Khader Adnan

Amnesty International called on Israel to immediately release Khader Adnan, who announced an end to his historic 66-day hunger strike today, as “Israeli authorities have revealed no evidence justifying his continued detention.”

Yesterday, I published a piece in Al-Akhbar English about the twitter campaign to get more people to learn about and support khader Adnan’s hunger strike. Last night, hashtag #HungerStrikingfor65days was the strongest hashtag yet, thousands tweeted using that hashtag and it remained #1 globally trending topic for over an hour. Twitter has got millions of people to pay attention to Khader Adnan’s case online.  Read my piece below for more on this virtual protest.

Lawyers for Khader Adnan have reached a deal with Israel for Adnan to be released on 17 April, Addameer announced today via Twitter. Khader Adnan has agreed to end his hunger strike. Addameer said the deal appears to meet minimum conditions Adnan had previously communicated to lawyers.

Khader Adnan, the Palestinian who has been on hunger strike for 66 days against his detention without charge or trial is in high spirits and sends greetings to all who support him, despite signs of further decline in his health according to a lawyer who visited him on Monday.

Khader Adnan is fighting for rights that should be guaranteed to all prisoners. Organizations from all over the world have launched a call to make Palestinian Political Prisoners’ Day, 17 April 2012, a day of international action.

Tuesday, February 21st is a general strike in solidarity with Khader Adnan, an action that is outside the walls of social media and aims at pressuring the Palestinian leadership to act upon securing the release of Adnan and all Palestinian prisoners.

Democracy Now today aired a brief video clip of Khader Adnan, who is now in his 65th day of hunger strike against his detention without charge or trial by Israel.

Bobby Sands died on 5 May 1981, aged 27, after 66 days on hunger strike against British refusal to grant political status to him and other Irish republican prisoners. Today, as Khader Adnan is on his 65th day of hunger strike, the Secretary of the Bobby Sands Trust, Danny Morrison, called on the Israeli government to immediately release Adnan, who is close to death.

American actress and comedian Roseanne Barr and former Obama administration State Department official Anne-Marie Slaugher are among the latest people to join criticism of Israel’s use of administrative detentions of Palestinians highlighted by the 65 day hunger strike of Khader Adnan as global attention, solidarity grow.

Violence has always been a useful term for governments and their allied establishment figures in media and punditry. Key to that utility is a very specialized use of the term as a descriptor for actions that don’t originate with the establishment or authorities. Police, armies, presidents and city administrators do not engage in violence. They use strategies, protocols, plans of action, deployments, operations and strikes. The people that are injured and die in those acts are not actively killed by violence. Rather, they suffer only in the passive voice.