6 Things to Know About Samidoun, the ‘Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network’

Samidoun describes itself as an “international network of organizers and activists” that campaigns for the release of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. The group sponsors demonstrations, protests, pressure campaigns, and seminars. Many of the prisoners for whom Samidoun campaigns are members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, and other countries. Samidoun registered as a not-for-profit corporation in Canada in March 2021.

1. Samidoun and the terrorist organization PFLP share leadership

Khaled Barakat, reportedly a PFLP Central Committee member and a “leader in the PFLP,” is a frequent featured speaker at Samidoun’s events but has no officially acknowledged role within the organization, which typically describes him as a “Palestinian writer and activist.” Palestinian outlets refer to other Samidoun leaders as PFLP members, including Samidoun’s Europe coordinator, Mohammad al-Khatib. Israel arrested Belgian Samidoun activist Mustapha Awad in 2018, accusing him of receiving training from Hezbollah and wiring money to Barakat from Lebanon and Syria at the PFLP’s direction.

2. Samidoun celebrated the October 7 massacre and glorifies terrorism against Israel

At a rally in April 2023, Barakat called for the audience to “salute the heroic forces of the Al-Qassam Brigades, Jihad Brigades, [the PFLP’s] Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, and all of the Palestinian resistance factions.”

Only hours after the October 7 massacre began, Samidoun’s Spanish branch called for demonstrators to show support for the “brave and dignified Palestinian resistance.” In Berlin, Samidoun’s German branch organized the distribution of pastries to celebrate the Hamas attack. Days later, Samidoun Seattle “showed support for the successful Flood of Al Aqsa resistance operation,” referring to Hamas’s name for the October 7 massacre.

In April 2024, Barakat’s wife, Charlotte Kates, who is Samidoun’s “International Coordinator,” called Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel “heroic and brave.” After those remarks, Canadian police arrested her in a hate crime investigation. A post on Samidoun’s website decrying the Canadian government’s actions openly refers to the October 7 attack as a “heroic operation” and features a graphic that says, “Long Live October 7th,” written in Arabic and English.

3. Samidoun operates on campuses worldwide

Samidoun has cosponsored and helped organize campus protests and events throughout the United States and abroad. In March 2024, Samidoun and Columbia University’s branch of Students for Justice in Palestine hosted a webinar titled “Resistance 101.” During the webinar, Kates and Barakat repeatedly praised “resistance” and referred to their “friends and brothers in Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP.” In May, Mohammad al-Khatib of Samidoun helped lead protests against Israel at the University of Amsterdam. At the Samidoun-endorsed protest, activists hurled gas tanks and beat a person with wooden planks. At the University of Bonn, Samidoun promoted an event to protest an appearance by Israel’s ambassador to Germany on January 15.

4. Other countries have outlawed Samidoun for supporting violence

Germany banned Samidoun-affiliated activist Barakat for four years in April 2020 because of his support for the PFLP, among other reasons. In 2022, Samidoun announced that the European Union barred Barakat and Kates from entering for “multiple years.” In November 2023, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser banned Samidoun because it “endorses the use of violence as a means for achieving its political objectives and incites such violence” and “supports organization-s which initiate, endorse or threaten attacks on individuals or property.” Faeser called Samidoun “inhumane” and “disgusting” after it publicly praised Hamas and organized celebratory demonstrations in German cities following Hamas’s October 7 massacre. In February 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Defense designated Samidoun as a terrorist organization, asserting that it “serves as a front for the PFLP abroad.”

5. Samidoun maintains a network of aligned organizations

Samidoun lists chapters and affiliates throughout Europe, North America, South America, and elsewhere. In 2021, Samidoun activists, including Barakat and al-Khatib, launched Masar Badil, an organization that bills itself as a mass mobilization movement opposed to normalization and compromise with Israel. The group hosted conferences in Spain, Lebanon, and Brazil. At least two Masar Badil leaders are allegedly affiliated with the PFLP, and Masar Badil reveres George Habash, the Marxist-Leninist founder of the PFLP. Masar Badil has hosted multiple webinars featuring Hamas leaders.

6. A U.S. organization serves as Samidoun’s fiscal sponsor

Samidoun is a fiscally sponsored project of the Alliance for Global Justice (AGJ), an “anti-capitalist” 501(c)(3) charity based in Arizona. Through this arrangement, AGJ collects tax-exempt donations on Samidoun’s behalf and transfers them to Samidoun. In 2023, AGJ came under congressional scrutiny and legal pressure for its ties to the PFLP. Because of AGJ’s affiliations, payment processing companies PayPal, Stripe, Salsa Labs, and Deluxe stopped working with AGJ out of fear they would be providing “material support” to terrorism.