PRESS STATEMENT
24 April 2025
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Statement: Al Jama-ah Endorses #Week4Palestine 2025
Al Jama-ah proudly endorses the #Week4Palestine (#W4P) 2025 global campaign, scheduled for 1 to 7 May 2025, under the theme Red Card Israel, which calls for the suspension of Israeli teams from FIFA in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s fight for justice, equality, and liberation. We join the over 100 organisations in South Africa and worldwide in commemorating this week, not through mere words but through active campaigns that drive solidarity and isolate the genocidal apartheid regime of Israel.
As part of the overwhelming majority of South Africans who pledge unconditional solidarity with Palestine, Al Jama-ah stands with a nation who view Palestinians as brothers and sisters in struggle. During South Africa’s dark days of apartheid, Palestinian resistance fighters shared training camps with our freedom fighters, forging a bond rooted in our shared experience of oppression by settler colonial invaders seeking to dispossess our lands.
Last year during #Week4Palestine, before the elections, several political parties signed a pledge to South African voters that we would stand with Palestine and we continue to do so. The elections affirmed that South Africans rejected “two faced parties”, “fence sitters” and Zionists when over two-thirds of voters voted for pro-Palestine parties including Al Jama-ah.
South Africa’s own history of land dispossession, apartheid, and human rights violations morally compels us to stand with the oppressed worldwide. Drawing inspiration from the global anti-apartheid movement of the 1970s and 80s, which secured South Africa’s freedom through sports boycotts, cultural isolations, academic restrictions, consumer boycotts, arms embargoes, and diplomatic pressure, Al Jama-ah calls on all South Africans to support #Week4Palestine. This campaign is essential to dismantling the Netanyahu regime, just as international solidarity helped end apartheid in South Africa.
Al Jama-ah will be participating in nationwide activities in collaboration with like-minded partners in the political sphere, faith-based communities, and civil society, aligning with #Week4Palestine to demonstrate unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people. We urge South Africans from all backgrounds to endorse and participate in the campaign’s events, from marches to educational initiatives, to amplify the call for Palestinian liberation.
Issued by Asghar Khan behalf of Al Jama-ah
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