Global Demonstration to Demand the Release of Ahmad Sa’adat

Sa’adat assumed the responsibility of secretary general of the PFLP after Israel assassinated Abu-Ali Mustafa, the former secretary general. Sa’adat was born a refugee after his family was expelled from al-Bira in 1948, and became involved politically after the occupation of the West-Bank and Gaza by Israel in 1967. Being refugee and from a poor peasant family he was drawn to the Marxist-Leninist ideology of the PFLP, and its nationalist Pan-Arabism philosophy. Sa’aad spent many years in Israeli jails for his political activity.

Sa’adat was abducted by the colonial army after the latter defied the authority of the Palestinian government. Sa’adat is accused by the apartheid government of organizing the assassination of Rehavam Zavvi, Israel’s minister of tourism. In his trial Sa’adat refused to recognize the legitimacy of the court, and was willing only to make political statements. In one of them he said that “"This is your court and you possess the force to celebrate the trial and convict me on the basis of your lists of accusations….But I too possess a will obtained from the justice of our cause and the determination of our people to reject any decision from this ‘kangaroo court'..."