Frank Chapman condemns political repression against Rasmea Odeh

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement from Frank Chapman, Field Organizer of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.

Rasmea Odeh, an historic figure in the Palestine national movement, is being threatened by German authorities with denial of her right to speak in Germany, as well as attempting to take away her visa.

The Chicago Alliance once again expresses our complete solidarity with our dear sister, Rasmea, and with her beloved Palestine. For a number of years, the Alliance and the U.S. Palestinian Community Network marched together to defend Rasmea from the political trial that she was subjected to by the U.S. Dept. of Justice; and the Palestinian organizations that Rasmea helped to lead marched together with the Black community in Chicago in our struggle for an end to police crimes by calling for community control of the police.

In 2014, I saw the Palestinian people in Ferguson, Missouri, expressing their solidarity with Black people there who had risen up to demand justice for Mike Brown, the innocent young Black man who was slain by a white police officer. That uprising reignited the Black liberation movement in the U.S.

I said then and I say again today that Black people and Palestinians have a future together. In Chicago, we face a police department that occupies our communities, as Palestinians are occupied by the Israeli military. Hundreds of Blacks and Latinos in Chicago were tortured by cops into confessing to crimes they did not commit, just as Rasmea was tortured in 1969 into such a confession. The Palestinian people are fighting for their liberation since their land was taken from them in 1948. Black people have been fighting for our liberation since we were stolen from Africa centuries ago.

Let Rasmea speak!