Layan Kaled, a student activist at Birzeit University in the West Bank, was arrested in the early hours of 7 June by Israeli occupation forces. Kaled has previously spent sixteen months in Israeli prisons for her student activism in support of Palestinian liberation.
According to prisoner support and human rights association Addameer, Kaled’s phone and laptop were stolen during the raid of her Ramallah home. The Ofer Military Court then ordered her detention for eight days with no access to a lawyer.
A statement by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) noted that the targeting of Kaled, and other student activists, “indicates that the student movement continues to play a critical role in the Palestinian national struggle”.
According to the PYM, Palestinian student organisers have come under attack from occupation forces “to deny students the right to form democratic structures and collective power which naturally threaten [the occupation’s] own illegitimate power”.
Addressing a session of this year’s Melbourne Marxism Conference via Zoom, Kaled explained that students at Birzeit University had engaged in all kinds of activism, including sit-ins and protests, focusing on illegal settlements, military checkpoints and other manifestations of the 56-year-long occupation of the West Bank. Many have been arrested; some have been killed by occupation forces.
Read the article by Nick Everett in Red Flag.