Prisoner committee appeals for allowing doctors to visit patient in Israeli jail

[ 25/10/2010 - 10:38 AM ]

JENIN, (PIC)-- The Palestinian prisoner committee appealed to all concerned organizations to pressure Israel to allow a specialist doctor to have access to patient Munir Hussein who lost his ability to walk normally due to an unknown illness. The committee stated Sunday that the Negev prison administration refused to conduct medical tests on Hussein to identify his health problem. The prisoner told the lawyer who was sent by the committee to visit him that two years ago, he started to complain of severe pain in his feet, but the prison administration as usual did not care until further complications affected his feet in particular and his health in general. He added that whenever his health seriously deteriorates and is sent to the infirmary, the doctors there refuse to perform medical tests on him and make do with providing him with painkillers. The committee expressed its deep concern over the life of the prisoner, affirming that he is being slowly killed by the Negev prison administration. For its part, Mandela institute for human rights and political prisoners said that the lives of many Palestinian prisoners in Ohlikdar solitary prison are in grave danger and their difficult incarceration conditions are hidden from the media. In a report issued Sunday, representative of Mandela institute Buthaina Duqmaq said she met with prisoner Ahed Abu Ghalma who was transferred to his isolation cell from Jericho prison in March 2006 and now he is serving a life sentence in addition to five years. The prisoner told Duqmaq that many of the prisoners who are in solitary confinement in this prison are exposed to maltreatment and suffer from psychological problems. He cited as an example what happened to isolated prisoner Mansour Al-Shahatit who was tied up from his legs and hands for two days because he only asked one of the wardens to bring him something. Abu Ghalma also said that the prison administration ignores the deteriorating health condition of Shahatit and refuses to provide him with any medical treatment. In another incident, Palestinian sources from inside Ramon prison reported that the Israeli Dror unit used to suppress Palestinian prisoners intensified its attacks against the detainees during this month, especially in rooms number 68, 69 and 70. The sources added that more than 40 soldiers of this unit stormed these rooms many times during the month, dismantled doors, windows and cupboards, tampered with the prisoners' personal belongings and removed tiles and manhole covers in bathrooms at the pretext of searching for banned stuff. The search raids started from 10 o'clock in the morning till six pm and the soldiers also used electronic devices to detect what they were looking for.  The prison administration issued punitive measures against a number of prisoners and deprived many of them from going out of their solitary cells to spend their leisure time, according to the sources.