Ahmad Sa’adat statement on Palestinian hunger strike victory

The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat has released a new statement from imprisoned Palestinian leader Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, on the suspension of the Strike of Freedom and Dignity. The statement is republished below: 

Statement by the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ahmad Sa’adat

The prisoners have made a new epic from their will and determination and have proven that their rights must be taken and not pleaded for

To the masses of the Palestinian people, the Arab nation, and the forces of freedom in the world…

The striking prisoners mustered their steadfastness, will and resolve to thwart and resist all attempts to abort and dismantle the strike. No oppression has been spared against the strikers, which has contributed to the deterioration of the prisoners’ health through repressive policies and measures against the strikers, especially the policy of arbitrary transfer which did not cease until the last moment, apart from the occupation’s attempts to spread lies, rumors and misinformation. The heroic prisoners have confronted all of these policies and practices and have, for 41 days, made of their own will of steel a new epic in confrontation of the occupation, adding to the historic landmarks of the struggles of our people in the national liberation movement.

To our Palestinian masses…

This victory was the

PFLP News #2

PFLP-initiated protest in Gaza, May 23

In May, despite strong opposition from the Israeli state, Palestinian revolutionary leader Leila Khaled was granted entry to Spain.  Leila, a member of the politbureau (central leadership) of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and head of the PFLP’s Refugees and Right of Return Dept, was interviewed by television, radio and the press.  She also spoke at a range of meetings, including participating in the annual book fair in Barcelona as her 1973 book, My People Shall Live, has been translated into Catalan.

At the end of the book fair she addressed a meeting of over 800 people – two screens had to be setup outside the meeting for the overflow audience.  Leila spoke about the inspiring struggle of Palestinians against their Israeli jailers and torturers, and the state that requires these types of imprisonment.  The prisoners’ resistance, she said, is helping to create new momentum in the struggle for freedom.  Resistance takes different forms, she also noted, and these forms include – and must include –

PFLP prison leadership statement on the current hunger strike

The following statement was issued by the leadership of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine branch in Israeli prisons, and read over Al-Mayadeen Arab TV satellite channel on May 11:

To the masses of the Palestinian people, the Arab nation, and the forces of freedom in the world…

Today, the Palestinian prisoners’ movement is locked in the battle of freedom and dignity for the 25th day, with ever more determination to continue until the achievement of its goals. It is armed with the weapon of its will, the unity of the prisoners’ movement and the justice of our cause, with the support and embrace of the masses of the Palestinian people, the Arab nation and the forces of freedom in the world. The prisoners face, after their declaration of the battle of the strike, a bloody war and ferocious Zionist repression that has intensified in recent days and in various prisons.

Dozens of leaders are isolated for participating

PFLP statement on 69th anniversary of the Nakba

The following statement was released by the PFLP on May 15:

On the 69th anniversary of the Nakba, we mark the uprooting of the Palestinian people, forcing them to seek refuge and asylum in all corners of the earth, in a massive colonial crime of the twentieth century. The Zionist movement, with the support of the Western colonial powers, established its “statehood” on the ruins of 480 Palestinian destroyed villages, their people uprooted and displace, through the exercise of the worst forms of terror, torture and massacre.

The ongoing Nakba committed against the Palestinian people and their homeland is an ongoing crime, as is evident in the continued occupation practices and policies to suppress and terrorize the Palestinian people, refusing to recognize their most basic national rights and human rights. This confirms the continuation of the Zionist project in pursuit of its objectives, for which it was established and supported by the colonial and imperialist powers. First and foremost, it sought control of Palestine, as a mechanism of control over the Arab world, its ports and strategic crossing, and to ensure the continued fragmentation and subjugation of the Arab people. Today, it seems the Arab reality reflects this now more than ever. We are witnessing

May Day in Havana

For a campaign of positive abstention in the 2017 elections

by Phil Duncan

In 2014, most of us at Redline favoured not voting in the New Zealand general election.  There was simply no party that represented the interests of workers, much less that attempted to politicise and organise workers to represent themselves.

Labour and National are the twin parties of capital in this country and a vote for either is a vote for capitalism.

The other parliamentary parties represent variants that still ‘play the game’.

Mana might have been worth considering in 2014 but the lash-up with pirate capitalist Kim Dotcom and giving the presidency of InternetMana to Laila Harre. who had not long before taken a job which meant she oversaw the laying off of a swathe of workers in Auckland. put that party beyond the pale.

This year Mana is in an alliance with the Maori Party, a political vehicle of Maori capitalist interests.

Another issue to take into account is that

Factory committees, soviets and workers power

A meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in 1917

This year marks the 100th anniversaries of the Russian revolutions of 1917.  The piece below is taken from the April 3-17 issue of the US Marxist workers’fortnightly, The Spark.

In April 1917, a little more than a month after the victory of the revolution in Petrograd and the abdication of Nicholas II, the workers organized themselves more and more independently from the Provisional Government, and they did so certainly against its wishes. Workers elected committees on the level of the workshops, the factories, the working class neighborhoods, and the cities. These were sites of debate where everyone could express themselves and learn, but these committees also made decisions that affirmed the power and consciousness of the working class.

A worker reports how the soviet was built and gained its influence in Saratov, a city 500 miles southwest of Moscow: “It’s been five days since the soviet of workers and soldiers deputies was organized here. But it seems like several years have passed here. Everything has changed. The masses are organized with a remarkable spirit of