FRENCH activists called for solidarity today after Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that two leading Palestinian solidarity organisations would be shut down for allegedly inciting terrorism.

He said that the Collectif Palestine Vaincra (Palestine Will Overcome Collective) would be closed in the coming days at the request of President Emmanuel Macron.

The government claims the group is linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and that its actions in solidarity with the Palestinian people promote hatred of Israel.

Also targeted is the Palestine Action Committee, which the Interior Ministry accuses of releasing statements by Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad that it says constitute “an incitement to hatred, violence or discrimination and provoking terrorist acts.” 

Collectif Palestine Vaincra is part of the worldwide Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network, which was itself banned as a terrorist organisation by Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz last year.

Samidoun condemned a “blatant assault on freedom of expression and association,”  which it said reveals the French state’s complete disregard for the principles of human rights and democracy.

“We urge all supporters of justice in Palestine to take action to defend the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and the Palestinian liberation movement from the latest attacks of the French state in full alliance with Israeli war crimes, colonialism and apartheid,” the group said in a statement.

“This type of criminalisation reflects the French state’s ongoing attempts to cover up its crimes of colonialism throughout the region and its complicity in Israeli war crimes with the repression, silencing and censorship of Palestinian and Arab communities and Palestine solidarity organisations.”

A petition condemning the ban can be signed here: https://www.change.org/p/non-à-la-dissolution-du-collectif-palestine-vaincra.