For Immediate Release:
Monday, 24 August 2009 at 9am: A mass demonstration will be held outside Ofer prison in the West Bank.
Palestinians, alongside Israeli and international solidarity activists will gather in front of Ofer (on the Palestinian side) to protest against Israeli arrest and intimidation campaigns of Palestinians.
Israeli forces have conducted arrest and intimidation campaigns on villages that resist Israeli apartheid infrastructure. According to a joint report from Addameer and Stop the Wall, Israeli forces have arrested 176 Palestinians from 5 villages alone in their resistance against construction of the Wall.
The family of Na’el Barghouthi will be in attendance to demand for his release. Barghouthi was taken by Israeli forces on 4 April 1978 and has been behind bars for 31 years.
An estimated 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners are currently being held in Israeli jails.
The Palestinian Prisoners Day (14th of April) has gone but the families of the Palestinian prisoners continue their struggle. As every Monday for several years now, today again they peacefully occupied the yard of the Red Cross building in Gaza City. Mothers, wives, sisters, children, showing the pictures of their beloved ones that they haven’t seen for years, since the Israeli prohibition of visits for residents from Gaza Strip. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners, hundreds of children, tens of women, are suffering from institutionalized torture and ill-treatment, medical negligence, solitary confinement and other inhuman conditions in the Israeli jails.
Ni\’lin youth show solidarity with political prisoners
Ni’lin villagers once again held a Friday demonstration against the illegal Apartheid Wall and in commemoration of Prisoner’s Day. Around 150 villagers, supported by Israeli and international solidarity activists, gathered after the prayer at the local clinic. Several demonstrators wore shirts urging solidarity with the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. Israeli forces stationed in the fields in the outskirts of the village started firing tear gas at the clinic even before the prayer was finished. The nonviolent demonstrators sought cover in the village from the gas, and retreated back towards the town center. However, Israeli soldiers also stationed themselves on the main street of the village. These soldiers started firing tear gas and live ammunition at the villagers gathered in the village center. Some of the village youth responded to this use of weaponry by throwing stones.
During the following hours, one male resident was hit by a fragment from a live bullet in his chest and 11 people needed medical treatment after inhaling large amounts of tear gas. Israeli forces also placed snipers on several roofs in the village, from which they shot at demonstrators near Ni’lin’s main street. Soldiers also attacked the Palestinian medical team inside the village and shot large amounts of tear gas at an ambulance.
At this Friday demonstration, the Israeli army once again shot extended range high velocity tear gas canisters. This is the same type of canister that was used to kill Basem Abu Rahme at a nonviolent demonstration in Bil’in on the same day. On the 13 March, American solidarity activist Tristan Anderson was critically injured after being shot in the head with a high velocity tear gas canister. Tristan is still listed in critical condition in a Tel Aviv hospital after undergoing three separate brain surgeries.
Around 400 residents of Nablus held a demonstration in the city center to mark Prisoners’ Day in recognition of all former and current political prisoners held in Israeli jails. Leaders of several political parties and prisoner associations gave speeches praising the steadfastness of the approximately 10,000 prisoners currently held in Israeli prisons and detention facilities. Demonstrators also carried pictures of loved ones in prison and symbolically chained their hands to emphasize the large number of Palestinian detainees.
Palestinian girl holds a picture of an imprisoned loved one
Nablus residents demonstrate for political prisoners
A woman holds a picture of a jailed family member
Demonstrations were held in several cities and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza commemorating Prisoner’s Day, which falls on the 17th of April. There are currently nearly 3,500 prisoners from the Nablus area in Israeli prisons. Hundreds of Nablus residents are being held as adminstrative detention cases, without charges or trial. Many of these prisoners are held in inhuman conditions. Dozens of cases of torture in Israeli prisons have been documented by Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights groups. Arrests in the Nablus region by Israeli forces are continuing on an almost daily basis. On the 14th of April, eight youth were arbitrarily seized by the Israeli military in Madama village, southwest of Nablus.
