Legal center: Israeli internal security minister sanctions stricter measures

[ 25/04/2009 - 08:26 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority has escalated its oppressive measures against the Palestinian prisoners in its jails following the appointment of Yitzhak Aharonovich as the new internal security minister, the Palestinian center for prisoners' studies said. The center warned on Friday that Aharonovich was sanctioning escalation of harassing Palestinian prisoners on all levels; the latest was the Nahshon unit's assault on 20 prisoners in Askalan jail for refusing to wear the orange costume, before being transported to the Salem military court, as imposed by the prison administration. The center charged that those new penal measures, including those approved by a ministerial committee, are in violation of human rights and democracy. Ra'fat Hamdona, the director of the center, described statements by a number of senior Israeli prison administration officers on conditions of Palestinian prisoners as "lies" and "deceptive". Those officers claimed that the prisoners were enjoying their stay in prison and described them as "murderers" who never express regret. Hamdona said that those officers, the disciples of Aharonovich, believe that prison should be a place for "torture and death", and they do not care about the deprivation of the prisoners. He asked the world community to act and protect the international agreements daily violated by the IOA against those prisoners, and mentioned some of those measures as following: physical attacks, solitary confinement, detention without trial, high sentences and others. Aharonovich is a member of Yisrael Beiteinu the fanatic party led by Avigdor Lieberman, the current Israeli foreign minister, who once called for drowning all Arab and Palestinian prisoners in the Dead Sea. MP Khaleda Jarrar, a member of the PFLP politburo, told a seminar on conditions of prisoners on Thursday in Al-Khalil that the Palestinian prisoners were freedom fighters who struggled for the liberation of their country. She said that all old serving Palestinian prisoners should top the list of those to be released in any prisoners' exchange agreement.