Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is an internationally-recognized human rights crime—but those being impacted are harshly punished for not only acts of resistance, but even mere advocacy for their rights.

Getting detailed facts about Israel’s imposition of Military Law in the West Bank, Abby Martin visits the the Ramallah offices of Addameer—the most prominent prisoners’ rights organizations in Palestine—for a shocking investigation into the use of Israeli jails and arbitrary laws as a weapon.

Chronicling this history of resistance and repression from the First Intifada through the 2015 uprising, this episode shows what brutal lengths the Israeli occupation will go to silence any and all advocacy for freedom.

Silencing Palestine – Prison & Repression

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While the Israeli state espouses multiculturalism and diversity, it oppresses not just the Palestinian population, but also any Black person within its borders.

From warehousing African asylum seekers in giant prison camps, to criminalizing and carrying out eugenics programs against its Ethiopian Jewish citizens, Israel’s treatment of Black people reveals that the Zionist project is not just about Jewish supremacy, but also white supremacy.

In this on-the-ground investigation, Abby Martin talks to Osman Ali, a refugee from Darfur, at Holot prison camp about the treatment of refugees by the government, and Tehune Maharat, an Ethiopian Jewish activist whose cousin was killed in an apparent hate crime by Israeli police, about the rampant and institutional racism in the country.

How Black Lives Don’t Matter in Israel

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The prison system has become the established response to societal woes—from crime to mental health—and the private corporations that litter the globe have monopolized correctional facilities, amassing deep political influence in the process in order to further prison expansion and increase profits.

In the United States, where the human rights abuses of other countries are always on the agenda, the prison population is staggering. Though the U.S. has only 5% of the world’s population, it has a shocking 25% of its prisoners. Crime has dropped dramatically over the last 25 years, yet the number in prison has continued to increase at a dramatic pace.

Over 50% serving time in prison are non-violent, drug-related offenders, with about 30% locked up for marijuana only. The dehumanization of inmates, as well as those not yet convicted of any crimes, has led to extreme violence perpetuated by prisons guards and prison administration to go almost entirely unchecked, thereby leaving those most vulnerable to face normalized brutality with little to no recourse. In the windowless prison cells of the U.S. we also find racism and sexual violence existing in an almost customary fashion, pushing men and women of color deeper into the void of the criminal justice system.

Follow Abby Martin as she exposes the unsettling realities behind the prison industrial complex on The Empire Files.

Tortured & Enslaved: Enter the World’s Biggest Prison

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Photo by flickr user les haines