Samidoun
Introduction
In February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Samidoun a terrorist organization and “a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” According to the Ministry, Samidoun was founded by “members of the PFLP in 2012,” and Khaled Barakat, identified by the PFLP as “coordinator” of Samidoun, “is involved with establishing militant cells and motivating terrorist activity in Judea & Samaria and abroad.”
Profile
Country/Territory | Canada |
---|---|
Website | https://samidoun.net/ |
Founded | 2011 |
In their own words | “Samidoun seeks to achieve justice for Palestinian prisoners through events, activities, resources, delegations, research and information-sharing, as well as building bridges with the prisoners’ movement in Palestine.” |
Funding
- Samidoun does not publish financial information, reflecting a lack of transparency and accountability.
- According to its website, “Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice, a 501(c)(3) Organization.”
- In August 2021, Discover shut down credit card donations to the Alliance for Global Justice after the Zachor Legal Institute pressured the credit card company, citing Alliance for Global Justice’s relationship with Samidoun.
- Since February 2023, Alliance for Global Justice is unable to accept credit card donations for itself or the 140 groups (including Samidoun) that it fiscally sponsors. This followed several Washington Examiner reports that exposed the links between Samidoun and the PFLP.
- Since March 2021, Samidoun has been registered as a not-for-profit in Canada.
- According to its website, “Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a grassroots, unfunded organization. We rely on the support of people like you to make our work possible.”
Activities
- Samidoun is a main advocate for the release of Palestinian prisoners, many with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization (designated as such by the U.S., EU, Canada, and Israel.
- Many major Samidoun chapters and key activists in Europe and North America support the PFLP and its members, justifying the use of violence and incitement against the state of Israel. Read NGO Monitor’s report, “The Global Samidoun Network: Mapping Branches in Europe and North America.”
Samidoun Ties to Terrorism
- In February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Samidoun a terrorist organization and “a subsidiary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” According to the Ministry, Samidoun was founded by “members of the PFLP in 2012,” and Khaled Barakat, identified by the PFLP as “coordinator” of Samidoun, “is involved with establishing militant cells and motivating terrorist activity in Judea & Samaria and abroad.”
- In May 2019, PayPal, DonorBox, and Plaid shut down online donations to Samidoun due to its alleged links to the PFLP.
- Samidoun events celebrate key milestones for the PFLP, such as its New York event for 50 years of the PFLP, and include former PFLP terrorists. Samidoun events usually include the display of PFLP flag. (See Appendix 1 below for screenshots of Samidoun’s ties to the PFLP.)
- On April 12, 2023, the German daily Tagesspiegel reported that Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), “suspects the group [Samidoun] to be part of the radical Palestinian organization, PFLP.” In November 2023, Germany banned Samidoun for violating the its Basic Law (Article 9(2)) and its Associations Act; namely, it “impairs and endangers the peaceful coexistence of Germans and foreigners,” “advocates and calls for the use of violence as a means of enforcing political interests,” and “supports associations that initiate, advocate and threaten attacks against people or property.”
- In July 2023, Samidoun held an event in Vancouver “celebrating the 51st anniversary of the martyrdom of the revolutionary author Ghassan Kanafani.” During the event, Samidoun’s international coordinator said, “The event…emphasizes our support of the Palestinian resistance and the fighting prisoner movement in the occupation’s prisons, expressing that we stand with the brave resistance in Jenin refugee camp, the Gaza Strip and all of occupied Palestine.” Senior Samidoun member Khaled Barakat also spoke at the event and discussed “Ghassan Kanafani’s body of literature and books and their impact on the Palestinian issue the the importance of Kanafani’s experience on the national culture front and the spread of revolutionary and critical consciousness…The timing of the anniversary of [the death of] Kanafani that coincided with the ‘Bravery of Jenin’ campaign that is a living model of the Palestinian people’s ability and willingness to give and sacrifice to achieve its national rights and has established a new phase in the struggle in confronting the Zionist project in Palestine…”
- On July 3-4, 2023, Israeli security forces carried out an operation targeting the extensive terror infrastructure in the Palestinian city of Jenin. During the operation, Israeli forces responded to heavy fire from dozens of terrorists, killing 12 Palestinians, including child soldiers recruited by Palestinian terror groups. One Israeli soldier was killed during the operation.
- On May 27, 2023, Samidoun held a “Resistance Festival” in Brussels, which “celebrated Palestinian resistance in all forms, reaffirming the anti-colonialist, anti-racist nature of the struggle for Palestinian return and liberation from the river to the sea…” The protest featured signs calling for the release of PFLP terrorists Walid Daqqah and Georges Abdallah, and others featuring PFLP founder George Habash and PFLP combatants Shadia Abu Ghazaleh and Al-Hussein Binyahia Tanjani. PFLP member and Addameer lawyer Salah Hammouroi helped promote the event.
- According to Samidoun, during the event, several Samidoun representatives spoke, praising terrorists and supporting “resistance.” For example, Coordinator of Samidoun Spain Jaldia Abu Bakra stated, “the Palestinian resistance is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people…the fedayeen [i.e., Palestinian combatants] love life and are ready to sacrifice everything for our freedom…” An unnamed member of Samidoun’s Paris chapter called for the release of Georges Abdallah, since it expresses “supporting a committed and dignified man who is faithful to his revolutionary principles and ideals.”
- On April 8, 2023, Samidoun held a demonstration in Berlin, in which protesters praised terror violence and Hamas’ military wing Izz Ad-din Al-Qassam Brigades, and chanted violent and antisemitic chants. According to the German NGO “democ. e.V.,” a video from the protest in Berlin features a large crowd of protesters chanting in Arabic such slogans as: “Death, death, death Israel!,” “I generate the bloody body!,” “Death to the Jews!,” “With our soul and our blood, we liberate al-Aqsa!,” “Oh, Qassam Brigade, vengeance, vengeance!,” “Tel Aviv, the answer will come!” and “Oh, Qassam, day by day!” According to Samidoun, the protest was meant to “to declare with one voice that our Palestinian people will respond to the call of duty in defense of their people and sanctities, and in order to liberate their land from the river to the sea.”
- On October 9, 2022, Samidoun NY/NJ and other groups held a demonstration to “shut Elbit down.” During the rally, Samidoun NY/NJ coordinator Laila quoted PFLP Founder George Habash and commented, “Al Hakim [Habash’s alias] was speaking of the brave Palestinian resistance in Palestine…We all have a right and a duty to resist the murderous Zionist entity and all institutions that support and benefit from the Zionist entity’s genocide of the Palestinian people.”
- In August 2022, Samidoun Netherlands demonstrated on behalf of Bassam al-Saadi, following his arrest by Israel. Al-Saadi was responsible for Islamic Jihad’s West Bank militant operations.
- On May 15, 2022, Samidoun participated in an event in Iran titled “Palestine – Dream Without Borders,” to mark the release of a documentary on “political prisoner” George Abdallah who is serving life in prison for “complicity in the assassinations” of an American and an Israeli diplomat in Paris. The event also featured Dr. Ahmad Reza Beizai, a writer for the Resistance Front, an Afghan Militia connected to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
- In June 2016, the PFLP issued an official statement of gratitude to Samidoun for its support to PFLP prisoners.
- On January 29, 2020, Samidoun Vancouver and additional groups held an event titled “Freedom for [PFLP Secretary-General] Ahmad Sa’adat.” According to Samidoun, Khaled Barakat spoke about “the case of Ahmad Sa’adat and fellow Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and the use of ‘anti-terror’ designation and repressive legislation to suppress Palestinian organizing inside and outside occupied Palestine.”
Samidoun Staff Ties to the PFLP
- Khaled Barakat
- According to Fatah, Khaled Barakat is a “member in the central committee of the PFLP.”
- Barakat is also the International Coordinator for the “Campaign to Free Ahmad Saadat.” Saadat, the PFLP’s Secretary-General, was sentenced to thirty years in prison for heading an “illegal terrorist organization,” as well as for his involvement in planning many of the group’s attacks including the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi.
- In September 2013, the PFLP referred to Barakat as “the “coordinator of [the] Samidoun Network,” and has labeled him a “comrade” and “commander at the PFLP” on multiple occasions.
- In 2020, Germany expelled Barakat and imposed a four-year entry ban. His appeal was rejected, finding that Barakat “repeatedly participated in activities of the PFLP in Germany and/or appeared publicly under the PFLP label.” The court further described Barakat’s “support for a terrorist organization is a case of endangering public safety according to the definition in Section 54 (1) no. 2 of the Residence Act,” and “The connection between the plaintiff’s position on the PFLP…and his statements on the armed resistance refutes the…claim that the plaintiff only identifies with individual humanitarian/political goals of the PFLP.”
- In October 2022, Samidoun reported that Barakat was denied entry into the EU.
- Barakat participated in a December 15, 2019 event celebrating the 52nd anniversary of the PFLP’s establishment, alongside PFLP member and coordinator of Samidoun Europe, Mohammed Khatib. During the event, Barakat stated, “the birth of the PFLP was an important moment in the history of the Palestinian struggle for return and liberation.”
- In 2016, Barakat attended a funeral of Omar Nayef Zayed, a PFLP member who was convicted of the murder of a yeshiva student in 1986. Barakat was photographed next to Leila Khaled, a convicted PFLP terrorist, and other PFLP officials.
- Charlotte Kates
- Kates has participated in delegations by the PFLP.
- In 2012, she and her husband were members of the Canadian delegation that met with PFLP officials.
- In October 2018, Kates participated in an event in Denmark speaking in front of a PFLP flag. Kates openly expressed support for prisoners who represent “Palestinian resistance in all of its forms,” including Khalida Jarrar.
- Khalida Jarrar served as vice-chairperson of the PFLP-affiliated NGO Addameer, until 2017. Jarrar was arrested on October 31, 2019 on suspicions of “involvement in terror activity.” On December 18, 2019, it was revealed that Jarrar had “emerged as the head of the PFLP in the West Bank and responsible for all the organization’s activities” (emphasis added).
- As reported by the PFLP, in August 2016, Kates spoke at a solidarity event for convicted PFLP member Bilal Kayed. During the event, Kates “praised the role of Bilal’s comrades in the PFLP in the occupation’s prisons, and that they offer him support…and first and foremost PFLP Secretary-General Ahmad Sa’adat…”
- Kayed was arrested in 2002 and later convicted of a series of attacks and attempted attacks and sentenced to 14.5 years in jail.
- Mustafa Awad
- Mustafa Awad is a Samidoun activist in Belgium.
- In May 2016, Awad participated in a delegation led by the PFLP.
- In August 2018, Mustafa Awad was arrested after attempting to enter Israel. Awad was accused of joining the PFLP and participating in a Hezbollah training course.
- Mohammed Khatib
- Khatib is Samidoun’s coordinator in Europe and a PFLP member.
- In December 2019, Khatib participated in a event celebrating the 52nd anniversary of the PFLP’s establishment.
Samidoun’s Support for “Resistance” after Hamas’ October 7 Atrocities
- Samidoun has been responsible for antisemitic and pro-terror incitement on campuses since Hamas’ October 7th massacre. Samidoun’s logo can be seen on posters promoting the PFLP, and its officials have preached “resistance” (code for terrorism) at campus events. (Read NGO Monitor’s report “PFLP and Samidoun on American College Campuses.”)
- Samidoun founder and head Khaled Barakat and his wife Charlotte Kates spoke at the March 2024 “Resistance 101” event held at Columbia University. Barakat told Columbia student activists that “Your work is so important to the resistance in Gaza.” Kates claimed, “There is nothing wrong with being a member of Hamas, being a leader of Hamas, being a fighter in Hamas.”
- Describing an October 10, 2023 rally it had organized in Seattle, Samidoun published a statement that “Demonstrators showed support for the successful Flood of Al Aqsa resistance operation (the Hamas name for the October 7th massacre) and condemned the Zionist retaliatory strikes against Palestinian civilians in Gaza and 75 years of oppression, ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism” (emphasis added).
- On November 3, Samidoun published a statement titled, “Gaza is a Strategy, Not Just a Place.” According to Samidoun, “In the 20th century, fascist states used racialized dehumanization, ghettoization and forced transfer to concentration camps, coupled with brutal military suppression of working class and colonized people to expand their system of extermination. These tactics served as a mechanism for accomplishing the ruling class’ “final solution” and to preserve the power of capitalism…Gaza is a focal point of this stranglehold and the testing ground for a completely new tactic of extermination…It is in that vein that we salute the brave Palestinian people and their resistance…Stop the Israeli Genocide of Palestinians! Support Palestinian Resistance & Revolution!” (emphasis added)
- On October 7, 2023, Samidoun Spain shared a poster featuring Palestinians celebrating atop an Israeli tank and wrote, “We call for mass assistance in support of the brave and dignified Palestinian resistance that has today proven to be more alive and willing to reclaim the land that has been stripped from them by Israeli colonialism for over 75 years…our responsibility is to support the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves by all means within their reach from extermination to liberation and return to a free Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. SEE YOU IN THE STREETS!”
- On October 7, 2023, Samidoun published a statement titled, “Palestine: The Resistance Rises toward Revolution, Return and Liberation.” According to Samidoun, “ “As the morning dawns on 7 October 2023, the resistance (euphemism for Palestinian terrorists) is rising throughout occupied Palestine, smashing the siege on Gaza with a comprehensive offensive confronting the occupier by land and air, taking control of Palestinian land, seizing occupation settlers and soldiers and launching thousands of missiles as Palestinian resistance forces fight to advance return and the liberation of Palestine.” Samidoun then called on its allies to “express their support for the heroic Palestinian resistance, raise the flag of Palestine and the banners of resistance, and organize popular, political and media demonstrations and events to expose the Zionist crimes against our people in occupied Palestine…The heroic Palestinian resistance has opened a chapter of battles of dignity and pride at the dawn of October 7, 2023” (emphases added).
Political Advocacy
- Samidoun endorses the Deadly Exchange campaign led by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) that aims to “end police exchange programs between the US and Israel.” JVP claims that American Jewish organizations and programs are to blame for police violence against minorities in America. The campaign also invoked antisemitic tropes.
- The initial “Deadly Exchange” video labeled AIPAC, ADL, Birthright and other Jewish organizations as being responsible for these exchanges, and urged viewers to “Hold accountable the Jewish institutions who run and fund the deadly exchange.”
- Samidoun organizes an annual “Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners,” which features “rallies, events and action and distributing news and alerts about actions around the world.” Many of these prisoners have ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization designated as such by the U.S., EU, Canada, and Israel.
- In May 2024, following the announcement by the Prosecutor of the ICC that he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, alongside three Hamas leaders, Samidoun published a statement affirming, “Let us be clear: There is no equation to be made between the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people and its leadership, including Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh, and the illegitimate Zionist colonizer. The attempt to equate victim and perpetrator is a fundamental injustice, not the pursuit of long-denied justice…The choice to seek warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, while not against Gantz, Eisenkot, Ben-Gvir, Herzog and other war criminals, also indicates its bias toward appeasing the political leadership of imperialist powers….The ICC has served for too long as a weapon of colonialism rather than a tribunal of justice. We trust the revolutionary justice of the victorious Palestinian people…. Zionism will be defeated, and from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
- In May 2023, Samidoun tweeted, “Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network mourns the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan, 45, whose life was taken behind Zionist bars after 86 days of hunger strike in a Zionist assassination operation. This crime must not be allowed to pass without accountability.” Samidoun additionally affirmed that Adnan, “A leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, he became one of the most prominent symbols of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and ongoing resistance…The martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan, the symbol of dignity, freedom and steadfastness, is an Israeli assassination, carried out with forethought and premeditation.”
- Khader Adnan, a senior Palestinian Islamic Jihad member arrested in February 2023 and indicted for membership in a terror group, supporting a terrorist organization, and incitement, died following his 86-day-long hunger strike and refusal to receive medical treatment from the Israeli Prisons Service.
- On April 13, 2023, Samidoun claimed that Berlin authorities banned an upcoming Samidoun rally. According to the Berlin newspaper BZ, “the police had banned the demonstration on the grounds that it could lead to inflammatory or anti-Semitic calls, glorification of violence or acts of violence. The Administrative Court and the Higher Administrative Court had confirmed the ban in summary proceedings.”
- During an April 8, 2023 Samidoun-organized protest in Berlin, demonstrators chanted “Death to the Jews, death to Israel!”
- In May 2022, Samidoun was a signatory on a flagrantly antisemitic report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council’s Commission of Inquiry which was established to “investigate” crimes allegedly committed by Israel since April 13, 2021. The submission called to “Recognise and Address Zionist Settler Colonialism and Apartheid as the Root Causes of Israel’s Ongoing Violations.” The submission presented a blatantly false historical account that denied Israel’s right to exist, categorized Israel’s very existence as illegal, and labeled Zionism as a form of racism.
- In October 2021, Samidoun published a statement condemning the decision by the Israeli Ministry to designate six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations. According to the statement, “In our experience with this designation since February of this year, these designations are used as ammunition by Zionist ‘lawfare’ groups in various countries in an attempt to create a climate of fear to undermine collective solidarity, cut off funding or access to banking, and silence advocates for justice, rights and liberation in Palestine at international venues.”
- In May 2021, Samidoun held a “Week of Palestinian Struggle” titled “From Gaza to Jerusalem: Confront massacres and ethnic cleansing, support Palestinian resistance!”
- In September 2020, following Israel signing a peace deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Samidoun signed a call stating that “While governments and corporations talk of business opportunity, tourism, and energy deals, the sidelined Palestinians continue to exist in apartheid conditions, under brutal Israeli military occupation.” The call further “demand[ed] an end to Zionist Colonization of Arab/Palestinian land.”
- In August 2020, to mark the 48th anniversary of the death of Ghassan Kanafani, Samidoun held “Days of Resistance” in major cities around the world to “remind the world that the Palestinian people will continue to rise and confront all attempts of liquidation and destruction of the cause of Palestine and resist dispossession, exile and genocide.”
- Kanafani was a spokesperson for the PFLP.
- In November 2019, Samidoun signed a letter to Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda calling to open “an official, full-scale investigation into the ‘situation in Palestine’” and the “possible war crimes and crimes against humanity committed” as the “absence of an official investigation…has fuelled the already existing culture of impunity.”
- In November 2018, Samidoun publicized a rally in Berlin for “101 Years of the Colonial Balfour Declaration” stating that “the Declaration of shame must not be forgotten! Balfour’s promised has created over 7 million refugees, justifying ethnic cleansing and land theft. Protest!”
BDS Activities
- Many of Samidoun’s activists are also members and leaders of pro-BDS organizations in the United States.
- Khaled Barakat, coordinator of Samidoun, is also a member of the Al-Awda Palestine Right to Return Coalition, an organization that supports BDS.
- Charlotte Kates, co-manager of Samidoun, is a member of the “Organizing Collective” of the US Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI) and was previously an activist with New Jersey Solidarity Activists for the Liberation of Palestine (NJS), an organization that called for the destruction of Israel.
- In February 2023, Samidoun was a signatory on a statement “welcom[ing] the historic announcement by the Barcelona City Council to suspend all institutional relations with apartheid Israel.” The statement called for “arms embargo against apartheid Israel, stopping trade with Israel’s illegal colonial settlements, and ending projects and agreements that sustain the illegal situation, including the EU-Israel Association Agreement, the EU-Israel Association Council, international agreements for gas pipes through the Gaza coast, and the Euro-Asia Interconnector project receiving electricity from Israel’s colonial settlement enterprise.”
- In September 2022, Samidoun endorsed a report by Al-Haq and Just Peace Advocates calling to “Update the UN database annually” and “Continue to exert the necessary efforts to ensure transparency and promote accountability for business activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, to counter the pervasive impunity stemming from corporate- related violations and grave breaches of international law in such contexts.”
- The UN BDS “blacklist” of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line selectively targets Israel apart from all other nations, is aimed at economically damaging companies that are owned by Jews or do business with Israel, and is ultimately meant to harm the Jewish State.
- In March 2022, Samidoun was a signatory on a joint statement delivered to the UN Human Rights Council calling to “adopt effective measures, including sanctions, to end Israeli apartheid.”
- In August 2021, Samidoun signed a letter to the States Parties to the Arms Trade Treaty calling to “put an end to Israel’s notorious use of arms and military equipment…by immediately imposing a comprehensive two-way arms embargo on Israel.” According to the letter, “This systematic brutality, perpetrated throughout the past seven decades of Israel’s colonialism, apartheid, pro-longed illegal belligerent occupation, persecution, and closure, is only possible because of the complicity of some governments and corporations around the world.”
- In June 2021, Samidoun was a signatory on a letter to President Biden to “Halt Weapons Sales to Israel.”
- In September 2020, on the 27th anniversary of the Oslo Accords, Samidoun published a statement calling to “escalate the boycott campaign against Israeli products, cultural institutions, academic institutions and complicit corporations, and fight back against the recognition and normalization of a racist settler-colonial project in occupied Palestine. The boycott of Israel is antithetical to the Oslo process.”
- In September 2020, Samidoun held a “Day of action” calling to “take action to boycott Israel and complicit corporations like HP, G4S and Teva – and the boycott of the “Israel- Start Up Nation” propaganda team in the Tour de France,” and “escalate boycott campaigns in your university, union or other institution.”
- On November 22, 2017, the PFLP published an article by Barakat in which Barakat stressed that “What our people want and aspire to is a movement that priorities the unity of our people and concentrate its forces behind the legitimate national right within the framework of the popular and armed resistance in all its forms, and in expanding the boycott and isolation of the Zionist entity…and struggle against normalization…with the Zionist enemy”(emphasis added).
Ties to Collectif Palestine Vaincra
- French NGO Collectif Palestine Vaincra (CPV) is a member of Samidoun. (Click here, here, here, here (French), and here (French) to read more on CPV.)
- CPV’s’ website, Twitter handle, and Facebook accounts appear on the Israel National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) lists of “Terrorists Organizations and Unauthorized Associations” due to Samdoun’s close association with the PFLP.
- Since its establishment in 2019, CPV has been forced to change fundraising platforms multiple times. As reported in the media, in 2020, Paypal closed the account of CPV “because of its ties to the US and EU sanctioned terrorist organization the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).” Following the closure, CPV attempted to raise funding via Helloasso (France), Stripe (US), and Shopify (Canada; on file with NGO Monitor). Since December 2022, CPV raises funds via the Arizona-based 501(c)(3) charity Alliance for Global Justice, through Samidoun.
- On March 9, 2022, the French government outlawed CPV. The decree of dissolution referenced clauses 6 and 7 of Article L. 212-1 of the Internal Security Code, which permits dissolving groups that:
- Provoke discrimination, hatred or violence towards people because of their ethnicity, nationality, race, or religion, and/or are found to propagate ideas or theories which justify or encourage such discrimination, hatred or violence (clause 6).
- Engage in acts that provoke terrorism (clause 7).
- On April 22, 2022, the French State Council suspended the decree, pending an appeal by CPV.
- On March 9, 2022, the French government outlawed CPV. The decree of dissolution referenced clauses 6 and 7 of Article L. 212-1 of the Internal Security Code, which permits dissolving groups that:
Staff
- Samidoun does not list the identities of its staffers and their positions on its website. Independent research has identified the following individuals who work for Samidoun:
- Charlotte Kates is Samidoun’s International Coordinator and the wife of Barakat.
- In 2006, Kates was a campus leader of the Palestine Solidarity Movement (PSM). Formerly, Kates was the Advocacy Program Manager at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), as well as an activist with the Al-Awda-The Palestine Right to Return Coalition. She also co-chaired the Middle East sub-Committee and is an “Organizer and Coordinator” at the National Lawyers Guild (NLG).
- Maram Saadi is the coordinator of Samidoun’s branch in Lebanon.
- Joe Catron is the US Coordinator of Samidoun.
- Catron has written numerous articles for Electronic Intifada in support of BDS, Palestinians who have been convicted of terrorism and security offenses, and Israel Apartheid Week. His articles have referred to the establishment of the State of Israel as a “Israel’s violations” in Gaza.
- Electronic Intifada is an online platform that publishes viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic articles, promoting BDS campaigns, as well as the one-state formula.
- In 2018, Catron participated in the International Solidarity Movement’s “US Spring Tour” that aimed to convey to Americans a “small portion of the immense trauma that Palestinians are experiencing.”
- In September 2018, during the violence on the Gaza border, Catron accused Israel of “genocidal intent” and “brutal repression.” Catron ignored the violent nature of the protests, which have consisted of an organized armed attack on the Israeli border and IDF positions, attempts to destroy and breach the border fence, and sustained arson, rocket, and mortar attacks on Israeli civilian communities.
- In January 2015, Catron uploaded a picture of himself with Leila Khaled, a PFLP terrorist.
- In June 2014, Catron participated in a panel in Gaza expressing “solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.” The panel included Tawfeek Abu Naim, the Hamas Chief of Security.
- Catron has written numerous articles for Electronic Intifada in support of BDS, Palestinians who have been convicted of terrorism and security offenses, and Israel Apartheid Week. His articles have referred to the establishment of the State of Israel as a “Israel’s violations” in Gaza.
Appendix- Samidoun Ties to the PFLP
Partners
- French NGO Collectif Palestine Vaincra is a member of Samidoun. (Click here to read more on Collectif Palestine Vaincra.)
- CPV is itself linked to the PFLP terror group through its membership in the terror-designated Samidoun Prisoner Network, which is closely associated with the PFLP. Its website, Twitter handle, and Facebook accounts appear on the Israel National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF)’s lists of “Terrorists Organizations and Unauthorized Associations.”