National committee of prisoners: Shalit law is not frozen

[ 27/10/2010 - 11:38 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The higher national committee for the support of prisoners said that the Israeli prison authority still implements the law of Shalit which an Israeli government's committee approved in order to punish Palestinian prisoners especially from Hamas. Information director of the committee Riyadh Al-Ashqar stated Tuesday that Israeli media claims that premier Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the freeze of Shalit law because of alleged developments in the prisoner swap deal are lies aimed at misleading the international public opinion and organizations. Ashqar affirmed that Israel is really using this law against prisoners, where it still deprives them, for example, of family visits, education, reading books and newspapers, and watching television and steps up its policy of solitary confinement against them. He appealed for necessarily sending an international human rights delegation to visit Israeli prison to see closely the poor incarceration condition of Palestinian prisoners. The Israeli ministerial committee on legislative affairs had approved weeks ago a bill aimed at aggravating the conditions of Palestinian prisoners especially those from Hamas in a bid to pressure their Movement to accept the terms put by Israel for the release of its soldier Gilad Shalit. The bill was to be brought to the Knesset for a preliminary reading, but Hebrew media outlets claimed on Tuesday that Netanyahu decided to freeze this law because its approval would be determinatal to the efforts made for the release of Shalit and the talks with Hamas in this regard. In a related development, the Palestinian prisoner society said that the prisoners in Hawara jail suffer from a shortage of drinking water after it was suspended by the prison administration. The society reported on Tuesday that the prisoners complained to its lawyer that they used to receive intermittently smelly dirking water from Israeli soldiers before the suspension, but now they are provided with one and a half liters of bottled water. Hawara is a detention camp used by Israeli troops to detain Palestinian captives temporarily before transferring them to other prisons. The Israeli administration of Hadarim jail also declined the requests submitted by 20 prisoners to allow them to pursue their academic studies in prison, claiming there were security reasons for its refusal. The prisoners told the lawyer of the prisoner society that Hadarim administration approved the requests submitted by only five out of 25 detainees.