One of the four prisoners, Farouk Abdel-Muhti, is an outspoken advocate for the Palestinian struggle for self-determination who was arrested in April 2002 and has been held without charges ever since.

Facing deportation from the United States, where he has lived since the 1970s, Abdel-Muhti has been shuttled among several prisons in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, as the authorities seek without success to isolate him and break his spirit. The Committee for the Release of Farouk Abdel-Muhti is appealing for public support to press the government to drop its deportation proceedings and free him. Letters to demand his release should be sent to David Venturella, Office of Detention and Removal, Department of Homeland Security: fax (202) 353-9435; telephone (202) 514-8663; e-mail: david.venturella@dhs.gov, with copies to the defense committee at freefarouk@yahoo.com. The defense committee can be contacted at P.O. Box 20587, Tompkins Sq. Station, New York, NY 10009; tel: (212) 674-9499; e-mail: freefarouk@yahoo.com.
 

I am from Cambodia and have been incarcerated by the INS for one year and 10 months. With me sitting in jail my family suffers from lack of financial support. My country doesn’t accept me and the INS doesn’t want to release me. The people in my country are always with the working class, like in Vietnam, and we have learned that the world is for all of us and not just for some people. I read the Militant and support your views.

Today the policies of the administration of George Bush are terrorizing me and my family and children’s rights. I need you and all of the people who read the Militant to be steadfast with me and all the INS victims. I need your support for my freedom and my rights.

Seoun Sory

 
‘Militant’ covers world
Congratulations on your 75th anniversary of service. I am a new reader of your publication. I found it to be very informative and broad in the issues and places it covers.

Unlike other papers that only cover issues of U.S. interest, the Militant covers the world, giving voice to the voiceless and hope to the despaired. Continue your endeavor to enlighten and encourage the working class in all nations to stand up and be counted.

Until every working man earns a living wage—the struggle will and must continue.

Edward Morgan

 
Facing deportation
I am Colombian, of Palestinian origin. My ancestors worked the land, cultivating olives and figs, in a community to the south of Jerusalem.

Today I am detained in the United States and am awaiting deportation.

I am writing to greet the weekly Militant for the unconditional solidarity it expresses for all immigrants in the United States and especially for we who have been detained, that you continue protesting and rejecting the assaults against us victims of the U.S. authorities. I join Farouk Abdel-Muhti in his constant defense of the freedom of expression, for his selfless struggle in the fight against the violation of human and civil rights, and in support of dignity and respect for all human beings without distinction of race or ethnic origin.

I identify with a class position and join in the struggle of workers and immigrants, because I am also a worker like my father and an immigrant in the process of being deported.

I invite all immigrants that are in this country, and all that read this article, to join in this cause and strongly back us as we defend human rights around the world.

Abdul Hamid Wady

 
Palestinian struggle
Brothers and sisters, the New Year promises many social triumphs, and above all in the defense of human rights that are outrageously violated by the rulers of the United States and Israel, of which I am one more victim.

I want to present concrete information about the critical situation that confronts the suffering and martyred Palestinian people, who have been mistreated, murdered, and massacred by the diabolical, racist, and rightist Israeli administration, aided by the bloodthirsty and imperialist government of the United States.

In the last three years, for defending their human and civil rights, for defending their land and dignity, the Palestinian people continue to be victims of the racist machinations of the occupation on the part of the right-wing Israeli administration. The number of martyrs has reached 3,295, from different sectors of our people, of whom 553 are elementary school students.

In an odious and criminal manner, they have ruthlessly used bulldozers to plow under 60,467 dunums [15,000 acres] of cultivated land, demolishing thousands of homes, closing transportation centers, leaving people cut off.

The Israelis have constructed a wall dividing the Palestinian people in a vulgar and racist way. They have held millions of dollars that belong to Palestinians in Israeli banks, while they continue to raze our land, leaving thousands of Palestinians homeless, eliminating their source of employment, destroying their crops and food, their rights, and cutting off their source of potable water. They seek to push people into the West Bank and divide it into three parts, while isolating the city of Jerusalem from the rest of the Palestinian nation.

The peaceful and native people of Palestine seek justice and the right to sovereignty, self-determination, and independence in their territory, occupied since June 4, 1967, with Jerusalem as its capital, and the right to return of the refugees of 1948 to their homes and property in the historic land of Palestine.

Farouk Abdel-Muhti
 
 
Donate to the Prisoners Fund

The ‘Militant’ receives many requests from readers behind bars. The Prisoners Fund makes it possible to send them subscriptions at a reduced rate. A prisoner can buy a six-month subscription for $6 and a one-year subscription for $12.

The Spanish-language monthly magazine ‘Perspectiva Mundial’ offers prisoners a six-month subscription for $3 and a one-year subscription for $6.

To help cover the cost of these special offers, please send a check or money order, earmarked “Prisoners Fund,” to the Militant, 152 W. 36 St., #401, New York, NY 10018.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home