Art by Nidal El Khairy
Occupation, Repression, and Strategies of Resistance from the US to Palestine: A Night of Music, Food, and Conversation to Support the Case of Rasmea Odeh
Friday, November 14th
7pm
Oakstop
1721 Broadway, Oakland
Accessible by elevator and Bart
$10-20 donation
Funds raised will support the defense of Rasmea Odeh
#FreeRasmeaNow
Featuring from Palestine:
Sahar Francis, Deputy Director of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Presentations by:
Malcolm X Grassroots Movement
Critical Resistance
AROC: Arab Resource & Organizing Center
Catering by Reem’s: Arab street food with California love
Arabic music by Wael Buhaissy and Fatima Lahlou
This is a crucial time to come to Rasmea’s defense.
In a travesty of justice, Rasmea Odeh today was found guilty of one count of Unlawful Procurement of Naturalization. For over a year, Rasmea, her supporters, and her legal team have been battling this unjust government prosecution, saying from the start that the immigration charge was nothing but a pretext to attack this icon of the Palestine liberation movement.
Odeh is the founder of the Arab Women’s Committee in Chicago, a grassroots collective that offers an environment that promotes leadership among Arab immigrant women. The US government has accused her of omitting an answer on her citizenship application 10 years ago. Odeh, who was sexually tortured into a false confession by Israel and served a decade in Israeli prisons, faces revocation of her citizenship, imprisonment, and deportation.
For over a year, the Rasmea Defense Committee has been organizing educational events, rallies, protests, and call-in days to demand that U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade and Tukel drop the charges against her. We now have more work ahead of us. Rasmea’s brilliant legal team-Deutsch, Jim Fennerty, Bill Goodman, and Dennis Cunningham-will file an appeal, and have strong grounds to do so, based on Judge Drain’s unjust decisions. And we will continue to support their work with our political organizing and mobilizations.
Just like our people in Palestine and across the world will never rest until every inch of historical Palestine is free, we will never rest in our defense and support of Rasmea as she moves forward to challenge this conviction.
Rasmea’s story is the story of millions of Palestinians, and of millions of freedom-loving defenders of justice everywhere. Her eventual victory will be a victory for Palestine and for all the people’s movements across the world.
In the words of a letter of protest by more than 100 feminist scholars:
Rasmea’s story encompasses some of the most urgent feminist struggles of our times-violence against women and the use of sexual violence as a tool of colonization and war; the impact of racism and anti-immigrant policies upon women; the criminalization of women of color; and the use of intimidation to thwart feminist activism.
For everything you need to know about Rasmea’s trial in Detroit:
http://www.stopfbi.net/2014/
Sign the petition demanding the US government drop the charges against Rasmea: