The Resistance Festival in Brussels, Belgium, will open its doors for its fourth edition today, Friday, 8 May, for a series of performances, discussions, sports activities and demonstrations stretching through Saturday, 10 May. The annual festival celebrates the resistance of the Palestinian people while commemorating 78 years of ongoing Nakba, marking the Day of Palestinian Struggle with cultural and political struggle in the European capital.

Dozens of organizations participate in the annual festival, which includes children’s activities, t-shirt printing, a political village with tabling, materials and merchandise, and Palestinian and other cultural food, as well as panels, a football tournament, workshops, and a boxing training. The festival has faced repeated attacks by Zionist organizations attempting to ban the annual event. This year, the Festival’s central home is LaVallée at Rue Adolphe Lavallée 39 in Molenbeek, Brussels. The program begins at 3 pm on Friday, 8 May, with poetry performances, followed at 6 pm by a major panel: Anti-Imperialism, Anti-Colonialism and Internationalism Today, with speakers Momodou Taal, Al Fedai Media Network, Alkarama Palestinian Women’s Mobilization, Collectif Memoire Coloniale et Lutte Contre les Discriminations and Brigade Panafricaine Palestine, from 6 pm to 8 pm. This will be followed, from 8:30 pm to 10 pm, by a special discussion on rising resistance today, with Mohammed Khatib, Europe coordinator of Samidoun, and Dyab Abou Jahjah, founder and president of the Hind Rajab Foundation. The evening will close with a Palestinian musical performance by Dima Muqbel.

The Resistance Festival events will continue at LaVallée on Saturday, 9 May, beginning at 12 pm with a special student panel, discussion and strategy session on The Student Intifada: Two Years On, with Momodou Taal, UPB, Jabalia Hall, Refaat Al-Areer Encampment, CGU Leeds and Tariq el-Tahrir. This session is accompanied, at 2 pm, by a workshop run by ZIN TV on the need for cultural boycott of the Zionist entity. At 4 pm, the program continues with a panel discussion on Palestinian prisoners and prisoners for Palestine, with Samidoun, the Liberez Ali campaign, the Free Lebanese Prisoners campaign and the Dismantle Damon campaign. Starting at 5 pm and running through 2 am, the evening program will include musical and dane performances by Yallah Dabke, Salma Al-Hakim and Alejandro, Achille and Tmoin, Issa Murad and Osloob, Trab Terapy, Sidi Wacho, Hishek Bishek, Stranger Souma, and more.

The final day of the Festival is Sunday, 10 May. Events begin at 12 noon with outdoor activities: a football tournament co-hosted with Gaza Stars at Parc Beco, and popular boxing with L’OUPSI Boxing Club. At 3 pm, events begin again at LaVallée, with a workshop on the responsibility of the diaspora for the liberation of Palestine, and followed by a theatre excerpt of “Ravage tout court” by Adeline Rosenstein, a film screening of R21 AKA Restoring Solidarity by Muhannad Yaqubi, and concluding with a final panel on the responsibility of artists and cultural institutions in the struggle against colonialism, with Adeline Rosenstein, Muhannad Yaqubi, Esperanzah, Exile et Creation and Hala from Palettes of Palestine.

The festival expressed its full solidarity with Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, the Freedom Flotilla activists and leaders from the Global Sumud Flotilla abducted and imprisoned in Zionist prisons. Saif Abu Keshek had been scheduled as one of the featured speakers at the Festival prior to his abduction.

The festival is free and open to all — come to La Vallee to join in the events and the weekend of anti-imperialist and anti-colonial solidarity and resistance for Palestinian liberation!

Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

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