The Partisan Defense Committee has added Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, Lebanese fighter for Palestinian rights and determined opponent of imperialism, to our class-war prisoner stipend program. In his 40th year in prison, Abdallah has spent more time behind bars than any other class-war prisoner in France and most likely all Europe. We demand his immediate release.

The context for the witchhunt against Abdallah was the 1982 U.S./France-backed invasion and occupation of Lebanon by Israel. Some 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians were killed in that invasion. Abdallah, a leading member of the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Factions (LRAF), was arrested in Lyon in October 1984 and charged with carrying a fake Algerian passport, even though the document had been legally issued by the authorities. A year later while Abdallah was awaiting trial, the French state claimed to have discovered an arsenal of weapons in a Paris apartment rented in his name, which included a gun purportedly used to kill an American CIA agent and an Israeli Mossad agent. The cops also said they had found a card in Abdallah's handwriting bearing the address of the American consul.

The context for the witchhunt against Abdallah was the 1982 U.S./France-backed invasion and occupation of Lebanon by Israel. Some 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinians were killed in that invasion. Abdallah, a leading member of the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Factions (LRAF), was arrested in Lyon in October 1984 and charged with carrying a fake Algerian passport, even though the document had been legally issued by the authorities. A year later while Abdallah was awaiting trial, the French state claimed to have discovered an arsenal of weapons in a Paris apartment rented in his name, which included a gun purportedly used to kill an American CIA agent and an Israeli Mossad agent. The cops also said they had found a card in Abdallah's handwriting bearing the address of the American consul.

The state added weapons possession to the charges. His 1986 conviction drew a four-year sentence, which the French, American and Israeli governments ranted was too lenient. So, the next year Abdallah was retried in a "special assize court"—no jury, just specially selected magistrates. Based on the same evidence, he was convicted on charges of complicity in the two murders as well as the attempted murder of an American consul. He should have never spent a day in prison.

Abdallah has always denied any involvement in these killings. At his trial, he declared: "If the people have not entrusted me with the honor of participating in these anti-imperialist actions that you attribute to me, at least I have the honor of being accused of them by your court and of defending their legitimacy in the face of the criminal legitimacy of the executioners." Forty years later, Abdallah remains unbroken in his opposition to imperialism and the genocidal Zionists.

Sentenced to life in prison, Abdallah has been eligible for parole since 1999. From 2004 to 2020, nine applications have been denied, largely under direct pressure from the U.S. State Department. A new application filed last June is pending. A number of liberal, left and human rights organizations have called for Abdallah's release. A recent documentary, Fedayee, Georges Abdallah's Fight, is now streaming on YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=3C9RHqxB_UU).

The PDC's fraternal organization in France, the Comité de défense sociale, has been sending him donations as a gesture of solidarity. We add Abdallah to our monthly class-war prisoner stipend program as the Zionist mass murderers lay waste to Gaza with the avid support of the imperialists. The struggle for his freedom is an integral part of the broader struggle to free workers and the oppressed from the chains of misery and exploitation through socialist revolution.

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(reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 1181, 16 April 2024)

Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.