Ghoul: Israeli leaders should stand trial for crimes against women prisoners

[ 04/08/2009 - 12:28 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Minister of prisoners' affairs Mohammed Al-Ghoul has said that Israeli leaders should stand trial as war criminals for their flagrant violations of Palestinian female prisoners' rights. He told a press conference in Gaza on Monday that the number of female prisoners in Israeli occupation jails had reached 65 including three from the Gaza Strip, four from Jerusalem and the rest from the West Bank. Ghoul said that the Israeli prisons authority was preventing prisoners from visiting each other and corresponding with their families. They are also deprived of new clothes and shoes other than the fact that their cells are stormed at late night hours and their personal belongings searched, he said, adding that the prisoners are held in solitary confinement and forced to pay hefty financial fines at trivial pretexts. The women captives suffer from deliberate medical neglect, he said, noting that one third of them suffer from disease including serious cases such as Amal Juma who is suffering from cancer, and Nawal Al-Saadi, who suffered a stroke due to torture. Six of those prisoners are minors, the minister underlined, adding that three were kidnapped with their husbands, three held under administrative detention, and five had brothers also held in Israeli jails.