A banner at Carnegie Hall.
On October 15th, the US Department of the Treasury announced that Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, commonly known as Samidoun or Samidoun Network, is now designated by the United States and Canada as a “terrorist entity.”
According to the press release, Samidoun, which promotes itself as “an international network of organizers and activists working to build solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in their struggle for freedom,” is a “sham charity” with the true purpose of raising funds for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Commonly known as the PFLP, the Popular Front was designated a global terrorist organization by the US and other countries in 1997 and again in 2001.
Claremont Colleges student organizations have partnered with Samidoun frequently in recent years. Notably, the Independent has identified multiple instances of Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) events being promoted by, or in partnership with, Samidoun.
SJP events were often included in Samidoun-published collections of “actions” taking place globally, including one where Claremont SJP is listed as an “endorser” of a Samidoun coordinated action.
In 2018 and 2019, Samidoun promoted two SJP events, one a letter writing event, and the other a discussion on “preserving the history of international struggles for liberation.”
In 2021, SJP held a presentation and panel with Mohammed Khatib, one of Samidoun’s European coordinators. In 2024, the Belgian Secretary of State for Asylum and Migration asked that Khatib’s refugee status in Belgium be revoked on grounds of his being an “extremist hate preacher.” Khatib had publicly celebrated the October 7th attacks on Israel, promoting global “celebrations” of the attacks, and leading one action in which pastries were handed out on the streets of Berlin to celebrate the occasion.
Most recently, an event on April 5th, 2024, hosted by SJP and the 5C Prison Abolition Collective, was advertised as a “partnership” with Samidoun. The stated goal of the event was for students to write letters to incarcerated Palestinians. 5C Prison Abolition Collective did not respond to requests for comment.
SJP and its partner organizations like Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) and the Claremont Student Worker Alliance (CSWA) have been consistent in their public support of terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, and reject “glorification of ‘peace’ and ‘nonviolence.’” The groups also regularly call for Intifada, an Arabic term which translates to “shaking-off,” but in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict, refers to waves of terrorist violence against Israeli civilians and the Jewish diaspora.
It is unclear whether SJP or other 5C organizations were ever involved in fundraising efforts for Samidoun, which would implicate them in the funding of internationally designated terrorist organizations.
The same groups are also backers of The People’s Fund, a “mutual aid” network of “students and community members who aim to monetarily support people building power in Sudan, Gaza, and Eastern Congo. The group, which as of this article’s publication has raised over $18,000, “redistributes” the donated money of students, faculty, and others, wealth “stolen through capitalism, settler-colonialism, and imperialism,” to “revolutionary struggles.”
The People’s Fund’s last and only “transparency update” on July 27th, 2024, when the group had raised close to $4,000, said that the money had been sent in equal parts to a Congolese collective “organizing mutual aid” to a refugee camp, an organizer in Egypt who would use the money to pay for rent, food, and other expenses for Palestinian refugees in Cairo, and to “Emergency Response Rooms” in Sudan, which organizes communal kitchens and clinics for people impacted by the ongoing ethnic cleansing in a civil war between the Sudanese Government and the Rapid Support Forces, a foreign-backed paramilitary group which has committed crimes against humanity, and may be committing genocide against non-Arabs in the Darfur region.
The Fund has not provided any updates since July, despite raising nearly four times as much money. On Saturday, October 3rd, the Fund hosted a Market for Mutual Aid at the Scripps Student Union, with proceeds going towards the Fund.
Claremont SJP, which was involved in the October 7th takeover of Pomona’s Carnegie Hall, did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story.
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