Women in fetters! 6 Palestinian women are currently being held under administrative detention orders

Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association on 8 March 2003, International Women's Day, issued a touching statement about the tragic condition of Palestinian Women under occupation. The Association said: “As we also commemorate International Women's Day today, we also remember the remaining 65 Palestinian female detainees currently being held by Israel in the Neveh Terzah section of Ramleh Prison. Of the 65 Palestinian women being detained, 10 are Palestinian minors under the age of 18, held in conditions that contravene international standards of detention and contrary to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which stipulates that all individuals under the age of 18 are considered children, must not be submitted to forms of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, nor should they be deprived of their liberty except as a last resort. The youngest of the detainees are Zainab Al Shouly and 'Aisha Abeyat, both turned 15 whilst in prison.

6 Palestinian women are currently being held under administrative detention orders, imprisoned without charge or trial. One woman, Tahani Al Titi, has been serving continuously renewed administrative detention orders since 13 June 2002. The use of administrative detention for Palestinian women has dramatically increased in the past two months, paralleling similar use during the first Palestinian Intifada. Detainees also include mothers of young children, including Mervat Taha, who was arrested on 13 June 2002 while she was pregnant. She recently gave birth to her child whilst in prison and serving a 20 month sentence. An apparent pattern has developed in which Palestinian women are now being detained in order to place pressure on relations who may be 'wanted' by Israel, or under interrogation. This was evident in the case of 'Abla Sa'adaat, wife of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, General Secretary Ahmad Sa'aadat, as well as Asma Abu Al Hayjah, the wife of Jamal Abu Al Hayjah, who is detained by Israel. Al Hayjah also suffers from severe medical problems, as she was diagnosed some time ago with a cancerous brain tumour which was operated on twice, and was waiting for a third operation before she was detained.

The statement spoke of the conditions of detention in which Palestinian women are held as " inhumane", where Female Palestinian detainees are held in two separate sections, with contact between the two sections banned by the Prisons Authorities. Female detainees are subjected to individual and collective punishment, including the prevention of family visits, being placed in solitary confinement for varying periods of time, and banning canteen privileges, meaning that women are not able to obtain supplementary food or hygiene supplies. Surprise searches are conducted regularly of the women's cells, and personal belongings are often confiscated or destroyed, such as mixing clothing with food and confiscating canteen supplies, personal items and clothing. Hot water and electricity to the cells are often cut off as a form of punishment!

Food provided to the detainees is not adequate in terms of quantity and quality and does not meet basic nutritional requirements. This has caused and will cause vitamin deficient diseases and other health problems amongst detainees in the long term.

The current health situation of female detainees is of grave concern. There is clear neglect towards Palestinian detainees in the provision of health services, and a clear discrimination in the form of services offered between Palestinian detainees and Israeli Jewish detainees held in the same facility. There are often delays in medical treatment when needed, and those in need of hospital care are often not taken to hospital or are offered pain killers for any illness.

Any attempt from female detainees to protest their conditions of detention is met by collective punishment. For example, in July 2002 female detainees began a hunger strike in protest of these conditions. In response, the Prisons Authorities threw tear gas canisters into the women's small cells, causing numerous injuries amongst the detainees. Four of the female detainees were transferred to other prisons and placed in isolation. As a result of the fact that family visits have been prevented for over a year, female detainees do not have enough clothing or supplies that are normally provided by families. For over a year, permits for families of female detainees to travel from the West Bank to Ramleh Prison in Israel, where Palestinian female detainees are held in contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention, have not been issued. Lawyers attempting to visit the detainees are often met with harassment and humiliation from the Prisons Authorities. They are forced to wait for long periods of time before the detainee is brought to them, sometimes up to four hours. The delay means that lawyers are often not able to see all the detainees requested, as lawyer visits are set for a limited period of time. On 4 February 2003, Addameer's lawyer Adv. Mahmoud Hassan was locked in the prison's family visit center at Neveh Terzah for 3 hours before his client was brought to see him, with no reason given for the delay or for his being detained in the visit room.

Gideon Levy, an Israeli Journlaist, raised a rhetorical question in an article by Ha'aretz on March 9, 2003: “ " Did an IDF tank fire a shell at a burning carpentry shop last Thursday morning in the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, killing seven civilians? The moment the IDF sends tanks into a densely crowded refugee camp, it puts all the inhabitants at risk. The moment the tanks open fire, innocent people are bound to be hurt. Tanks in Jabalya cannot fire shells without killing women and children, just as it was impossible to drop a one-ton bomb on the house of Salah Shehadeh in Gaza without killing 15 civilians, mostly children. Thus, anyone who decides to send tanks into Jabalya is making a decision to kill civilians. An operation to kidnap a wanted individual from Hamas in the heart of Jabalya - a "surgical operation" in the spit-and-polish language of the divisional commander, Brigadier General Gadi Shamni - that ends, as could be expected, in a dozen Palestinians killed, most of them civilians, and large-scale destruction, is an act of terrorism.

Golan67.net



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