Ramallah / PNN – For Palestinian political prisoners, family visits, and those with the Red Cross and legal advisors, are difficult on what is considered a normal day.
Families must wake before the crack of dawn for bus transportation that includes several checkpoints, lengthy waits, and invasive searches.
Now the situation is even more difficult, beyond the thick plastic that normally separates father from child. The Palestinian Prisoners Society is reporting that because of summer holidays for the Israeli prisons department, no visits are being allowed.
The latest restrictions began 10 days ago.
PPS said on Sunday, “Despite prior coordination with the prisons department for visits with a number of prisoners in all prisons, and for appointments with lawyers, we were surprised upon arrival to find that visits were cancelled without prior warning.”
The Palestinian Prisoners Society added that, upon demanding of the Israeli authorities a reason for the cancellations of crucial visits for political prisoners, lawyers were told that officials in the prisons department had gone on summer vacation.
The PPS is referring to the situation as illegal beyond the imprisonment of some 11,000 Palestinians.
“Hundreds of prisoners are deprived of their legitimate right to visits by lawyers,” the PPS said today.
