Declaration of Solidarity with Walid Daqqah from The International Union of Left Publishers

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 age 25 for his resistance to the Israeli Occupation and his defence 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 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 violates his most basic human rights, those of his family and his people, and 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 (Perú)
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.

Image credit: Peoples Dispatch