Petition Canadian political leaders to use their influence to

FREE AHED TAMIMI

Ahed Tamimi, the 16-year-old Palestinian girl who courageously resisted the invasion of the Israeli army into her village and her family’s property, has just been sentenced to 2 years of imprisonment and a fine of 6000 shekels by the Israeli government. Ahed was held in military custody, along with her mother and other family members, since her arrest three days after the video of her slapping and kicking Israeli soldiers in her village of Nabi Saleh, in the Occupied West Bank of Palestine, went viral around the world on Dec. 15, 2017.

Demands for Ahed’s immediate release have flooded in from every part of the world. Now, it’s the turn of Canadians to express to express their outrage that the indigenous inhabitants of historic Palestine, including women and children, are treated, and have been treated, in such a shameful way for more than 50 years by the Israeli occupiers.

Tragically, there are about 8000 Palestinian political prisoners, including several hundred children such as Ahed, in Israeli jails at any given time, suffering inhumane conditions and torture, well-documented by the International Red Cross and other international agencies. Many of the prisoners are kept in custody for decades under “administrative detention”, without evidence or trials, and this could be the fate of Ahed Tamimi, unless there is a massive international campaign for her release.

To this end, the Hamilton Coalition To Stop The War asks you to sign this petition to Canadian political leaders: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; Canadian Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland; Jagmeet Singh, New Democratic Party leader; Andrew Scheer, Conservative Party leader; Martine Ouellet, Bloc Québécois leader; and Elizabeth May, Green Party leader. We are asking Trudeau and Freeland to use their influence with the Israeli government, through the many political, economic, and security arrangements between Canada and Israel, to apply pressure on Israel for the immediate and unconditional release of Ahed Tamimi. We ask the other Canadian political leaders to use their national prominence publicly to call for Ahed to be set free NOW.

We note that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza has been deemed illegal for fifty years by the United Nations and that, UNDER INTERNATIONAL LAW, THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE HAVE THE RIGHT TO RESIST THE OCCUPATION.

As Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the UK Labour Party has noted, “This girl who has been arrested, she shouldn’t be in prison because children should never be in prison. And if people are standing up for their rights, then they should be allowed to do that.”