Genocide Inside and Outside the Prison: Watch our Recording

Last month, we hosted Genocide Inside and Outside the Prison, an online discussion with Lena Meari and Basil Farraj, marking Palestinian Prisoners Day and holding space to reflect on the centrality of prisons to the Palestinian condition.

Through the conversation, Lena and Basil reminded us that prisons are not marginal to Palestinian life under colonial rule. They are one of the clearest sites through which Israel’s colonial violence can be understood. Imprisonment has long been used by both British and Israeli colonial regimes to fragment Palestinian society, criminalise resistance to oppression, and attempt to break the bonds that sustain collective life, dignity, and struggle. For these reasons, Palestinian prisoners remain central to the movement for liberation, embodying both resistance and sumud in the face of extreme violence.

During the conversation, Lena and Basil unpacked Israel’s carceral regime as a key part of its wider structure of domination reflecting on prisons as spaces where control, punishment, and experimentation are concentrated, and exploring how gender and sexuality are deployed within the prison system as tools of colonial violence. At a time when horrific testimonies and reports continue to emerge about the treatment of imprisoned Palestinians, especially since the genocide in Gaza accelerated, this discussion offers vital context for understanding imprisonment as part of the broader machinery of Israeli settler colonialism. 

You can watch the full recording below: