Nablus / PNN – Hussam Badran’s wife was recently assaulted in the halls of the Israeli prison Ramon.
She was there to visit her husband, a Palestinian political prisoner, when soldiers invasively searched her.
The treatment of Palestinians while visiting family members in Israeli prisons illustrates routine harassment as has been reported by the Palestinian Prisoner Society.
The group International Solidarity said via telephone that the detainees belonging to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements in sections three and five of Ramon Prison are protesting the searches of their female family members.
After written complaints to the Israeli Department of Prisons and officials, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad members involved in the act of nonviolent resistance were dumped in the prison yard with punitive measures threatened against those who refused to cooperate with the new resolution to search women in a manner considered degrading.
Umm Imad said, “After this response by prison officials the prisoners decided to engage in a hunger strike two days each week in order to pressure the administration to back down from this decision. But the administration has still carried out several repressive and punitive measures.”
The Israeli administration has banned doing laundry and cut off the electricity. It has prevented Palestinian political prisoners from using the prison store and has forced them to eat prison food. Visits from family members have also been banned.
Hussam Badran’s wife added, “The prison administration has deprived prisoners of completing their education at the Hebrew University after they have already paid tuition fees and received prior approval. This is the case for my husband.”
