Based in Berlin, Khaled Barakat is a Canadian national who serves as a member of the political bureau of the Palestinian Front for the Liberalization of Palestine (PFLP).
In 2003 Canada designated PFLP as a terrorist organization. According to Public Safety Canada:
Formed in 1967, the goals of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) are the destruction of the State of Israel and the establishment of a communist government in Palestine. During the 1970s, the group took part in some of the boldest terrorist attacks of the period, such as hijacking three civilian airliners in one day and storming the Vienna headquarters of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Since 2000, the PFLP has turned increasingly to the use of suicide bombers, guerilla tactics, car bombings, and mortar strikes. The PFLP was also responsible for the first assassination of a cabinet minister in Israel’s history, killing Tourism Minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001. In 2014, the PFLP claimed responsibility for a November gun and knife attack at an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in West Jerusalem that killed 6 people. More recently, on June 16, 2017, two coordinated attacks targeting Israeli police officers were carried out near the Damascus Gate of Jerusalem’s walled old city.
On July 4, 2019 No One Is Illegal issued a “Statement of solidarity with Khaled Barakat”:
We write in solidarity with comrade Khaled Barakat facing political censorship and repression in Germany. Khaled Barakat was a founder of the No One Is Illegal network and movement in Vancouver, advocating for the rights of Palestinian refugees and for all refugees in Canada, and fighting for the right of return for Palestinian refugees. He articulated a clear connection between Israeli apartheid and Canadian settler-colonialism. As a member of No One Is Illegal and as an active leader in social movements in Vancouver and across Canada, he was a consistent and passionate organizer against Zionist occupation and U.S imperialism and for Palestinian liberation from the river to the sea.
We stand unconditionally with Khaled Barakat. The attacks on Khaled Barakat are part of the illegal Israeli state’s attempt to quell the Palestinian diaspora in exile and the international Palestinian solidarity movement. The attempt to silence our friend Khaled Barakat occurs in the context of a campaign by the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs to attack Palestinian and solidarity organizations globally. By barring Khaled Barakat’s right to speak at demonstrations or meetings, threatening him with prison time, and potentially denying him and his wife the right to reside in Germany, the German state is aligning with the racist Israeli state. The illegal occupation of Palestine has been perpetuated by targeted killings, ethnic cleansing, massacres, torture, assassinations, humiliations at hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks, curfews confining entire populations to their homes, caging of Palestinians in jails and open air prisons, annexation of Palestinian-owned land, building of illegal settlements, demolitions of homes and a systematic policy of material deprivation- all of which should be rightfully and legitimately exposed and resistance to which does not constitute anti-Semitism.
We offer our continued unconditional and unequivocal support to the Palestinian resistance movement against Zionist/Israeli apartheid and occupation. We support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign as a strategy of international solidarity. We oppose the Zionist-Eurocentric settler-colonial foundation of the State of Israel that claims a racist, exclusionary, and privileged Jewish identity and has, since its inception, violently displaced and discriminated against Palestinian people. We affirm the fundamental and inalienable right of all Palestinian refugees to return to the original towns, villages, and lands of 1948 and 1967 occupied Palestine from which they were expelled.
Knowing Khaled Barakat, we know he will not be intimidated nor be silenced. We will not be intimidated or silenced either, and we reiterate that we stand with him as part of a growing international solidarity campaign with Khaled Barakat. We demand an end to the ongoing colonization and occupation of Palestinian lands, an end to the apartheid system in Palestine, full recognition of the fundamental right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes, and an end to all forms of international support for Israeli war crimes. Palestine will be free.