Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishmentThe Ministry of Prisoner Affairs for the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has warned of an 'explosion' of the situation within Israeli prisons, given the systemic conduct of collective punishment of detainees exercised in most Israeli jails.
In a press release issued on Monday (26.07.2010), the ministry stated that the management of Israel's Prison Service continues to enforce repressive policies against Palestinian detainees who have in turn responded by escalating their active objection.
The ministry's lawyers explained that all detainees of the Ramon prison have recently begun a partial hunger strike in protest at the sudden campaign of carrying out night searches. 11 detainees of the Eshel prison have also taken the same step in objection to the collective punishment they are all subjected to; they are banned from receiving visitors for 6 months - a measure that was taken after the prison management found a cell phone on one of the detainees.
A detainee of the Israeli Shata prison has said that special army units carry out inspection campaigns that usually last for four consecutive hours, during which time prisoners' personal effects are tampered with and some items are even confiscated - searches are carried out on the pretext of searching for cell phones.
In the Gilbo'a prison five detainees have been prevented from receiving visitors while electric fans have been confiscated and all inmates have been stopped from taking part in any sports for two months without reason.
The Ministry also mentioned that detainees in Ofer prison said that the prison's management has installed distraction devices which make noises that continuously irritate prisoners and cause mental and physical disorders. According to the ministry, Ofer's prisoners have demanded that Israeli authorities be pressured into removing these devices which are spread all over the prison.
Palestinian prisoners protest inhumane Israeli punishment
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Showing posts with label prison. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prison. Show all posts
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Shaikh Raed Salah
* Raed Salah was born in 1958 in the Palestinian town of Umm al-Fahm, in the territories occupied by the nascent state of Israel in 1948. Being one of the "1948 Palestinians" (i.e. those governed by the Israeli occupation since 1948), he holds an Israeli passport, which enables him to move relatively easily across the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem. He also visits several European countries to attend gatherings of the Palestinian diaspora and conferences for solidarity with the Palestinian people and occupied Jerusalem.
* Shaikh Raed enjoys unprecedented popularity among Palestinians, especially because despite facing numerous threats from Israeli officialdom he remains one of the most daring Palestinian figures in his fight against the occupation. This struggle led to him being imprisoned more than once. Aside from his charismatic personality, he is known for his close relationship with ordinary Palestinian people, having a very modest lifestyle, high moral standards, a quiet character and a kind smile always on his face.
* He began his political and public career in 1989 through his candidacy for mayor of Umm al-Fahm and earning a tremendous victory with more than 70% of the votes cast. He won the municipal elections twice in 1993 and 1997 before, in 2001, he gave up his post voluntarily to defend the Palestinian cause and stand up for the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants in the face of growing Israeli threats.
* As a leader of the “Islamic Movement in Palestine '48", the most popular political force in that area, Shaikh Raed Salah rejected the opportunity to stand for election to the Israeli parliament (Knesset). He believes that there are no opportunities to end the occupation of Palestine through parliamentary life due to the dominance of military, intelligence, extremist and racist forces over Israeli political life.
* He is famous for his tireless and peaceful protests against the Israeli occupation and its continued violations. His reliance on non-violent means meant that he is sometimes known as the "Gandhi of Palestine." In addition to the social programmes and the humanitarian and educational projects he stands behind, in 1998 Shaikh Raed launched the "self-reliant community" initiative which aimed to achieve the ’48 Palestinians’ self-development and economic independence from the Israeli occupation.
* He draws attention repeatedly to successive Israeli governments’ use of “peace agreements” with the Palestinian side as pretexts for continuing its expansionist policies on Palestinian lands against the Palestinian citizens. This includes the ongoing violations against the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, and the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
* In 2002, the Israeli Ministry of Interior issued an order banning him from travelling abroad, and the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice turned down Sh. Raed’s appeal against the order. He went on to be among the first to launch mass campaigns against the policies of the Israeli occupation in the city of Jerusalem, especially the attacks on Islamic and Christian holy places, and the destruction of tombs and encroachment on the historic Ma`man Allah cemetery.
* In 2009 and 2010, the Israeli occupation authorities issued military orders banning Sh. Raed from entering Jerusalem, after he discovered a series of secret Israeli plans for the implementation of wide-ranging archaeological digs around Al-Aqsa Mosque and the construction of complex tunnels under Muslim and Christian holy sites and the historic walls of Jerusalem.
* He led many solidarity actions with the inhabitants of the city of Jerusalem against the Israelis’ plans to expel them from their homes, withdraw their identity cards and cancel their residence permits in the city. He had a direct role in organizing daily convoys of buses loaded with people from the Arab towns and villages occupied in 1948 showing solidarity with inhabitants of the Old City of Jerusalem.
* Over the last few years, Shaikh Raed has played an effective role in demanding implementation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled by Israeli forces from their towns and villages in 1948. For this purpose, he regularly participates in gatherings and conferences organized by the Palestinian refugees in living in Europe to claim their right to return to Palestine. Raed Salah is famous for his dictum declared on the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba (the catastrophe of 1948) which said, "No retreat from the right of return”.
* In 2000, Israeli troops shot him in the head in what was considered by observers as an attempted assassination; needless to say, he survived. The Israeli occupation authorities arrested him several times, the first being in 1981. Between 2003 and 2005, Shaikh Raed Salah was imprisoned for two years but after his release he continued with his public and popular movements against the occupation, facing further arrest a number of times for his contribution to protest rallies in solidarity with the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. On January 13, 2010, an Israeli court sentenced him to nine months in prison plus a six-month suspended sentence in addition to a fine. The sentence was supposed to take effect from February 28, 2010.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/fact-sheets/1082-shaikh-raed-salah
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* Shaikh Raed enjoys unprecedented popularity among Palestinians, especially because despite facing numerous threats from Israeli officialdom he remains one of the most daring Palestinian figures in his fight against the occupation. This struggle led to him being imprisoned more than once. Aside from his charismatic personality, he is known for his close relationship with ordinary Palestinian people, having a very modest lifestyle, high moral standards, a quiet character and a kind smile always on his face.
* He began his political and public career in 1989 through his candidacy for mayor of Umm al-Fahm and earning a tremendous victory with more than 70% of the votes cast. He won the municipal elections twice in 1993 and 1997 before, in 2001, he gave up his post voluntarily to defend the Palestinian cause and stand up for the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants in the face of growing Israeli threats.
* As a leader of the “Islamic Movement in Palestine '48", the most popular political force in that area, Shaikh Raed Salah rejected the opportunity to stand for election to the Israeli parliament (Knesset). He believes that there are no opportunities to end the occupation of Palestine through parliamentary life due to the dominance of military, intelligence, extremist and racist forces over Israeli political life.
* He is famous for his tireless and peaceful protests against the Israeli occupation and its continued violations. His reliance on non-violent means meant that he is sometimes known as the "Gandhi of Palestine." In addition to the social programmes and the humanitarian and educational projects he stands behind, in 1998 Shaikh Raed launched the "self-reliant community" initiative which aimed to achieve the ’48 Palestinians’ self-development and economic independence from the Israeli occupation.
* He draws attention repeatedly to successive Israeli governments’ use of “peace agreements” with the Palestinian side as pretexts for continuing its expansionist policies on Palestinian lands against the Palestinian citizens. This includes the ongoing violations against the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, and the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
* In 2002, the Israeli Ministry of Interior issued an order banning him from travelling abroad, and the Israeli Supreme Court of Justice turned down Sh. Raed’s appeal against the order. He went on to be among the first to launch mass campaigns against the policies of the Israeli occupation in the city of Jerusalem, especially the attacks on Islamic and Christian holy places, and the destruction of tombs and encroachment on the historic Ma`man Allah cemetery.
* In 2009 and 2010, the Israeli occupation authorities issued military orders banning Sh. Raed from entering Jerusalem, after he discovered a series of secret Israeli plans for the implementation of wide-ranging archaeological digs around Al-Aqsa Mosque and the construction of complex tunnels under Muslim and Christian holy sites and the historic walls of Jerusalem.
* He led many solidarity actions with the inhabitants of the city of Jerusalem against the Israelis’ plans to expel them from their homes, withdraw their identity cards and cancel their residence permits in the city. He had a direct role in organizing daily convoys of buses loaded with people from the Arab towns and villages occupied in 1948 showing solidarity with inhabitants of the Old City of Jerusalem.
* Over the last few years, Shaikh Raed has played an effective role in demanding implementation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees who were expelled by Israeli forces from their towns and villages in 1948. For this purpose, he regularly participates in gatherings and conferences organized by the Palestinian refugees in living in Europe to claim their right to return to Palestine. Raed Salah is famous for his dictum declared on the sixtieth anniversary of the Nakba (the catastrophe of 1948) which said, "No retreat from the right of return”.
* In 2000, Israeli troops shot him in the head in what was considered by observers as an attempted assassination; needless to say, he survived. The Israeli occupation authorities arrested him several times, the first being in 1981. Between 2003 and 2005, Shaikh Raed Salah was imprisoned for two years but after his release he continued with his public and popular movements against the occupation, facing further arrest a number of times for his contribution to protest rallies in solidarity with the city of Jerusalem and its inhabitants. On January 13, 2010, an Israeli court sentenced him to nine months in prison plus a six-month suspended sentence in addition to a fine. The sentence was supposed to take effect from February 28, 2010.
http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/resources/fact-sheets/1082-shaikh-raed-salah
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Monday, March 23, 2009
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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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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