France is about to host a trial with significant implications for the international movement for Palestine. On June 25, Anasse Kazib, a French railroad worker, labor activist, and revolutionary socialist, will defend himself against charges of “apology for terrorism.” These charges stem from social media posts expressing solidarity with the people of Gaza.
The trial is part of the French government’s ongoing crackdown on Palestine solidarity. Another member of Révolution Permanente (RP) — a sister organization and publication of Left Voice, for which Anasse is a spokesperson — will also face trial for “apology for terrorism.”
Similar charges have been brought against many prominent figures on the French Left, including leaders of the country’s main trade union federation, French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan, and Olivia Zemor, a 78-year-old Jewish activist who founded the group EuroPalestine. In a shocking display of France’s repressive climate, Zemor has already been sentenced to two years in prison.
This crackdown extends beyond simply targeting Palestine activism. Kazib is the spokesperson and 2027 presidential candidate for RP. A conviction against him would be an attack on an entire organization of the French Left. The persecution of figures like Kazib and Hassan, a member of La France Insoumise (LFI) — France’s largest center-Left organization — also serves to weaken left-wing opposition to France’s political establishment and the Far Right, which has gained strength in recent years.
Escalating attacks on the movement for Palestine are not confined to France. In the UK, courts are jailing Palestine Action activists on “terrorism” charges, while Germany has published a dossier of symbols deemed “secular pro-Palestinian extremism.” In the United States, FBI raids and charges against the Michigan 8 serve as a warning to Palestine activists in the heart of imperialism. Trump has also continued attempts to deport prominent Palestine activists, including Mahmoud Khalil, Leqaa Kordia, and Mohsen Mahdawi. These recent escalations against Palestine activists coincide with escalating attacks on voting rights and the movement for immigrant rights.
In light of this international trend of repression, RP has been using the charges against Kazib to reframe the narrative. They are rallying around Kazib ahead of his trial and building a united front of those persecuted to condemn Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people and the imperialist countries that have enabled it. On June 18, 1,000 people gathered in Saint-Denis, Paris’s largest suburb, for a rally against the persecution of Palestine solidarity activists, followed by a concert by French rapper Médine. The rally featured speeches from figures including Kazib, his lawyer and Saint-Denis municipal councillor Elsa Marcel, and Argentine congressional deputy Myriam Bregman. RP will hold another rally on the 25th before Kazib’s trial, an event endorsed by LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
As Marcel put it in an interview with RP last year, which Left Voice translated into English:
Ultimately, the most strategic aspect of this defense is less about the outcome of the trial than about how it is used to put the genocide in Gaza on trial and to highlight the complicity of the French state and its authoritarian measures to criminalize supporters of Palestine. In a context where liberal opinion is turning against the scale of the genocide and the solidarity movement is experiencing a resurgence worldwide, the trial of Anasse Kazib can mark an important moment to halt the criminalization of solidarity with Palestine.
The post On June 28, France Puts Socialist Anasse Kazib and the Movement for Palestine on Trial appeared first on Left Voice.
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