Formed in 2001, the International League of Peoples’ Struggle is an international formation that promotes, supports and develops anti-imperialist and democratic struggles throughout the world. Membership includes over 200 mass organizations from 40 different countries. The League stands and fights for a number of “concerns”—including that of political prisoners (Concern #15).
In November 2004, ILPS delegates from the Philippines, Canada, US, Mexico, Iraq, Palestine, Spain, Italy, Colombia, and Turkey agreed to make December 3rd, 2005, an International Day of Solidarity with Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War.
WHY AN INTERNATIONAL DAY OF SOLIDARITY?
As the people resist imperialism, the heavy hand of the state—its courts, laws, jails, military, and paramilitaries—is increasingly used to violate the basic human rights of the people. Law and order politicians try to sell the image of a “strong republic” and “homeland security” to get more military, political or economic support. This effectively means capitulation to the US-led “war on terror” and its imperialist agenda. These states also use political incarceration to attract investors by reassuring capital it will be secure.
“National security”, “state of emergency”…. by now familiar sound bites, warn us that the state will cast aside hard-won human rights and international humanitarian laws that protect us from arbitrary arrest, unjust and arbitrary detention, violations of due process, the right to see a lawyer and our families, torture, forced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, and other blatant human rights violations. Leaders and members of revolutionary organizations, when apprehended or imprisoned, are not called “political prisoners” or “prisoners of war” so that international laws protecting their basic rights are not applied to them.
To break the will and spirit of political prisoners, they are kept in the worst conditions—damp and crowded cells, isolation units. They are subjected to torture and humiliation in prisons like Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo and other detention camps. Families of political prisoners are deprived of household income and often suffer humiliation and harrassment during prison visits.
STRENGTHENING SOLIDARITY
The ILPS resolves to:
1. Fight for and demand the release of all political prisoners and prisoners
of war.
2. Fight to end all forms of human rights violations and all cases and
forms of injustice by supporting the promotion and protection of human
rights.
3. Strengthen solidarity and networking among human rights organizations
and conduct coordinated efforts and struggles to demand the freedom of
all political prisoners and prisoners of war.
4. Conduct initiatives to investigate human rights violations and call
for the prosecution and punishment of the worst perpetrators of human
rights violations.
5. Fight to abolish the prison system, including its expansion and privatization,
which exploits and oppresses prisoners in order to secure cheap or free
sources of labour.
6. Organize international campaigns for the release of all political prisoners
and prisoners of war.