This outrageous treatment of the Palestinian militant by his jailers is part of the government’s repeated attempts to isolate him and break his fighting spirit. Those efforts have failed, however, thanks both to Abdel-Muhti’s courageous refusal to give up his fight for justice and to those who have campaigned for his freedom. What is needed now is to step up efforts to publicize the facts about his case and win the broadest possible public support for the demand that he be released immediately.

Abdel-Muhti has been locked up in immigration jails in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for more than a year and a half without charges filed against him and with the threat of deportation hanging over his head. As he told the Militant in an interview from behind bars last December, the U.S. government’s threat to deport him is part of a nationwide wave of arrests and harassment of immigrants, especially from the Middle East and South Asia. Government officials have explicitly targeted his political activities as an opponent of Washington’s policies and a defender of the Palestinian struggle for a homeland. Immigration cops have more than once threatened to deport him and turn him over to Israeli police if he does not give them information about other individuals in the United States and Palestine.

Over the past decade the U.S. government has expanded the number of deportable offenses as well as the powers of the federal cops to summarily detain and deport immigrants. In the name of “fighting terrorism” Washington has rounded up hundreds of people, holding many indefinitely without charges. At the same time, the immigration police has stepped up its terror raids in workplaces and elsewhere. These raids target workers and their unions—as in the recent arrests of 250 janitors at Wal-Mart stores across the country—and aid the bosses’ efforts to superexploit workers lacking legal protection.

As a result, hundreds of thousands of workers have faced victimization by the hated migra. At a time of continuing working-class resistance, an increasing number of immigrant workers have refused to be intimidated and have stood up to fight. Several have won important victories in their antideportation struggles—from immigrant rights fighter Julieta Bolívar in Chicago to Perspectiva Mundial associate editor Róger Calero.

Farouk Abdel-Muhti is among those behind bars who have refused to bend their knee, remaining true to his convictions as a fighter for Palestinian self-determination.

Let’s join forces to demand: Stop the abusive treatment of Farouk Abdel-Muhti! Return his literature and personal possessions! Free him now!
 
 
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New Jersey prison guards assault Palestinian fighter Farouk Abdel-Muhti  
 
 
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