Omar Karmi, Ramallah
"My daughter has only seen her father twice in her life", said one woman. "It's been two months since I last saw my husband." A young boy, in a faltering voice, then recited a poem he had written to his father, also a prisoner, to warm applause from the audience. A group of youngsters sang a song. An elderly woman asked: "How can we can have peace when our children are being treated like animals?"
They were all speaking at a tent erected in front of the Ramallah Baladna Cultural Centre on August 17. Similar tents have gone up all across the Palestinian areas for people to show solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails who have gone on a general hunger strike to protest their conditions. August 18 had been declared a national day of solidarity with the prisoners, and in a speech on the same day, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat praised them for their steadfastness and vowed his unstinting support.
"They have tried legal means to improve their conditions", Khalida Jarrar, director of the Ramallah-based Adameer Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association, told the Palestine Report. "But nothing has worked. This is their last avenue."
On August 15, it was announced that Palestinian prisoners were to begin a hunger strike until their demands for improved conditions were met. By August 17, according to Adameer, 3500 prisoners were striking. The Israel Prison Service, which is in charge of the prisons affected by the hunger strike (as opposed to Israeli military prisons or administrative detention centres), on August 18 claimed the number was 1469 after "several dozen terrorists halted their strike". Jarrar dismissed the claim as "Israeli propaganda".
The prisoners charge that their basic rights are being systematically violated and accuse the Israeli authorities of being in transgressing Israeli and international law. They are demanding, according to an August 15 press release from the Families of Palestinian Political Prisoners organisation, an end to "arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings; arbitrary and indiscriminate firing of tear gas into prison cells; humiliating strip searches in front of other prisoners every time they enter or exit their cells; and arbitrary imposition of financial penalties for minor infractions such as singing or speaking too loud".
Visitation rights
Prisoners are also demanding improved medical treatment and more and better food, while six separate demands deal with family visitation rights and procedures.
"I think the family visits are especially important", said Jarrar. "Many prisoners and their families have been telling me how they wish they could go back to the old visitation facilities where, while prisoners and their relatives were separated, the glass partition wall had holes in them so they could at least touch fingers."
Now, explains Jarrar, prisoners are separated from their visitors by two partition walls, and no physical contact is possible. In addition, children are no longer allowed to go and sit with prisoners, and communication usually takes place over a phone. Both prisoners and visitors are subjected to what Jarrar calls "humiliating searches, not only on their way into the visits, but on their way out".
Finally, there are many restrictions in place as to who can visit, and how many times they go. In order to apply for a permit to visit prisoners, relatives must go through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which then applies to the Israeli civil administration on their behalf. Rejections or permissions are conveyed back to the families via the same route. According to Jarrar, in many cases people are simply rejected "for security reasons" with no other explanation being provided. Appeals must be lodged through the ICRC. Only closest relatives are allowed to go in the first place, and no children or siblings between the ages of 16-45 will get a permit.
The ICRC is also in charge, subject to the strictures of the Israeli authorities, of transport to and from prisons — a process, the prisoners charge, that is needlessly prolonged and complicated. Trips that should only take a few hours are sometimes prolonged to dozens of hours, according to Israeli, Palestinian and international prisoners' rights groups.
'Flagrant violation'
The prisoners' complaints are not new, and most of them are well documented. In February 2003, the International Federation of Human Rights (FDIH), in cooperation with several Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups, released a lengthy report detailing several violations of international law. The report concluded that Israel, despite being a signatory to international conventions on the treatment of detainees, was in "flagrant violation" of the Universal Human Rights Declaration, particularly those articles prohibiting all forms of torture and other abuses (article 5) and those which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners (articles 9, 10 and 11).
The FDIH also found Israel to be in "flagrant violation" of the Fourth Geneva Convention; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly those articles regarding the prohibition of torture and other forms of abuses (article 7) and the rights of detainees and prisoners (article 9, 10, 14); the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners; as well as the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners.
"I hope", said Jamal Ali, now a municipal employee with the Palestinian Authority, "that the world will see what is happening here". Ali spent five years in jail from 1986 to 1991. He recognised all the demands of the prisoners. He said in his five years in jail — he spent 30 months in "administrative detention" — he received no more than five visits from family members. The food, he said, was "not fit for consumption" and the medical attention was terrible.
"Whatever was wrong with me — I had a problem with my knee — the doctor would just point at his head and give me aspirin. It didn't matter what I complained of", Ali said.
So far, the Israeli government's response to the hunger strike has been uncompromising.
"They can strike until death", Israel's internal security minister Tzahi Hanegbi told the Jerusalem Post on August 16. Hanegbi also said he had received support from Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to take a "strong and stiff stand" against the prisoners.
Israel's prison authorities have declared that they are ready to weigh prisoners every day, and force-feed them if necessary. On August 17, it was reported that prison guards would use "psychological warfare" to break the strike, including holding large barbeques in jails.
While Jarrar is not concerned about the barbeques — "it's a silly idea. It's a direct challenge to the prisoners and will only make them more determined" — she's more worried by the threat of force-feeding prisoners.
"In 1980", she recalls, "two prisoners [Ali Ja'fari and Rasem Halawi] in Nafha prison were force-fed after a lengthy hunger strike. When they put the tubes down, they put them in the wrong place, and they ended up in their lungs." Ja'fari and Halawi both died.
Jarrar is also concerned at reports that prison authorities at the Eshel Prison have confiscated water and salt from prisoners. On August 18, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel charged that prison guards there had taken salt, water, juice and milk from prisoners and on August 15 cut off the water supply until the evening. Salt and water are essential to keep hunger strikers from deteriorating too rapidly.
"This can be handled well", said Jarrar, "or it can be handled badly. If it is handled badly, it can get very dangerous." She added that the prisoners were very serious in their demands. Ali concurred. "If any of these prisoners die, it will cause an explosion on the Palestinian street."
At the Baladna Centre, meanwhile, there was a break in proceedings. For obvious reasons no refreshments were being provided; medical staff was on hand to aid anyone feeling weak in the hot afternoon weather.
Eleven-year-old Huda Barghouti was sitting with a group of her female relatives. She has only ever seen her two uncles, Fakhri and Issam, in prison where both have so far served 27 years. Huda has been able to visit twice. She last went in July, and was allowed to stay for only 45 minutes. She spoke to Fakhri through a phone. "It was hard to hear what he was saying", she said, but would otherwise not be drawn on how the procedure had been.
"She's shy to talk about it", explained her mother, Hanan, who said that while Huda had not been strip searched, guards had run a metal detector across her body, including between her legs, and it had made her so uncomfortable that she had hardly been able to tell her mother about it.
Hanan has not been able to visit her brothers since the early 1990s. She had been told she was not allowed to visit for the standard "security reasons". She speculated, however, that the real reason was because she herself had once spent time in jail. In 1989, she had been detained for four days for attending a demonstration calling for improved prisoners' rights.
[From the Palestine Report, .]
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, August 25, 2004.
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