Nafha detainees gearing to go on hunger strike next week

[ 06/11/2010 - 10:07 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian detainees in the Israeli Nafha prison are gearing to go on hunger strike next week in response to rising unfair treatment by the Israel Prison Service (IPS), the “Prisoners’ Supporters” organization in Gaza said, calling on the Red Cross and other rights organizations to intervene to protect those prisoners against unbearable conditions inside the facilities. The organization said in a statement it issued Friday that the IPS has been undertaking a campaign of constant raids and searches against prisoners with the ultimate goal of humiliating them and breaking their wills. The organization stressed that IPS practices conflict with international laws and standards, adding that further steps to support prisoners are under way. In the same context, senior Hamas official Raafat Nasif went on his eighth straight day of hunger strike to protest the prison administration’s brutal treatment of prisoners, detainees in the Israeli Megiddo prison informed the Center for Prisoners Studies. The prisoners added that Shadi Mohammed Jadullah Abu Al-Hussain, 34, of Khan Younis, who was sentenced to seven years in Israeli detention, has gone into his fourth day of fasting to demand his freedom after his sentence was completed in mid-August. Sources said he was being held for not having a Palestinian identity. In related developments, Israeli authorities are pushing for a new law depriving any Palestinian prisoner the right to meet with a lawyer for one year after his arrest. The current law allows prisoners lawyer visits 21 days after they are initially detained. Senior rights groups in Palestine condemned the bill, arguing that it will obstruct outsiders’ awareness of torture methods the IPS practices against prisoners, particularly during the investigation process, when signs of abuse on detainees can clearly be detected. Rights expert Riyadh Al Ashkar added that the bill, if passed, could make it difficult for lawyers to directly monitor the defendant’s case, thus not allowing for a proper defense. “This would allow for the IPS to single out the prisoner and impose the sentence it desires,” he said.