Pain and Pride on Prisoner’s Day in Hebron
by V, 17 April 2007
Prisoners Day in Hebron was marked with a march of around 1000 people. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters carried pictures of their imprisoned loved ones. Some were too young to have seen their relatives. Some were old enough, or their relatives’ sentences long enough, to mean they may never see their relatives again. Faces in the crowd showed both pain and pride.
The march snaked a mile down the main street for an hour, and ended with a rally and speeches for a further hour. It appeared that most Palestinian political groups were represented (I recognised flags for Fatah, Hamas, PFLP, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Islamic Jihad). A group of prisoners’ children performed a play behind a screen. This represented the glass barrier between them and their relatives during prison visits.