Palestinians call for freedom of student Somaya Falah
PALESTINIAN groups rallied in support of student and activist Somaya Falah today, demanding her immediate release from house arrest.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, the Palestinian Youth Movement and Within Our Lifetime — United for Palestine called for international solidarity actions after her detention was extended for another seven days.
Ms Falah is a PhD student and researcher at the Technion from Arab al-Hib and an activist with Herak Haifa, a Palestinian youth-led movement working to defend Palestinian rights and identity.
She is currently under house arrest and banned from using electronic devices and accessing the internet as punishment for contacting Palestinians in diaspora to tell them about the student movement against the Israeli occupation.
Her lawyer insists there is no evidence against her and that her treatment is part of the political repression directed against Palestinians living in Israel which has intensified since May last year.
Ms Falah was detained a day before a protest in support of Palestinian hunger striker Hisham Abu Hawash earlier this month.
Her computer and mobile phone were seized while an Israeli court banned her from the city of Haifa for six weeks and from using social media until March.
Samidoun claimed that she was being targeted for her work as an environmental researcher a time when the Jewish National Fund was ramping up “forestation” campaigns, driving Palestinians from their land.
Israeli media reports also suggest authorities want to silence her for speaking to Palestinian students and attending the founding conference of the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path in Madrid in November.
“Somaya is being singled out because of everything she represents — a Palestinian woman organising, researching and connecting with her people, inside and outside Palestine,” Samidoun said.
“We can defeat these bogus charges and attempts to intimidate Palestinians by making it clear that, around the world, we stand with Somaya and we will not allow this case to go unnoticed,” it added.
Source:
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/w/palestinians-call-for-freedom-...