Left Publishers From Across the Globe Call For Release of Palestinian Prisoner Walid Daqqah

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Walid Daqqah has been imprisoned in Israeli jails for over 37 years. Last year he was diagnosed with a rare form of bone marrow cancer and due to intentional medical negligence by Israeli authorities, his health is rapidly deteriorating. Palestinian organizations and activists in Palestine and across the globe have intensified the campaign to call for his immediate release and adequate medical treatment. 

A group of left publishers from India to Slovenia, and Argentina to Kenya have joined the campaign to call for the Palestinian writer and thinker Walid Daqqah’s immediate release.

We, the International Union of Left Publishers (IULP), call on all publishers, writers, artists, intellectuals, and people of conscience to demand the immediate release of the revolutionary writer and thinker Walid Daqqah from the jails of the Israeli Occupation.

Walid Daqqah has been imprisoned since the age of 25 for his resistance to the Israeli Occupation and his defense of the Palestinian people. Now 61, he has endured this unjust imprisonment for 37 years. His medical condition is rapidly deteriorating and it is critical that he receive a bone marrow transplant and other urgent medical care, but he has been denied medical treatment by the Israeli authorities.

As one of the most important thinkers and visionaries of the Palestinian resistance today, Walid Daqqah has been subjected to extra levels of the routine torture, abuse, and neglect that Palestinian prisoners face in the Occupation’s jails. He is a voice of the people, a voice that the Occupation fears and hopes to silence. But though his body is behind bars, his voice has broken free through his novels, essays, and letters, which have nourished and motivated the Palestinian prisoner movement, the resistance, and the international solidarity movement in all corners of the world. Walid Daqqah’s imprisonment is a violation of his most basic human rights, those of his family and of his people, and also a violation of the rights of all people in struggle who deserve to learn from, listen to, and exchange with him and his ideas.

The ongoing imprisonment of Walid Daqqah is a sentence to death, and the world is witness to the US-backed Israeli Occupation’s attempts to silence the Palestinian resistance by any means possible. We demand the immediate release of Walid Daqqah to his family and immediate access to medical care. We raise our voices in firm solidarity with Walid Daqqah, the almost 5000 Palestinian prisoners who remain unjustly behind bars, and the imprisoned and repressed voices of reason who suffer the attacks of imperialism across the world.

Signatories:

1804 Books, United States

Batalla de Ideas, Argentina

Bharathi Puthakalayam, India

Chintha Publishers, India

Dogma Editorial, México

Editorial Caminos, Cuba

Editorial Combatiente, Peru

Estrella Roja, Venezuela

Expressão Popular, Brasil

Gonoprakashan, Bangladesh

Incendiar el Océano, México

Inkani Books, South Africa

Intercontinental Publishers Ltd, Kenya

Instituto Simon Bolivar, Venezuela

Janashakti, India

Kriya, India

LeftWord Books, India

Manifest Libres, Catalunya

Marjin Kiri, Indonesia

Monthly Review, United States

Naked Punch Review, Pakistan

Navatelangana Publishing House, India

Navayug Prakashan, India

Ojas, India

Vaam Prakashan, India

Vadell Hermanos Editores, Venezuela

Vita Books, Nairobi

Založba/*cf, Slovenia

The IULP is a network of over 40 publishers working to promote left books, defend left authors, publishers, and bookshops, and to develop a copy left method of sharing books across our countries and languages.