Isolated Detainees Announce Open-Ended Hunger Strike

Saturday October 01, 2011 12:44 by Mais Azza - IMEMC & Agencies

Palestinian Minister of Detainees and Ex-detainees Affairs, Issa Qaraqe’, stated Friday that around Twenty-five Palestinian detainees in solitary confinement at the Nafha. Ramon, Al Ramla and Asqalan Israeli detention facilities declared an open-ended hunger strike.

Qaraqe' said in his statement that twenty five sick detainees in Al Ramla Israeli detention center decided to strike three days a week in solidarity with the other detainees who have started their hunger the strike since September 17th in protest to the escalating humiliation and violations carried out by the Israeli government and the Israeli Prison Administration.

The Minister also stated stopping all solitary confinement policies is the main motive for the strike, as such policies are cruel and illegal policies practices against the detainees, as some of whom have been kept in solitary confinement for more than ten years.

He added that the extremist Israeli Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, instructed the Israeli Prison Administration to increase the sanctions against the detainees in order to force them to break their strike and abandon their demands.

Qaraqe' also stated that the heads of Israeli detention facilities had an argument with some government agencies as they had to cancel their vacations due to the new measures in all prisons and detention centers, in order to force the detainees to break their strike.

During a meeting with the administration of the Ramon facility, the detainees presented nine demands, including ending all forms of collective punishment, solitary confinement, financial penalties, the shackling feet and hands during lawyers and family visits, and access to healthcare and education.

Palestinian Detainees Announce Hunger Strike

IMEMC

Wednesday September 28, 2011 08:59 by UFree - Press Release

Palestinians detained in Israeli occupation jails have announced their intent to begin an open-ended hunger strike to demand an end to the ever increasing humiliating and degrading treatment at the hands of Israel's prisons services (IPS), starting on September 27th.

Prisoners are calling for the release of prisoners from isolation, some of whom have been kept in isolation units for ten years; the end of collective punishment – including the shackling of hands and feet when family and lawyers visit; access to healthcare and education are amongst the demands too.

Hunger strike is one of the few methods of nonviolent resistance available to Palestinian prisoners, who have been protesting against their unfair treatment – such as lack medicines and decent food for years. Since the announcement of punitive measures by Netanyahu in June, the situation has deteriorated rapidly.

There are currently approximately 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli jails, including women, children and elected politicians. Many of them are held for long periods without charge, denying families their breadwinners.

TAKE ACTION TO SUPPORT PALESTINIAN POLITICAL PRISONERS!

1. Contact the ‘Israeli embassy’ or consulate in your country and demand the immediate release of Palestinian political prisoners.

2. Distribute UFree special report ‘Unlawful combatants’ >> Find attached

3. Write to human rights organizations asking them to act swiftly to demand that all Palestinian political prisoners and detainees are freed from punitive isolation.

4. Email the International Committee of the Red Cross whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at jerusalem.jer[at]icrc.org,efillion[at]icrc.org

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** UFree - The European Network to support the rights of Palestinians Prisoners is an independent European-wide human rights network; set up to defend the rights of Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association Calls for Solidarity with the Striking Prisoners

Addameer

Ramallah, 27 September 2011

Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons have announced the start of a campaign of disobedience to protest an escalating series of punitive measures taken against them by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) in recent months.

The IPS’s increasing crackdown on Palestinian prisoners and the resulting worsening in their detention conditions started immediately after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced on 23 June 2011 a change in policy with regard to Palestinian prisoners’ detention conditions. Declaring the current conditions as “over-generous”, despite widespread and recurrent international condemnation thereof, Netanyahu declared that a series of undefined punitive measures would be implemented, affecting everything from prisoners’ access to education, books and family visits, to the IPS’s use of isolation and fines as punishment.

As a result, prisoners have decided to undertake a hunger strike on Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday of every week beginning this week. Prisoners have also declared that their campaign will include a range of other forms of disobedience, including refusal to wear prison uniforms, participate in the daily roll call, or cooperate with any other IPS demands.

A group of prisoners has also decided to start an open-ended hunger strike, demanding an end to the IPS’s abusive use of isolation for “security” reasons, which currently affects 20 prisoners, some of whom have spent 10 years in isolation. In particular, their strike is focused on ending the isolation of Ahmed Sa’adat, the Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who has been held in isolation for the past three years.

Additionally, prisoners in Ramon Prison have also started an open-ended hunger strike after a meeting with the Israeli Minister of Public Security on 27 September failed to resolve their demands, which included ending the IPS’s abusive use of: isolation; collective punishment, particularly with regard to restrictions on family visits and imposition of fines; frequent raids and humiliating searches; and shackling of prisoners’ hands and legs during transfer to and from lawyer visits. The demands also focused on reinstating prisoner’s access to university education and improving the health conditions of hundreds of sick and injured prisoners, notably by providing them with adequate treatment.

Addameer calls on the Palestine Liberation Organization to stand firm in its position to refuse to return to negotiations without the release of all Palestinian and Arab political prisoners currently held in Israeli prisons and detention centers. Addameer also urges all political parties, institutions and associations working in the field of human rights to support the prisoners in their campaign of disobedience.

Lawyer: Female detainee humiliated after surgery

RAMALLAH (Ma'an) -- Israeli prison guards humiliated a female detainee from the Gaza Strip who underwent hand surgery, the PA Ministry of Detainees' Affairs reported Saturday.

Prison guards tried to cuff Wafa Samir Al-Lubs, 26, to her hospital bed by her hands and legs, the ministry said in a statement.

Al-Lubs' lawyer protested, and the guards eventually agreed only to cuff her right hand and leg after the surgery.

Her lawyer said the guards verbally insulted her during a three-day stay in hospital and repeatedly refused to allow her to see a doctor post-operation.

The lawyer warned that Al-Luba was at risk of infection if the bandage wasn't changed.

Al-Luba is serving a 12-year sentence in Hasharon prison.

Israel has banned all detainees from the Gaza Strip from receiving visitors since 2007 when militants in Gaza kidnapped an Israeli soldier.

Lord Dubs raises concerns for Palestinian child detainees in UK Parliament

	May 11, 2011 DCI-Palestine
	[11 May 2011] – Following a visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territory in April 2011, Lord Dubs raised the issue of Palestinian child detainees in the UK Parliament on 4 May. Lord Dubs: ‘My Lords, I recently visited the West Bank; it was my first time there. Of course any solution must acquire security for Israel, but also dignity, self-respect and justice for the Palestinians. As part of the visit I went to see the Israeli military courts in Ofer. I believe that the way in which these courts operate is an obstacle to achieving a just peace in the region. We went to see how children are treated by this system of military justice. Approximately 700 Palestinian children are prosecuted every year in these courts, and at the end of January this year some 222 were in jail. In the court we visited we saw a 14 year-old and a 15-year-old, one of them in tears, both looking absolutely bewildered. What shocked me as much as anything was to see that these young persons-children-had chains or shackles around their ankles while sitting in court. They were also handcuffed as they went into court. Although the handcuffs were taken off while they were in court, they were put on again as they left the court. When being interogated these young people do not have the security of video recordings, lawyers or parents present. In fact, if parents want to visit, their permission might take 60 days to come through, by which time the young person might have served his or her sentence. The court proceedings are in Hebrew, with translations of a doubtful quality. The verdicts are mostly based on uncorroborated confession evidence. The evidence against one young person that we saw was of throwing stones at an Israeli armoured vehicle, for which he is likely to get 60 days in custody. I do not believe that this process of humiliation represents justice. I believe that the way in which these young people are treated is in itself an obstacle to the achievement by Israel of a peaceful relationship with the Palestinian people. I think that the Israelis should apply proper standards of human rights to the way in which they treat them.’

Activist: 25 arrested after Nakba protests

RAMALLAH (Ma’an) -- Israel's army has arrested 25 Palestinians from the West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Hebron in the aftermath of protests marking the Palestinian Nakba, or catastrophe, officials said Thursday.

Jacqueline Al-Fararjeh, during a visit to Etzion prison, said Abed Al-Aziz Ash-Shuweiki and Amjad Husein Hadad were harshly beaten by more than 20 soldiers causing injuries in Amjad’s head.

Others were left without food or water for hours with their hands and feet shackled, she said.

Those detained from Bethlehem were identified as Raji Husein Suleiman, Naser Maher and Mazen Mahmoud Issa, Ahmad and Ma’mun Yasin Marzuq, and Nadim Adam Marzuq and Abdallah Jalal Shalash.

From Hebron: Ahmad Mohammad Babeyah, Abed Al-Fattah Jrewie, Ahmad Ash-Shuweiki, Ala’a Dweik, Fadi Shawer, Khalil A’wad, Awad Hadush, Musa Jabarin, Ahmad Mustafa, Mohammad Al-Jebri, and Mohammad Abu Madi, Hesham Jaradat, Ramzy Tabakhi, Abed Al-Fattah Mutawer and Raed Ash-Sharif.

Israeli TV shows Palestinian torture

17-04-2011,12:51

 

Al Qassam website - Palestinian prisoners are forced to strip to their underwear in front of cameras by Israeli soldiers. (File photo)

Israel’s Channel 2 TV station has released video footage showing Palestinian detainees being tortured by Israeli troops in the regime’s desert prison of Naqab (Negev) back in 2008.

The footage showed one Palestinian died and several others sustained injuries due to the torture by the Israeli soldiers, Qodsna news agency reported.

The Israeli forces have “used tear gas and stun grenades” against Palestinian detainees, the video shows.

The footage also demonstrates that medics were prevented from treating the wounded Palestinians.

In late December 2010, a human rights group called Public Committee Against Torture in Israel revealed that Palestinian detainees are systematically denied the right to meet a lawyer during interrogations.

Being shackled to chairs for long periods, sleep deprivation, intimidation, torture and abysmal detention conditions are some of the cases the human rights group documented in its report.

Israel claims that its army is “one of the most moral armies” in the world as it treats prisoners and detainees with honor.

But in recent years videos have come out, showing how Israeli soldiers abuse and humiliate blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian prisoners.

Palestinian prisoner hospitalized after health failure

[ 06/02/2011 - 05:23 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Family awaits the fate of Ahmed Hamid al-Najjar, 34, since he was transferred to the Israeli Sabe' prison hospital a week ago. Najjar's wife phoned the Ahrar prisoner rights center expressing concern over a letter she received that her husband was spotted over a week back bound by the legs in the prison's hospital. The Silwad native, who is also a US national, was arrested in December 2003 and later diagnosed with a vicious form of cancer that cost him his speech. According to Ahrar center director Fouad al-Khafsh, Najjar was recovering but an opening in his neck that aided his breathing closed up leading to a deteriorating medical condition and breathing difficulties. He has since been receiving treatment. "The center has received serious indications of an increase in prisoners diagnosed with cancer, those whose treatment was put off by Israeli authorities until the disease worsened and became difficult to cure," Khafsh said. "They are then treated with chemotherapy, which inflicts exhaustion and extreme fatigue on the Palestinian prisoner, who does not find any care."

Health risks threatening detainees in Israeli jails for lack of winter clothes

[ 12/12/2010 - 10:53 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The prisoners' center for studies said that the Israeli prison authority prevents Palestinian prisoners from getting winter clothes in its jails for the fourth consecutive year, the thing which exposes them to health risks, especially because of the low temperatures this season. The center expressed its concern over the health conditions of prisoners, especially those who are banned from seeing their families who usually provide them with their clothing needs. The center appealed to human rights organizations to urgently intervene to pressure Israel to provide prisoners with their needs of winter garments. In a separate incident, 58 Palestinian detainees in Megiddo prison on Saturday took a number of protest steps against the restrictive measures they are exposed to by the Israeli administration.  Palestinian sources said that the detainees in this prison declared they would not meet their families as long as the jailers shackle their hands and legs during visits. They also demanded the prison administration to order its jailers to stop verbally abusing them, and backtrack on its arbitrary decisions regarding separating brothers from each other and denying detainees their right to educational attainment. Their demands also include the improvement of medical services and the extension of bath hours.

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.

Nine prisoners suffer in solitary confinement in Ashkelon prison

[ 25/07/2010 - 06:38 PM ]

NABLUS, (PIC)-- Nine Palestinian prisoners have been removed from the outside world by the Ashkelon prison department and placed in inhumane conditions in complete isolation from the rest of the prison population, the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said. The society said that the cells of the prison’s solitary confinement section are only large enough to accommodate a single bed, besides which there remains only enough extra room to take two or three footsteps. The cells have poor ventilation and no sunlight.  Prisoners are only permitted to leave to the courtyard once a day for an hour, and the majority of them prefer remaining in their cells because the courtyard is so small. Most of the time prisoners are shackled by the hands and feet. Food is scarce and is cold by the time it reaches them. The PPS added that prisoners are unable to make contact with the outside world, and that most remain without family visits due to security reasons alleged by the prison administration, causing some of the prisoners to become mentally and even physically ill. The society explained that the Israeli occupation government keeps them in isolation because it claims that they pose a threat if integrated with other prisoners. “What makes matters worse, the prison administration has prohibited the prisoners in isolation from bringing in any books, and if a prisoner has committed a violation he would be deprived of electrical appliances, such as TV, radio, or even fans,” said prisoner Abdullah Barghouthi from Ramallah, who was sentenced to 67 life terms. He added that the prison administration deliberately transfers him time to time from one prison to another, so he is unable to become settled in one prison, and that if an inmate attempts to tell the outside world of the conditions in solitary confinement, the prison administration takes away all his electrical appliances or deprives him the right to read. According to the Israeli prisons authority (IPA), prisoners are placed in confinement for four reasons. The first is for “security purposes”, meaning that the prison department places detained leaders in confinement so other prisoners won’t be affected by them. These security prisoners are in most cases detained for many years. Other prisoners are kept in confinement during the investigation process, which sometimes lasts for three months, because the prison administration believes that if they have contact with prisoners, they will learn from them and not give confessions. The third group is in confinement because of mental illness, and is isolated for the safety of other prisoners. And others are taken there because they are not welcomed by the rest of the prison population because of their ties with the IPA. The PPS underlined that international conventions, such as the one in Geneva, have banned isolating captives from other prisoners for long periods of time, unless the prisoner’s life is at risk, and in such case he should not be deprived the right to food, drink, and books. The prisoners’ society has called on the IPA to discontinue its inhumane practices, which are in clear violation of international law, and also called on human rights organizations, especially the general commissioner of the United Nations in Palestine and the International Red Cross, to form a committee to disclose the suffering of the prisoners in solitary confinement and take immediate action in taking them out of isolation.