8th April 2013 |Addameer, Occupied Palestine
Addameer calls on activists and people of conscience to stand in solidarity with all political prisoners and join Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Organization’s upcoming global campaign against administrative detention.
Over 4,743 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel; 10 of them women, 193 of them children, and 178 of them held under administrative detention, a decrepit policy that Israel uses to hold Palestinians on secret information indefinitely without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.
Not only are these prisoners held arbitrarily, but Israel’s use of administrative detention violates several international standards, such as deporting Palestinians from the occupied territory to Israel, denying regular family visits and failing to take into account the best interests of child detainees as required under international law.
We need your support to break their chains and the silence on administrative detention.
Today, Israel has outsourced security for prisons where Palestinians are held to a British-Danish company named G4S. Along with the Israeli Prison Service, G4S is responsible for the harsh conditions the prisoners faced during the historic 2012 hunger strikes that thousands of Palestinians participated in, including two hunger strikers that neared death in protest of their arbitrary detention, Khader Adnan and Hana Al-Shalabi. G4S is also complicit in Israel’s detention of nearly one-third of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006, and for dozens of human rights defenders being arrested every year for participating in popular resistance.
The government of Israel should release all administrative detainees, and in the meantime, all administrative detainees must be granted their rights in accordance with international law.
Addameer supports the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against G4S to end its complicity in detaining administrative detainees and to put pressure on the Israeli government to release the prisoners. Addameer calls on solidarity organizations, individuals and human rights organizations around the world to join our End Administrative Detention campaign launching on 17 April 2013.
TAKE ACTION!
You can help us pressure the Israeli government to release the prisoners by:
- Participating in a mass day of mobilization in your city on 17 April, the annual Palestinian Prisoners Day.
- Organizing an “End Administrative Detention” week on 17-24 April 2013 in your city or university campus using Addameer’s forthcoming campaign materials.
- Joining a local G4S BDS campaign in your city.
- Raising awareness about administrative detention in your community using our forthcoming Activist Toolkit.