16 October: “As Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, we reiterate our support for the Palestinian people, the prisoners and the Palestinian, Arab and Islamic resistance, who are confronting the genocide and occupation on a daily basis.
At the same time, we want to stress that Samidoun does not have any material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union.
We reiterate our words upon German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’ announcement of the demand to ban Samidoun: In Arabic, the word “Samidoun,” means those who are steadfast. We use this name to refer to the Palestinian prisoners, who remain behind bars, struggling for freedom. Today we affirm that we shall remain steadfast and committed to the Palestinian people, until victory, return and liberation.”
An attack on one of us is an attack on us all. Unity of the Fields
We are all Samidoun!
Abolish the “terrorist” lists!
Let repression breed more resistance.
source: Unity of the Fields