Activism and BDS Beat 6 December 2012
Ameer Makhoul
Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel who was persecuted for his work to uphold the rights of his community, penned a letter of salutation to the World Social Forum Free Palestine from his Israeli prison cell.
The World Social Forum Free Palestine convened in Porto Alegre, Brazil last weekend. Makhoul, a member of the International Council of the World Social Forum, is 2.5 years into a nine-year sentence for trumped up security charges made by Israel after it coerced a confession from Makhoul through torture, his lawyers and family say. Human rights groups have condemned Makhoul’s arrest and imprisonment.
In his salutation to the World Social Forum Free Palestine, Makhoul urges international attention on Gaza and support of Palestinian political prisoners. Despite its latest killing spree in Gaza, Makhoul states, Israel “will never be able to break the spirit [of the] Palestinian people - not in Gaza, not in [the] West Bank, not in Palestine ‘48, not among refugees in [the] Diaspora, and not among [Palestinian political prisoners] in Israeli jail.”
