12th February 2016 |International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | occupied Palestine
Journalist, Mohammed al-Qiq, in his hospital bed on the brink of death. Photo credit: ALRAY Palestinian Media Agency
33-year-old journalist, Mohammed al-Qiq, is on his 80th day of a hunger strike in protest against his imprisonment without charges or trial. Al-Qiq’s health has deteriorated to the point of facing imminent death.
We are making a call to the international community to sign the Avaaz petition to demand the European Parliament to free Mohammed al-Qiq and demand the European Union to suspend its Association Agreement with Israel until it complies with international law.
In addition, we call all people in the world to organize protests on the streets, in front of Israeli Embassies and Consulates, and Public Squares to demand freedom for Mohammed al-Qiq.
Daily protests have been held during the past week, across the West Bank, Gaza, occupied Jerusalem and at the Haemek hospital in Israel, where al-Qiq is being held and has been force-fed.
Today is Mohammed al-Qiq’s 80th day of hunger strike and he is on the verge of death!
11th February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement | Palestine
33-year-old hunger-striker political prisoner, Mohammed Al-Qeeq, is today nearing death.
URGENT CALL FOR ACTION – Palestinian journalist is nearing death on hunger strike for freedom.
33-year-old Mohammad Al-Qeeq’s health condition is deteriorating rapidly. He has lost over half his body weight, and is unable to see or talk properly; there is imminent threat to his life. An independent doctor visited Al-Qeeq at HaEmek hospital in Afula on Thursday 4 February and said that he appears to be close to death, reported Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-Israel), who organized the visit. Although Al-Qeeq refused to be examined, visible signs point to severe ill-health.
This is the time for action; this is to time to mobilize for freedom. We call on you, our friends and comrades in the struggle for justice and freedom to act now. Protest at an Israeli consulate or embassy or public square and demand freedom for Mohammed al-Qeeq. Contact government officials and demand that they break their silence on Al-Qeeq and support for Israeli violations of Palestinian rights.
Al Qeeq is from the West Bank village of Dura near Hebron, where he worked as a TV reporter for the Saudi news channel “Almajd.” His wife Fayha Shalash says Israeli soldiers raided their home in Ramallah on the night of November 21, 2015 blowing up the house door and waking up the family, blindfolding Mohammad and arresting him. Al-Qeeq was taken in for interrogation at Israel’s Kishon (Jalame) detention center north of the West Bank. He was not allowed to make contact with either his wife or his attorney for 20 days.
Shalash says her husband is being held without charge or trial for doing his job as a journalist. She says her husband chose to refuse his arbitrary detention and continue to raise his voice by refusing food and refusing to be detained by Israel as punishment for his opinion. Mohammad began refusing food on the 25th of November 2015, protesting the conditions of his interrogation and unlawful detention. Al Qeeq told his lawyer he was interrogated and accused of media incitement, and that interrogators threatened to rape him and assault his wife if he does not confess to incitement. Al Qeeq said the interrogators told him that he had two options: to confess to incitement or face up to 7 years in administrative detention. He had no option but to go on hunger strike.
Ashraf Abu Snaneh, Al-Qeeq’s lawyer, says Israel is using administrative detention as a peg to silence the journalist and is forbidding him from due legal process. “If the Israeli security apparatus has evidence against Mohammad they should bring it forward to court and at least give him the right to fight for his innocence at court, but holding him on so-called secret files is unfair and unlawful.”
ACT NOW TO SAVE HIS LIFE ACT NOW FOR FREEDOM AND JUSTICE
February 11, 2016| International Solidarity Movement, Gaza team | Khan Younis, Gaza strip, occupied Palestine
Palestinian refugee Heesham Ahmed El Khoranin and his family have already survived 2 Israeli assaults against the Gaza Strip since he returned after fleeing from Syria in 2011.
Heesham grandparents were born in Masmiya, 42km north of Gaza, one of the many villages wiped out by the Zionist militias during the Nakba. In 1948 they were forced to flee and settled in Khan Younis, where Heesham was born. He lived there until the Israeli army occupied Gaza in 1967 and forced his parents to flee from Palestine. They then moved to the Syrian city of Daraa, where he married a Syrian woman and had 6 children.
They lived in peace until 2011, when the war started in Syria, Heesham explained. “Snipers were shooting anything that moved in our city, people, animals . . . they killed children as young as 10 years old in front of my eyes.” Several of their neighbours were kidnapped and tortured by the Syrian army, including children. Heesham spoke of how “one of the fathers refused to handle his 13 years old son to the army, so they took both of them and the father could listen how they tortured his son.”
Heesham’s neighborhood in Daraa, after the bombing
Four months after the beginning of the war Heesham and his family managed to escape to Egypt and entered Gaza through the tunnels. Once in Gaza he received the news that “our home and my small factory had been bombed . . . we had lost all we had.” A few months later, in another bombing, one of his sons who had stayed in Syria was killed.
Heesham’s son, killed in Syria
In Gaza they lived 3 years in a rented flat, until they ran out of money and were kicked out by the owner. A few months before the 2014 Israeli attack they moved to a caravan provided by an NGO and settled on land that the government ceded to them. “Now I just want to find a job and live in peace with my family… I hope we’ll be able to build a home and stay in Gaza” Heesham said. “[W]e don’t have a place where to return in Syria and at least here we are in Palestine, our homeland.”
10th February 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, Ramallah Team | East Jerusalem, occupied Palestine
Yesterday evening, we went to visit 55 year old widow, Kifaya Rishek, after her home in Beit Hanina, occupied East Jerusalem, was demolished on the 27th of January.
After losing her house in Beit Hanina, where she lived together with her five children and 16 grandchildren, Kifaya has now moved with her family into a smaller 5th floor apartment in the Shuafat Refugee Camp, East Jerusalem.
The Shuafat refugee Camp is completely surrounded by an Apartheid Wall and its residents must cross the Shuafat checkpoint in order to access the city of Jerusalem.
Her son, Ashraf, who used to live with her in Beit Hanina, now rents another apartment for 1.500 shekels a month in the same Camp, where he lives with his 4 children and wife. His brother, Murad, also had to find a new place to live and moved with his wife and four children into the Old City.
Kifaya’s son Sherif pays the rent for the new home where the rest of them live together, costing him 1.700 shekels a month. Kifaya feels very sad as this place is not really her own. In their old house, the children had a patio where they could play outside. Kifaya recalls how much she misses her garden, with all the trees and plants she took care of for years, and today are all destroyed along the house.
The children remember that the night before the house demolition they had asked Kifaya to clean their patio because they were expecting snow to fall and they wanted to play with clean snow in the morning. Since people never know when a house demolition will actually happen, that morning they woke up instead with the Israeli police breaking into their home with dogs, kicking everyone out. To this day, the children say they are scared that the police might come again and raid and destroy their home.
From left to right: 10 year old, Tala; 8 year old, Bader; 3 year old, Fajer; 12 year old, Adel; and 5 year old, Mira.
Apart from the new expenses of paying house rent, the family must cover other costs such as taxi transportation for their children to go to school. Just for 10 year old, Tala, alone they must pay a taxi driver 600 shekels a month to take her to school. The Camp has no proper public transportation, leaving many families with no choice but paying taxis.
10 year old, Tala, made this drawing, showing her home before the demolition and afterwords in rubble.
Another difficulty for Kifaya is that she must pay 120 shekels every time she takes her 11 year old granddaughter, Malak, to physiotherapy at the ALYN Hospital. Malak suffers from a physical disability in her legs. Although she receives special disabilities insurance, certain things in her treatment are not covered, such as the machines and her special boots, costing Kifaya another 1.000 shekels every time these need to be renewed as she keeps growing.
11 year old, Malak, has a physical disability in her legs and must take treatment in the ALYN Hospital.
Her new home is tighter and general life in the Shuafat Camp is very difficult. The Israeli Municipality, which is responsible for its services, does not provide sufficient water and electricity, and does not pick the garbage from the streets.
The Israeli Municipality is responsible for services such as picking the garbage, but they refuse to do so and the streets are always dirty.
Just as in Kifaya’s case, Jerusalemite Palestinians who come to live here do so in order not to lose their Jerusalem ID’s, which basically allows them to continue living in Jerusalem.
Israel’s policy of house demolitions, together with the ever growing living costs in Jerusalem, are all part of a broader plan to force Palestinians to leave the city or, as a last resource, move into the over crowded Shuafat Refugee Camp.
The streets in the Camp are in very bad conditions with holes and traffic jams are seen everyday.
On Wednesday February 10th, 18:00 supporters will arrive at the hospital in Afula, accompanied by an ambulance and doctors, to transfer Mohammed Al-Qeeq for medical treatment in the Ramallah hospital.
Journalist Mohammed Al-Qeeq is on the 77th day of hunger strike and fighting for his life. He has expressed his wish to move from hospital in Afula where he is currently being held without charge to the Ramallah hospital but the Israeli police refuse to allow it.
Hanan Khatib, one of Al-Qeeq’s lawyers, delivered his message to the press: “Al-Qeeq says he is a journalist and his arrest is illegal. The court has frozen his administrative detention but decided he must stay in the hospital in Afula. Al-Qeeq refuses to stay in Israeli hospitals and will only accept medical treatment in the West Bank.”
Al-Qeeq, a 33-year-old journalist from Ramallah, is accused by the Israeli Shin Bet of being a Hamas activist. He was arrested on November 21st of 2015. According to his friends, Al-Qeeq was interrogated about “media incitement”, tortured and refused to cooperate. After four days he was issued an administrative detention order and announced his hunger strike.
On the 76th day of his hunger strike, Al-Qeeq lost most of his sight and hearing abilities and can barely speak. He is on the verge of death and may suffer a heart attack or organ system failure at any moment.
Last Thursday, the Israeli high court ruled to “freeze” his administrative detention and allowed him to receive visitors, but stopped short of ordering his release and refused to overrule the administrative order despite the fact that in his current medical condition he could not pose danger to anyone. Attorney Jihad Abo Raya explains: “In criminal law either a person is under arrest or he is free to move as he pleases, but for Palestinian detainees the court has created something new, they claim that Mohammed Al-Qeeq is no longer under administrative detention – but they also refuse to allow him to leave Afula hospital.”
For more information contact Attorney Jihad Abo Raya: 0522814579
