Tag: Prisoner Rights

Activists seal off settlement in solidarity with hunger strikers

Protesters blocked the entrance to the Ma’ale Adumim settlement, meters away from one of Israel’s main interrogation centers in the West Bank. Two protesters were arrested.

50 Palestinian, Israeli and international activists blocked the entrance of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement today, in support of the Palestinian prisoners’ massive hunger strike, now on its 27th days.

The protesters managed to halt traffic at  the entrance to the settlement for about 20 minutes, before Israeli forces managed to remove them from the road and onto the pavement. Two of the Palestinian protesters were detained and taken to the adjacent police station.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=66jn–Wmt28

The Ma’ale Adumim Jewish-only settlement is located 7 km east of Jerusalem, and is the third largest in the West Bank, with about 35,000 residents. The entrance that was blocked, leads to the Israeli police’s Judea and Samaria Central Unit’s interrogation center, one of the biggest in the West Bank.

Background

More than three weeks ago, some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners have launched an open-ended hunger strike and their life is in danger. Their demands are simple and the strike’s slogan, echoing through the prison walls, is just as plain- freedom or death. The lives of all prisoners on strike are currently under danger, but among them is a smaller group, which has been striking for a longer period and whose lives are under immediate threat.

Thaer Halahleh and Bilal Diab have not eaten for more than 70 days – since the 29th of February. Israeli courts have rejected their appeals and refused to free them from administrative detention where they remain without charge or trial, subject to secret evidence and secret allegations. They are in critical condition.

Hassan Safadi has been refusing food since the 2nd of March, Omar Abu Shalal, 54, since the 4th of March, Mahmoud Sarsak, the only Gazan to have been incarcerated under Israel’s Illegal Combatants Law, since the 24th of March, Mohammed al-Taj, 40, also since the 24th of March and Ja’afar Ezzadeen, 41, since the 27th of march.

The Prisoners’ key demands include:

  • Ending the policy of solitary confinement and isolation;
  • End to the use of administrative detentions;
  • The restoration of visitation rights to families of prisoners from the Gaza Strip, a right that has been denied to all families for more than 6 years;
  • Canceling ‘Shalit’ law, which restricts prisoners’ access to educational materials as punitive measure. The law remains intact despite a prisoner swap deal last October.
  • Ending systematic humiliation, including arbitrary strip searches, nightly raids and collective punishment.

Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike have been hit hard with retaliation from Israel Prison Services, including beatings, transferring from one prison to another, confiscation of salt (an act that could have severe health consequences for hunger strikers), denial of family and lawyer visits, and isolation and solitary confinement of hunger strikers.

In response, Human Rights Watch issued a statement chiding Israel’s over its administrative detention policy; it said, “It shouldn’t take the self-starvation of Palestinian prisoners for Israel to realize it is violating their due process rights.” Amnesty International also issued a call for urgent action from individuals around the world to contact Israeli authorities about Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahleh.

Thaer Halahleh: “My Beloved Lamar…Forgive me”

13 May 2012 

“My Beloved Lamar, forgive me because the occupation took me away from you, and took away from me the pleasure of witnessing my firstborn child that I have always prayed to God to see, to kiss, to be happy with. It is not your fault; this is our destiny as Palestinian people to have our lives and the lives of our children taken away from us, to be apart from each other and to have a miserable life. Nothing is complete in our lives because of this unjust occupation that is lurking on every corner of our lives turning it into eeriness, a continuous pursuit and torture. Despite the fact that I was deprived from holding you and hearing your voice, from watching you grow up and move around in the house and in your bed, and that I was deprived of my role as a human and a father with my daughter, your existence has given me all the power and hope, and when I saw your picture with your mother in the sit-in tent, you were so calm staring in wonder at people, as if you were looking for your father, looking at my pictures that are hung inside the tent asking in silence why is my father not coming back. I felt that you are with me, in my sentiment and inside my mind, as if you are a part of my heartbeats, steadfast and the blood that flows in my veins, opening all doors for me spreading clear skies around me, and unleashing your free childish voice after this long silence.”

“Lamar my love: I know that you are not to be blamed and that you don’t yet understand why your father is going through this battle of hunger strike for the 75th day, but when you grow up you will understand that the battle of freedom is the battle of going back to you, so that I can never be taken away from you again or to be deprived of your smile or seeing you, so that the occupier will never kidnap me again from you.”

“When you grow up you will understand how injustice was brought upon your father and upon thousands of Palestinians whom the occupation has put in prisons and jail cells, shattering their lives and future for no reason other than their pursuit of freedom, dignity and independence. You will know that your father did not tolerate injustice and submission, and that he would never accept insult and compromise, and that he is going through a hunger strike to protest against the Jewish state that wants to turn us into humiliated slaves without any rights or patriotic dignity.”

“My beloved Lamar keep your head up always and be proud of your father, and thank everyone who supported me, who supported the prisoners in their struggle, and don’t be afraid for God is with us always, and God never lets down people who have faith and patience. We are righteous, and right will always prevail against injustice and wrong doers.”

“Lamar my love: that day will come, and I will make it up to you for everything, and tell you the whole story, and your days that will follow will be more beautiful, so let your days pass now and wear your prettiest clothes, run and then run again in the gardens of your long life, go forward and forward for nothing is behind you but the past, and this is your voice I hear all the time as a melody of freedom”.

 

Balata Refugee Camp: The toll of human rights violations and imprisonment

by Alex

9 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

The 9th May marks the 22nd day of the Palestinian prisoners mass hunger strike. Today as with every day, the prisoners’ families and friends met at Nablus Prisoners’ tent in a show of solidarity, paying respect to their sons, brothers, daughters and sisters suffering in Israeli prisons in conditions which constantly violate international laws.

Said al Kabi, 54, is just one father whose anguish is worn on his worried face. He has suffered greatly, lost many family members and both of his legs to the illegal Israeli occupation. His son, Jawad al Kabi, 26,  is sentenced to 13 years in prison and has now served six of them. Said lost both his legs in 1967. One morning whilst going out in his tractor to farm his land as usual, Said turned down a dirt road and hit a land mine left by the Israeli army.

In 1984 a demonstration in Balata Refugee Camp claimed the life of Said’s mother. The demonstration was to resist the occupation but tragically Said’s mother was shot in the heart and died immediately. Ten years later, in 1994, Said’s brother was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper, also in Balata Refugee Camp.

Said has two cousins and a twenty year old nephew suffering in Israeli prisons, their sentences adding up to a depressing 37 years and four life sentences. His family’s misery is wholly representative of the thousands of the absent mothers, fathers, daughters and brothers of Palestine who sit waiting in Israeli prisons for some sort of justice.

All of Said’s incarcerated relatives began their struggle in the mass hunger strike which has now reached a tragic world record. The prisoners, their families and human rights supporters all over the world are uttering the same demands for these prisoners: the right to be treated according to international and humanitarian laws.

The Israeli Shalit law in which Palestinians are sentenced under violates international law in many ways. Some of the violations are:

  • Prisoners are kept in small rooms with a strong light on 24 hours seven days a week
  • Prisoners are kept in solitary confinement and not allowed to meet or interact with other prisoners
  • People from Gaza can not visit their relatives in Israeli prisons
  • Prisoners are denied the right to continue their studies.
  • Prisoners are forbidden to watch TV, can not read newspapers or books

“The message sent to the world from the prisoners are very simple and clear” Said says, “Death and dignity or give us our demands to be treated according to International laws”

Unfortunately, Said’s tragic story is not unique. For almost every person present in Nablus’ Prisoners tent there is a long story of suffering and longing for freedom. The photographs and posters of absent family members duplicate on the walls of the tent each day, now spilling out into the street as the situation becomes more desperate. As one prisoner moves into his 72nd day of hunger strike, the deterioration of his health will cause reactions across Palestine and hopefully the world, forcing Israel to recognize Prisoners rights in accordance with International law.

Alex is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

A letter from Khader Adnan: “Their fate is in our hands”

by Khader Adnan

30 April 2012  | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah.

Dear free people of the world. Dear oppressed and disenfranchised around the globe. Dear friends of our people, who stood with me with a  stern belief in freedom and dignity for my people and our prisoners languishing in the Occupation’s prisons.

Dear free women and men, young and elderly, ordinary people as well as intellectual elites everywhere – I address you today with an
outpouring of hope and pain for every Palestinian that suffers from the occupation of his land, for each of us that has been killed, wounded or imprisoned by the state of terror, that denies anything beautiful in our lives, even the smile of our children and families. I
am addressing you in my first letter following my release – praying it will not be the last – after Allah granted me freedom, pride and
dignity. I was an “administrative detainee” in the jail of occupation for four months, out of which I have spent 66 days on hunger strike.

I was driven to declare an open-ended hunger strike by the daily harassment and violation of my people’s rights by the Israeli Zionist
occupation. The last straw for me were the ongoing arrests, the brutal nighttime raid on my house, my violent detention, during which I was taken to the “Mavo Dotan” settlement on our land occupied in 1967, and the beatings and humiliation I was treated to during arrest interrogation. The way I was treated during the interrogation at the Jalameh detention center, using the worse and lowest verbal insults in the dictionary. After questioning, I was sentenced to imprisonment under administrative detention with no charges, which proves mine and others’ arrests serve only to maintain a quota of prisoners, to harass us, to restrict our freedom and to undermine our determination, pride and dignity.

I write today to thank all those who stood tall in support of my people, with our prisoners, with Hana al-Shalabi and with myself. I
call on you to stand for justice pride and dignity in the face of occupation. The assault on the freedom and dignity of the Palestinian
people is an assault on free people of the world by a criminal occupation that threatens the security, freedom and dignity of all, no
matter where.

Please, continue in exposing this occupation, boycotting and isolating it internationally. Expose it’s true face, the one that was clearly
exposed in the attack of an Israeli officer on our Danish cohort. Unlike that attack, the murder our people is a crime that goes by
unspoken of and slips away from the lens of the camera. Our prisoners are dying in silence. Hundreds of defenders of freedom are on hunger strike inside the prisons, including the eight knights, Bilal Diab and

Thaer Hlahalh, who are now on their 61st day of hunger strike, Hassan Safadi, Omar Abu Shalal, Mahmoud Sarsak, Mahmoud Sarsal, Mohammad Taj, Jaafar Azzedine (who was arrested solely for standing in solidarity with myself) and Ahmad haj Ali. Their lives now are in great danger.

We are all responsible and we will all lose if we anything happen to them. Let us take immediate action to pressure the Occupation into
releasing them immediately, or their children could never forgive us.

Let all those free and revolutionary join hands against the Occupation’s oppression, and take to the streets – in front of the
Occupation’s prisons, in front of its embassies and all other institutions backing it around the world.

With deep appreciation,
Khader Adnan

In the name of Allah, Most Compassionate, Most Merciful,

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of
Allah.

Dear free people of the world. Dear oppressed and disenfranchised
around the globe. Dear friends of our people, who stood with me with a
stern belief in freedom and dignity for my people and our prisoners
languishing in the Occupation’s prisons.

Dear free women and men, young and elderly, ordinary people as well as
intellectual elites everywhere – I address you today with an
outpouring of hope and pain for every Palestinian that suffers from
the occupation of his land, for each of us that has been killed,
wounded or imprisoned by the state of terror, that denies anything
beautiful in our lives, even the smile of our children and families. I
am addressing you in my first letter following my release – praying it
will not be the last – after Allah granted me freedom, pride and
dignity. I was an “administrative detainee” in the jail of occupation
for four months, out of which I have spent 66 days on hunger strike.

I was driven to declare an open-ended hunger strike by the daily
harassment and violation of my people’s rights by the Israeli Zionist
occupation. The last straw for me were the ongoing arrests, the brutal
nighttime raid on my house, my violent detention, during which I was
taken to the “Mavo Dotan” settlement on our land occupied 1967, and
the beatings and humiliation I was treated to during arrest
interrogation. The way I was treated during the interrogation at the
Jalameh detention center, using the worse and lowest verbal insults in
the dictionary. After questioning, I was sentenced to imprisonment
under administrative detention with no charges, which proves mine and
others’ arrests serve only to maintain a quota of prisoners, to harass
us, to restrict our freedom and to undermine our determination, pride
and dignity.

I write today to thank all those who stood tall in support of my
people, with our prisoners, with Hana al-Shalabi and with myself. I
call on you to stand for justice pride and dignity in the face of
occupation. The assault on the freedom and dignity of the Palestinian
people is an assault on free people of the world by a criminal
occupation that threatens the security, freedom and dignity of all, no
matter where.

Please, continue in exposing this occupation, boycotting and isolating
it internationally. Expose it’s true face, the one that was clearly
exposed in the attack of an Israeli officer on our Danish cohort.
Unlike that attack, the murder our people is a crime that goes by
unspoken of and slips away from the lens of the camera. Our prisoners
are dying in silence. Hundreds of defenders of freedom are on hunger
strike inside the prisons, including the eight knights, Bilal Diab and
Thaer Hlahalh, who are now on their 61st day of hunger strike, Hassan
Safadi, Omar Abu Shalal, Mahmoud Sarsak, Mahmoud Sarsal, Mohammad Taj,
Jaafar Azzedine (who was arrested solely for standing in solidarity
with myself) and Ahmad haj Ali. Their lives now are in great danger.

We are all responsible and we will all lose if we anything happen to
them. Let us take immediate action to pressure the Occupation into
releasing them immediately, or their children could never forgive us.

Let all those free and revolutionary join hands against the
Occupation’s oppression, and take to the streets – in front of the
Occupation’s prisons, in front of its embassies and all other
institutions backing it around the world.

With deep appreciation,
Khader Adnan

Video: Flag woman confronts Israeli military at prisoner solidarity demonstration at Ofer

by Jessica Mansour

1 May 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

4 people were injured today at a peaceful rally held near the Ofer military prison, in solidarity with hunger striking Palestinians within Israel’s Occupation prisons.

Injuries sustained were caused by rubber coated steel bullets, along with tear gas canisters, skunk water, and pepper spray. Taysir Arabsha was  injured by a rubber coated steel bullet, while others sustained lighter injuries from these bullets.

A Palestinian woman’s iconic gesture of resistance echoed loudly across the world as she climbed atop a skunk water truck at the demonstration. Titled “Flag Woman” by fellow activists, she managed to avoid arrest, yet she and others suffered from direct pepper spray as they escaped Israel’s violent presence at the rally.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDF2v0etho

About two weeks ago on Prisoners Day, thousands of Palestinian prisoners within Israeli Occupation Prisons began hunger striking  with those who had resisted nourishment by the Zionists for weeks on end prior. Today Bilal Diab and Thaer Halahla entered their 63rd day of hunger strike. Reports have indicated that they have been transferred to hospitals as their declining health is becoming more fatal.

The hunger strikes come as resistance to Israel’s overall collective punishment of the Palestinian people, in illegally besieging them and occupying them in open air prisons, while arbitrarily arresting Palestinians and subjecting them to administrative detention, which can be extended for periods on end without any evidence or a formal court hearing.

Khader Adnan and Hana al Shalabi were released from prison following their hunger strikes, with Shalabi relocated to Gaza and separated from her family and loved ones.

About 4,000 Palestinians are currently held in Occupation prisons.

Jessica  Mansour is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).