| [ 21/05/2010 - 11:47 AM ] |
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| RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Hiba Masalha, a Palestinian lawyer who visited child-prisoners at the Majedo and Rimonim prisons said that a number of them were subjected to barbaric torture before being questioned or charged. Masalha said on Thursday that she met with 17-year-old Ahmad Farouq Jaara from Nablus who was arrested on 14 January 2010 at the Za'tara roadblock. He told her that he was subjected to a harsh interrogation at Betah Tekva detention centre where he was tied to a stool with both hands and feet tied. He was interrogated and tortured for 21 days causing his health to deteriorate. She also met with 16-year-old Salama Abdel-Jawad from the Askar refugee camp who was arrested at the Hamra roadblock on 14 February 2010. He told her that on his arrest the soldiers kicked and beat him mercilessly using rifle butts bruising him all over and causing him to bleed from the face and legs. She also said that Mahmoud Yaziji, 16 years, from Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip, told her that he was arrested at the Erez crossing by special forces who beat him severely, causing bruises all over his body. He was detained for one whole night at the crossing before he was taken to Askalan prison. Meanwhile, 16-year-old Atef Jaradat, from Sair, in al-Khalil told the lawyer that IOF troops arrested him on 2 February 2010 him to the Keryat Arba settlement where he spent one night. He was then taken to Atsion detention centre where he was interrogated while tied to a stool in the cold and under the rain, during the interrogation an interrogator going by the name of Imran, beat him on his face, his arms and legs, then gave him electric shock making him fall each time he was subjected to the electric shock. He is also being denied family visits since his arrest. Masalha also met with Muhammad Rashid Abu Shahin (16 years), from the Balata refugee camp, who told her that he was arrested on 3 January 2010 on the Hamra roadblock where he was manhandled and beaten by the occupation soldiers using rifle butts. He was then taken to the Hawwara detention centre where the interrogater used a plastic pipe to beat him with so that he confesses. The child is suffering chronic back pain as a result of being hit on the spine. He has not been provided with any medical attention apart from being given pain killers. Zakerya Waddah Awada, 16 years, from Nablus told her that he was arrested on 2 March 2010 and that IOF troops beat him up inside the military jeep. At the Hawwara detention centre soldiers took him out of his cell during the night to the yard where he was forced to strip naked and stand in the cold for the rest of the night. He was denied visits since his arrest. |
Friday, May 21, 2010
Palestinian children tortured in Israeli occupation jails
Farwana: 13 Palestinian lawmakers remain in Israeli jails
| [ 20/05/2010 - 10:01 PM ] |
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| RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Abdul Naser Farwana, a Palestinian researcher in prisoners' affairs, said on Friday that there are 13 Palestinian lawmakers still incarcerated in Israeli jails without any justified legal reason. Farwana's remarks came after the Israeli occupation released MP Mohammed Abu Tair of Hamas Movement after 43 months in detention, adding that ten out of the thirteen are affiliated with Hamas, two with Fatah and one with the PFLP. He named the ten Hamas lawmakers as Abdul Jaber Foqaha, 43, Hassan Yousef, 56, Nezar Ramadan, 50, Mohammed Al-Natshe, 52, Nayef Al-Rejoub, 52, Basim Za'areer, 48, Azzam Salhab, 45, Ali Romanin, 50, Ayman Daraghma, 47, and Palestinian Jerusalemite lawmaker Mohammed Tutah, 42. The two Fatah MPs were Marwan Barghouthi, 51, and Jamal Tairawi, 44; while the PFLP lawmaker was its secretary-general Ahmad Sa'adat, Farwana said. He added that during the PA legislative elections in 2006 that Hamas had won, the issue of the prisoners was strongly present as 31 prisoners were nominated by their respective factions to contest the parliamentary elections, at least 15 of them won the elections indicating the high attention the Palestinian people pay to the prisoners' issue. In June 2007, the Israeli occupation authorities launched an unprecedented arrest campaign against Hamas's lawmakers and ministers after its soldier Gilad Shalit was captured by Palestinian resistance fighters. Many of the arrested lawmakers were placed under administrative detention while others were sentenced to different jail terms, Farwana pointed out, stressing that the arrest and prosecution of the lawmakers as flagrant violation of international laws and politically motivated. In this concern, Farwana urged Arab and international parliaments to pressure the Israeli occupation to release all the 13 lawmakers that remain in its jails. |
IOA decided to exile MP Abu Tair from Jerusalem
| [ 21/05/2010 - 09:59 PM ] |
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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority has decided Thursday to exile Palestinian Jerusalemite lawmaker MP Mohammed Abu Tair from the occupied city forever, just hours after they released him from jail where he was arbitrarily detained for 43 months. The decision of exiling Abu Tair was handed over to him after he was summoned by the IOA authorities in the occupied Palestinian city and gave him one month to back up his things and move out of the city where he was born. PIC correspondent in the city said that the IOA told Abu Tair that he should select either the West Bank or Gaza Strip to live, and decided to deny him all his legal rights alleging he possesses no residence permit in the city. Abu Tair, for his part, rejected the decision and described it as part of the Israeli policy of extortion and repressive measures against Palestinian Jerusalemites, underlining that his family's roots in the city stretched to more than 500 years, and that no law in this world could deny him or his family the right to dwell in the city. "You, specifically, has no place in Jerusalem, and we will kick you out of it", Abu Tair quoted the chief of the Israeli occupation police in the city as saying to him after he handed him the order. Relatives of Abu Tair said he survived an attack by Jewish settlers while on his way to the police station that summoned him. Earlier, the IOA rendered similar decision against former Palestinian minister for Jerusalem affairs Khalid Abu Arafa who was also jailed with Abu Tair for nearly four years. However, lawmakers from the change and reform bloc in the Palestinian legislature described the decision as "arbitrary and void" that aims at emptying the occupied city from its real owners. The lawmakers underscored that the Israeli schemes would fail in the face of the exemplary steadfastness and resoluteness of the Palestinian people. They also deprecated the indifferent stand of the Ramallah-based PA regarding the Israeli decision, urging all concerned human rights and legal institutions to block the decision and to pressure the Israeli occupation into respecting Palestinian legitimate rights. |
IOF troops arrest a whole family in southern Jenin
| [ 21/05/2010 - 01:32 PM ] |
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| JENIN, (PIC)-- More than 10 military vehicles raided, at dawn Friday, the village of Kafr Rai to the south of the northern West Bank city of Jenin and arrested a whole family after ransacking their home. Eyewitnesses said that the IOF troops commandeered homes overlooking the house of Majed Saleh Dallah (55 years) and took positions on the rooftops of those houses then they surrounded and raided his house. The occupation troops ransacked Dallah's house and used police dogs during their search of the house. The occupation troops arrested Dallah and four of his children aged 17 to 35 and left summonses for the other three ordering them to surrender themselves to the occupation security services at Salem military post. |
IOF Deports two Brothers from Beer Sheva in Israel to the Gaza Strip
21-5-2010
On Friday morning 21 May 2010, Israeli occupation forces (IOF) deported Hamid and Emad Attallah Abu Dwaba (21 and 19 respectively) from Beer Sheva in Israel to the Gaza Strip. According to Al Mezan's field investigations, the two brothers live in the As-Sania Trabien area in Beer Sheva. The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) detained them on Friday 21 May 2010 and they were deported to the Gaza Strip at Erez crossing on the same day.
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Azzam in Cairo to discuss issue of Islamic Jihad prisoners in Egypt’s jails
| [ 20/05/2010 - 11:05 AM ] |
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| GAZA, (PIC)-- Senior Islamic Jihad leader Nafid Azzam traveled on Wednesday to Cairo to discuss the file of his Movement’s detainees in Egyptian jails, who were arrested upon their return to the Gaza Strip. Spokesman for the Movement Da’wood Shihab said that Azzam went to Egypt after he received an official invitation to visit Cairo to discuss the file of Islamic Jihad prisoners there, denying any kind of mediation in this regard between his Movement and Egypt. The spokesman noted that the number of Islamic Jihad prisoners in Egyptian jails is about 30 Palestinians, affirming that all of them used legal ways and official documents during their travel from and to Egypt. In a related context, an Egyptian state security officer reported, on condition of anonymity, that a Palestinian citizen from Gaza called Ayman Nofal, imprisoned for years, is living in harsh incarceration conditions and exposed to severe torture in Egyptian jails. The officer said he saw Nofal twice being taken to the interrogation room with his hands and feet shackled, adding that the Palestinian prisoner was locked up alone for more than one year and a half inside Abu Zaabal prison in Cairo in a two square meter solitary cell, having no source of ventilation or lighting, except a metal bucket used as a toilet. He revealed further that in the last six months, a prisoner affiliated with Hamas joined Nofal in his new two square meter cell inside Al-Marj prison in Cairo and both of them sleep alternately because of the narrow area of the cell. “When I saw him, once, he was being carried by soldiers in the corridor of the investigation section and unable to walk alone because of the severe torture he was subjected to during the interrogation. His body was frail, his hair and beard were unshaven for months and he was wearing an unbearably smelly clothes to the extent that the two soldiers carrying him could not put up with the smell,” the officer confirmed. The officer noted that the prison administrations in Egypt deny the presence of Palestinian detainees in their cells and transfer them to special places underground whenever human rights activists visit the jails. He also disclosed that the prison administrations of Al-Marj, Burj Al-Arab and Abu Zaabal as well as the state security in Cairo received top official orders to tighten punitive measures against Palestinian prisoners and do everything that could humiliate them, especially those affiliated with Hamas, to punish them for their Movement’s refusal to sign Egypt’s reconciliation paper. |
IOA releases Abu Tir, IOF soldiers round up 7 citizens
| [ 20/05/2010 - 09:25 AM ] |
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OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) released Jerusalemite MP Mohammed Abu Tir after 43 months of incarceration during which he was moved from one IOA jail to another. Abu Tir, 59, has spent almost 30 years in aggregate in IOA jails and was charged in his last imprisonment sentence of affiliation with the Hamas parliamentary bloc. Abu Tir was detained in a campaign that did not spare any of Hamas elected MPs in the West Bank on 29/6/2006. Meanwhile, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) continued their daily arrest of Palestinian citizens in the West Bank and rounded up seven of them at dawn Thursday. The Israeli radio said that the IOF troops detained two in Bethlehem and five in Taku village, Bethlehem district, all of one family and all were 17 years old except one who was 20 years old. |
Sunday, April 25, 2010
After 4 years of detention, lawmaker released
Zboun's family said they were awaiting Anwar’s release, but said he was obliged to undergo unexplained "release procedures," prior to his return to the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
The PLC member was detained by the Israeli army from his home in Bethlehem on 26 June 2006, days after Gaza militants captured an Israeli soldier who remains captive in the coastal strip. Dozens of other Palestinian lawmakers were similarly abducted following the capture.
Sixteen PLC members remain in Israeli detention centers, two of which, according to the International Campaign for the Release of Palestinain Prisoners, were moved from the Ofer to the Negev detention center last week. The campaign said the removal of Nezar Ramadan and Azzam Salhab was intended to weaken the ongoing prisoners strike.
Military court postpones PLC member's hearing for 70th time
Nablus – Ma'an – An Israeli military court postponed the trial of a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council for the 70th time, deciding to hold the hearing in May.
Jamal Tirawi's hearing at the Salem detention center was held in secret on Sunday, his brother Raed said, and only his lawyer was able to attend.
The Palestinian lawmaker's wife was allowed to watch the hearing for 10 minutes, but was then escorted out of the room, his brother added.
The Israeli military prosecutor had attempted to prove Tirawi guilty of several charges, but reportedly failed to supply the necessary evidence, and asked for an extension.
Jamal Tirawi's hearing at the Salem detention center was held in secret on Sunday, his brother Raed said, and only his lawyer was able to attend.
The Palestinian lawmaker's wife was allowed to watch the hearing for 10 minutes, but was then escorted out of the room, his brother added.
The Israeli military prosecutor had attempted to prove Tirawi guilty of several charges, but reportedly failed to supply the necessary evidence, and asked for an extension.
Abbas contacts prisoner deported to Gaza
Abbas told Ahmad As-Sabah that he would pressure Israel, through Europe and international organizations, to ensure Israel revokes two military orders allowing for the deportation of Palestinians broadly defined as infiltrators.
The Fatah leader further told the deported prisoner that he would guarantee his safe return to his family living in the West Bank city of Tulkarem.
As-Sabbah arrived at the Erez crossing on 21 April 2010, where he has held a sit-in vigil since protesting his deportation.
The de facto government in the coastal enclave refused to admit the 36-year-old Tulkarem native, who was thus stranded at the border area. He has called on international and humanitarian rights organizations to have him returned to the West Bank so he can be with his wife and family.
The deportation followed the approval of new military orders to expel Palestinians living in the West Bank without certain ID cards.
As-Sabbah's family was waiting at the Al-Thahriyah crossing to receive their son after 10 years behind bars, but were surprised when Israeli authorities delivered the news that he had already been deported to Gaza.
Sabbah said the "discriminatory and harsh" decision was intended to further punish detainees and their parents. "There is a real war against detainees," the former prisoner told Ma'an over the phone from Gaza.
Palestinian Legislative Council member Abdul Rahman Zeidan condemned the deportation.
Palestinian woman marks 9th year in Israeli prison
Lina Jarbouny was detained in 2002 and was sentenced to 17 years in Israeli prison for affiliation to Islamic Jihad. Her brother, Said, said his family hopes she will be released soon in a prisoner swap. from Arabah village inside the green line marks her 9 years at Israeli prisons.
IOF soldiers arrest Palestinian academician while en route to Jordan
| [ 25/04/2010 - 11:12 AM ] |
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| NAZARETH, (PIC)-- The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested Dr. Omar Said from Kufr Kina village, north of 1948 occupied Palestine, while on his way to Jordan. Palestinian sources in 1948 land said that Said was in the company of university lecturer Dr. Mahmoud Mihareb, who was banned from travel, and journalist Suleiman Abu Ersheid. The Israeli police and Shabak, intelligence, had searched Said's home. The sources said that the IOF soldiers took Said to Petah Tikwa detention center where he is being interrogated by the intelligence's international crimes unit. Said was previously arrested and detained and held under house arrest for years because of his political activity in the national movement in 1948 occupied Palestine. For its part, the Israeli Haaretz newspaper revealed that the Israeli intelligence apparatus Shabak interferes in the appointment of mosque imams in the 1948 occupied lands. The newspaper said that the Israeli interior ministry use inspectors and agents to gather information about the social, political and family activities of the mosque imams before appointing them according to the recommendations of the Shabak. |
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Palestinian prisoners begin hunger strike in Israeli jails
Palestine, April 7, 2010 (Pal Telegraph) – Palestinian prisoners in ten Israeli jails began today a hunger strike to protest against Israeli mistreatment.Israeli jails' authorities have been preventing the families of Palestinian prisoners who are from Gaza Strip from visiting them for four years.
The prisoners are being abused and their families members who are allowed to visit them.
Living conditions are bad in the jails as prisoners are banned from getting books.
Some Palestinian prisoners, including those from Jerusalem, are banned from completing their education and getting family visits.
Raafat Hamdouna, head of the Prisoners Studies Center, said that the hunger strike is the first of its kind in years. The strike should be supported and covered by media and legal bodies, he added.
Palestinian prisoners suffer from daily mistreatment due to the bad medical services, search policies, and the ban of visits.
A total of 11,000 Palestinian prisoners, including women children, sick and injured people are held in Israeli jails. 115 of them have been held in Israeli prisons for more than 20 years,14 of them have been held in Israeli prisons for more than 25 years, and three of them have been held for more than 30 years.
Photo: Mohammed Asad
Join IPPPC
“On April 17, 2010 we call on activists and community organizations to take local initiatives to educate on the issue of Palestinian prisoners and to join people around the world by organizing local gatherings to fly kites for the freedom of the Palestinian Political Prisoners.”
April 17, 2010 commemorates the 34th anniversary of Palestinian Political Prisoners Day. As this historic and important day approaches, several Palestinian organizations and solidarity partners feel it is a critical time, now more than ever, to shine a light on the unsung and sometimes forgotten heroes of the ongoing struggle to liberate Palestine.
These freedom fighters have long been the corner stone of the Palestinian liberation struggle and the moral fabric of Palestinian society. It is in fact the very centrality of their role in our struggle, our society, our communities and families that caused these selfless and courageous women, men and children of all ages to be targeted for unjust political persecution, detention and imprisonment by the Zionist occupiers.
To that end, the Free Palestine Alliance, Ansaar Alsajeen, Arab 48 and Addameer invite you to join in launching this crucial and much needed international campaign to once again shine a light on our beloved guardians of Palestine; International Palestinian Political Prisoners Campaign.(IPPPC) The IPPPC website www.freepalestinianprisoners.org will be the main resource of the campaign providing resources and comprised of various archives, websites, research projects, direct interviews, and historical data. We hope this website will serve as the most comprehensive information clearing house on Palestinian and Arab Political Prisoners.
The IPPPC website will also serve as a space to share information on activities and act as a communication center connecting organizers.
Please visit www.freepalestinianprisoners.org to share your studies, articles, information and thoughts on this ongoing campaign and subject matter.
Please join the Free Palestine Alliance (FPA), Ansaar Alsajeen and Arab 48 and Addameer: Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association in Palestine, the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition and others in calling for freedom for the political prisoners. We call on everyone who stands for the basic human principles of equality, freedom, liberty and justice for Palestine to fly a kite with the name of a Palestinian Political Prisoner on it. Every kite will soar carrying a political prisoner’s name that represents these same principles.
On April 17, 2010 we call on activists and community organizations to take local initiatives to educate on the issue of Palestinian prisoners and to join people around the world by organizing local gatherings to fly kites for the freedom of the Palestinian Political Prisoners.
For more information visit www.freepalestinianprisoners.org
The Battle of the 'Empty Intestines'; Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails stage hunger strike
On Monday hundreds of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip whose parents are held in Israeli jails staged a candle lit vigil in the courtyard of the Unknown Soldier in Gaza City.
EXCLUSIVE PICTURESMEMO
In the fist initiative of its kind for several years, the anti-Zionist Prisoner's Movement has planned a bold and coherent series of measures against the systematic, pervasive and persistent violation of prisoner rights within Israeli jails. The initiative, which comes from within the prisons themselves, consists of a progression of escalating non-violent 'battles' waged by thousands of prisoners being held in more than 10 Israeli prisons and three detention camps under the most appalling conditions.
Today marks the first of the planned protests which has been called 'the battle of empty intestines'; a hunger strike aimed at securing a list of basic prisoner demands. It comes in response to the ever tightening and repressive practices of the Israeli prison department.
Yesterday evening, the Centre for Prisoner Studies announced that representatives of more than one of the prisons in question had sat down with prisoner representatives to hear their key demands. These include;
- An end to the humiliating and degrading way in which family visitors are treated, including improper searches.
- To allow the families of captives from Gaza to visit their loved ones. This also applies to the hundreds of other families of captives from the West Bank, Jerusalem and other occupied regions.
- To allow access to suitable television channels such as al-Jazeera
- To allow family to bring in books during visits
- To allow prisoners to take general secondary school examinations
- General demands for the observation of prisoners' basic human rights
Indeed, that prisoners from Gaza have been denied visits from their families for the past four years; since the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and as a penalty on all Gazans for what Shalitt's family suffers, this amounts to collective punishment, a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Israeli prisons department are notorious for their persistent gross abuses. MEMO, along with a number of human rights bodies and organisation have written on this subject previously but without tangible improvement.
The Palestinian Authority, lead by President Mahmoud Abbas, as a partner in both peace negotiations and security coordination with Israel, has an obligation to prisoners held under such conditions within Israeli prisons. Nevertheless, they have failed to either secure for them conditions of captivity that conform to international standards or their release. On the contrary, the two have operated a 'revolving-door' of detention whereby prisoners released by Israel are immediately re-arrested by the PA and vice versa. In this way certain individuals are kept in continuous incarceration.
Instances of medical neglect, deprivation and severe human rights abuses have sparked the current initiative and there have been several appeals for the plight and efforts of these prisoners, to be publicised and supported. Within the region, Palestinians from all walks of life and regardless of political affiliations have been called upon to stand in support and solidarity with the prisoners' movement. This reflects the decision by the prisoners themselves to stand united in their cause. Indeed, the committee formulated to lead the strike is politically heterogeneous consisting of members of Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad and many other groups. Leaders of the initiative have said that they fully expect prison authorities to crack down on them even further; nevertheless, they have vowed not to back down whatever the cost.
Similarly, this initiative should be supported internationally by all organisations and individuals concerned with the alleviation of suffering and universal human rights. These prisoners have not chosen to strike because they are fans of suffering and pain, but because they have been compelled to their current course of action. And until they can be completely released from the jails that serve Israel's colonial, apartheid regime in occupied Palestine, at the very least, the conditions within them must be brought into conformity with international standards.
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