Freedom for Georges Abdallah!
Written by: United Campaign for the Release of Georges Abdallah on 9 September 2024
We have previously mentioned the campaign for the release of Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese Communist who worked with the Palestine Liberation Organisation. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in France for killing a US military attache and an Israeli diplomat. He is now the longest-serving prisoner in Europe. Hs case comes up for review, coincidentally, on October 7.
We reprint below a call for his release by the Free Georges Abdallah Committee. We have signed the call. The Committee, in thanking us for our signature, has indicated the importance of every expression of proletarian internationalism.
They wrote: “Good evening comrades, Thank you for your signature and for your constant and unconditional support for our comrade Georges Abdallah. Your commitment helps make this cause visible on the international level and this has a very important echo here. Long live proletarian internationalism! Let's continue the fight! Let's free Georges Abdallah! Solidarity greetings.”
Their statement follows - eds.
Freedom for Georges Abdallah!
October 1984 – October 2024: 40 years in prison is enough! On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released!
October 7! The news is official: on October 7, 2024, the sentencing court will hold a hearing in Lannemezan to rule on the request for release on parole and expulsion from France filed more than a year ago by Georges Abdallah's lawyer.
October 1984 - October 2024: this decisive hearing will confirm, to the nearest few days, the 40 years of detention in France of our comrade.
October 1984 - October 2024: we expect this hearing to result in the decision to release Georges Abdallah, this exceptional prisoner, the oldest political detainee in France and probably in Europe.
October 1984 - October 2024: 40 years of detention after a conviction handed down following an iniquitous political-police setup and a first lawyer betraying his client by working for the secret services, 40 years of detention despite the end of his security sentence 25 years ago, 40 years of detention while his requests for release were twice accepted at first instance... then rejected on appeal by the prosecution under orders from the government!
On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He who has had to face from the beginning the exceptional measures and laws aggravating the standards of the "rule of law" (special assize court, preventive detention, etc.).
On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He whose perpetual detention has been denounced by many institutions and even former senior officials of the country.
On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He who has already filed nine requests for release. The last one, dating from 2012, having been accepted... on condition that the Minister of the Interior sign an expulsion order, which E. Valls (like his successors) refused to do. This denial of a court decision was thus commented on in 2022 by the public rapporteur of the administrative court: "Such a solution is hardly satisfactory, but no other seems conceivable to us within the legal framework. We must hope that the situation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah can evolve by other means." […] "It is quite obvious that the continued detention of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, for almost thirty-eight years, obeys considerations of an extra-legal nature that escape you."
On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He who has therefore constantly been the object of pressure from political power, as when a Minister of Justice, J.-J. Urvoas, allowed himself to announce that "real life imprisonment" applies to Georges Abdallah. He who has also been repeatedly subjected to pressure from the highest authorities of the United States, demanding that the French government find a way to keep Georges Abdallah in prison.
On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! He whose return his country, Lebanon, has been officially demanding for a long time.
On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be released! We, the signatories of this text, proclaim and demand it and we will not stop chanting it, writing it, posting it and demonstrating it during a new and powerful month of mobilization, until this date of October 7.
This balance of power, a decisive issue for the release of our comrade, we have been building for many years. Today, there are thousands and thousands of us, in France and around the world, mobilizing, in various forms and respecting our diversity, to achieve our sole objective: to free Georges Abdallah.
As our comrade says: "Victory or victory!" This is why we will not give up until this victory, and this while fully respecting the political identity of Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese revolutionary activist, communist, fighter in the struggle for the liberation of the Palestinian people. The one who will be freed is indeed a symbol of resistance to oppression, who has never denied himself throughout these 40 years behind the walls. But it is in this lifelong struggle that we also recognize the indispensable internationalist solidarity with the struggles of peoples for their liberation and their legitimate right to free themselves from exploitation and domination.
In the final stretch of this new legal offensive launched by Georges Abdallah, all of us, signatories of this text, commit to supporting his approach by making it resonate wherever we are, until the hearing on October 7 - and if necessary even after, in particular on October 26 where a new national demonstration will take place in Lannemezan - to increase the pressure on the French State and finally succeed in making it give in.
So, let's increase the pressure even more to snatch victory, keeping in mind what Georges Abdallah told us in 2022: "The various solidarity initiatives that you have developed in this international campaign for a month provide a stinging denial to those who were banking on the loss of momentum of your mobilization."
May a thousand initiatives flourish from September 7 to October 7, 2024 for this international month of coordinated actions, everywhere in France, in the streets and in the neighborhoods, in the universities and even in the Assembly, on the walls and in the media, and internationally in front of French embassies and consulates.
May a thousand initiatives flourish to finally obtain the freedom of Georges Abdallah by making our solidarity cry heard: "Georges Abdallah, your comrades are here!"
40 years in prison, a whole life of fighting! Freedom for Georges Abdallah!
On October 7, Georges Abdallah must be freed! On October 7, Georges Abdallah will be free!
Paris, August 22, 2024
United campaign for the release of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah
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