Local Arab community and allies are pushing for the three officers who assaulted Hadi Abuataleh to be charged.
electronicintifada.net
On 28 July, the Arab community of Chicagoland (Chicago proper and its suburbs) awoke to aviral videoon Facebook showing a young Arab male being brutally beaten by three Oak Lawn police officers. (Oak Lawn is a southwest suburb of Chicago that has a large Palestinian population.)
As a result of the attack, Hadi sustained multiple injuries, including fractures to his pelvis and face, and internal bleeding in his brain. He was transferred to a local hospital in critical condition, and it took almost six days for his health to stabilize enough for him to be released from the hospital and into police custody.
Over 300 Arabs and allies, in a multiracial show of unity, descended on the Oak Lawn Police Department, chanting against racist policing and calling for #Justice4Hadi. The Oak Lawn police responded to the protest by putting armed officers on rooftops and surrounding protesters with additional officers equipped with military-grade weapons and full SWAT gear.
Undeterred by this attempt to intimidate, Hadi’s family and community supporters mobilized just four days later, on 1 August, after Hadi was discharged from the hospital into Oak Lawn police custody. The AAAN called upon the community to converge again on the Oak Lawn Police Department and also to flood the department with calls to release Hadi into the custody of his parents.
Protesters from the Arab community chanting in support of Palestinian-American Hadi Abuataleh outside the Oak Lawn Police Department in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, 28 July 2022.
Sheffield Hallam breaches settlement with Shahd Abusalama to inflame ongoing attacks.
electronicintifada.net
A UK-based Palestinian educator and activist is once again fighting a relentless smear campaign by Israel lobby groups and right-wing media who have baselessly accused her of anti-Jewish bigotry.
Shahd Abusalama says that Sheffield Hallam University, where she worked, has only fed the attacks instead of protecting her against them – even as the university itself exonerated her of all claims of anti-Semitism after a series of internal investigations.
But students, anti-racist activists and the local University and College Union branch are standing beside her.
Abusalama recently graduated from a PhD program at Sheffield Hallam, and was an associate lecturer until the university agreed to settle her discrimination claim.
“I accepted the settlement in the context of the harassment and bullying I had faced at [Sheffield Hallam University], wanting to start a new chapter with an institution committed to academic integrity and the wellbeing of its staff and students,” Abusalama stated on 21 November.
My name is Shahd Abusalama and I’m a third-generation Palestinian refugee activist, artist, and writer. I am suing Sheffield Hallam University (SHU), my former employer, for discrimination and for publicly attacking me in the Zionist press.