Tampa, FL – On Saturday, November 8, over 100 protesters gathered at Tampa City Hall to call for the immediate release of Mohammed Ibrahim, a 16-year-old Palestinian American from Palm Bay, Florida, who had been illegally detained by Israeli forces since February, while visiting family in the occupied West Bank.
Charged with two counts of stone throwing, Ibrahim has been held in an Israeli prison since then, without access to phone calls or family visits. Due to the conditions of the prison, he has contracted scabies, a rash caused by skin parasites, and has lost nearly a third of his body weight.
“The same logic that imprisons Mohammed in a military court is the logic that sends the police to repress student protests in Tampa,” said a member of Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society. “This is not only Mohammed’s fight. It is our fight as young people committed to justice, as students who believe that the right to speak, march, protest and organize applies to Mohammed, no less than anyone else.”
During the rally and march, protesters chanted “We demand liberation, end the Zionist occupation!” and “Free our prisoners, free them all! Break the chains and let them fall!”
Members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Resistance of Tampa Bay, Tampa Bay Students for a Democratic Society, Bay Area Dream Defenders, and the Democratic Socialists of America gathered to demand the immediate release and return of Ibrahim, whose tenth court appointment happened on Sunday, November 9. As all previous hearings have adjourned without a plea bargain or trial date, this court appointment, too, resulted in another delay until December 12.
In the meantime, Tampa will continue to organize around Ibrahim’s case until he is released from Israeli prison.
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