Defend Sabreen Msarwi!

Sabreen Msarwi is a Palestinian secondary-school teacher and a leader of Standing Together. She is currently being victimised and threatened with dismissal from her job after she attended a march commemorating Nakba Day on 15 May.

The march itself and participation was not illegal, nonetheless Sabreen has come under attack from the right and far right in Israel, after having been identified in photos on the march. After attending the march, Sabreen received a call from the head of her school informing her that she had been suspended pending an investigation.

Sabreen has done nothing wrong. She has exercised her right to demonstrate and, as a Palestinian, commemorated the victims of the Nakba. She is being victimised and targeted as a Palestinian and an outspoken activist. This is a basic matter of free speech and free expression, and of the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to express their Palestinian identity.

Sabreen is a member of the Israel Teachers Union (Teachers’ Association in Israel), which is affiliated to Histadrut, Israel’s main trade union centre. However, the union has refused to intervene in her case. We call on all supporters of UK Friends of Standing Together to back Sabreen, and call particularly on education workers to raise Sabreen’s case in the structures of your trade union.

We want to see unions organising education workers in the UK take a public stand in defence of Sabreen, to write to the Israeli Ministry of Education to protest her suspension and demand her return to work, and to insist, through international labour movement structures, that Histadrut backs its members rights at work rather than abandoning them.

Defend Sabreen Msarwi! Solidarity with victimised Palestinian workers!

Education workers active in UK Friends of Standing Together have lauched an “Education Workers for Standing Together” network, initially to coordinate solidarity campaigning in defence of Sabreen. If you want to be connected to the network, please email us at ukfriendsofstandingtogether@gmail.com.