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ESA Committee Report: Situation of Prisoners in Israeli Jail

The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC)
Education and Social Affairs Committee Report:
The Situation of Prisoners in Israeli Jails

Summary
16 April 2012

Israeli violations of human rights of Palestinian political prisoners include:

1. Legitimization of torture crimes and deprivation:
Repression and violence against prisoners have taken multiple forms such as: medical neglect, solitary confinement, deprivation of family and lawyers' visits, lack of due process, deportation and murder, in addition to the adoption of laws and policies which legitimize their crimes against Palestinian prisoners.

For example, the Israeli authorities use special tactics to get misleading confessions and legitimize the "Shalit"[i] and "illegal fighter"[ii] laws.

Punishing prisoners and depriving them of rights guaranteed by International law. Palestinian detainees are prisoners of war according to the Geneva Convention III and IV (1949) and the Convention Against Torture (1991) and The Convention on the Rights of the Child

2. Medical neglect and slow death:
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are living in inhuman conditions, poor ventilation and high humidity levels inside the cells, suffer widespread parasitic skin infections, poor nutrition, and a lack of medical care and treatment from visiting prison doctors.

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51 Palestinian prisoners have died because of medical neglect, 1100 are sick, 300 of them need emergency surgery, 150 suffer from chronic ailments, 27 use wheelchairs and three suffer from hemiplegia.

3. Deprivation of family visits:
Israeli authorities isolate Palestinian prisoners from the outside world to put more physical and psychological pressure on them, to break their will. They have prevented family visits for five years under security pretexts, which affects the prisoner's psychological and physical health.

4. Abuse of solitary confinement:
Solitary confinement is a tough punishment imposed on Palestinian prisoners, where they are held in narrow solitary cells for long periods. The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) deprives them of visits, communication with both the outside world and the prison population, health care, and education in order to increase their suffering.

5. Night raids:
The IPS break into prisoners' rooms and attack them in the middle of the night, using tear gas and attack dogs.

6. With-holding medical examinations:
The Zionist Occupation forced Palestinian prisoners to undergo DNA tests, until they refused to comply because it violates their privacy, treats them as criminals rather than political prisoners, and affects their psychological, social, political wellbeing. Forcing such tests is considered a breach of the Geneva Convention. Recently, Almatsada private security agency stormed and ransacked the cells in Nafha, Ofer and Askalan prisons, and forced the prisoners to undergo DNA tests, which resulted in clashes and injuries.

7. Administrative Detention:
The Israeli Occupation continues to implement the anachronistic policy of administrative detention.
Since 1967, the Israeli authorities have issued more than 100,000 administrative detention orders, 20,000 of them during the Second Intifada. Currently there are 320 Palestinians administratively detained by the Israeli occupation, including a number of Members of Parliament (MPs), and three prisoners under the umbrella of the Illegal Fighters Law. Most of them have had their detention order renewed once, while others have had theirs renewed 16 times.

8. Prisoners' Statistics:
The detention of Palestinians has continued without pause, becoming a daily phenomenon. Not a day has passed without a new detention, since the West Bank became completely annexed by the Zionist Occupation and the Palestinian Authority embarked on a cooperative security policy with them.

There are currently 4,700 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, 475 of whom are from Gaza strip, 360 from Jerusalem and the 1948 lands, 40 from other Arabic countries (Jordan, Syria and Egypt), and the rest are from the West Bank. 185 are children under 18 years old, nine are women, 27 are MPs, and 120 are in solitary confinement as a temporary punishment. 158 have been in solitary confinement for many years, such as Ahmad Sa'adat, Abdullah Albarghothi, Hasan Salamah, Abbas Alsayyed, Jamal Abu Alhaija, Derar Abu Sisi, Ibrahim Hamed, Mahmoud Eisa, Saber Abu Diab, Mohammad Orman, A'hed Abu Ghalmeh, Bajes Nakhleh, Waleed Khaled, Rezq Rjoob and Ahmad Almoghrabi.
3410 have been sentenced, 534 have been sentenced to life sentences while 881 prisoners have not yet been sentenced. Abdullah Albarghothi has been sentenced to the longest term of imprisonment since the Israeli occupation, receiving a total of 67 life sentences.

120 were already imprisoned before the Oslo Agreement, 95 'veterans' have spent more than twenty years in Israeli jails, and 23 have served more than 25 years. Karim Yonis from Arara village has been detained since 1983, and he is the oldest Palestinian prisoner. Sedqi Almaqt from Aljawlan, Syria, has been detained since 1985, and he is considered the leader of the Arab prisoners.

9. Kidnapping MPs and Deporting Jerusalemites:
The year 2011 was a bad year for Palestinian MPs. The Israeli occupation redoubled its attacks on them and their families, in addition to detention, deportation, threats and torture, with complete disregard for their "parliamentary immunity." During this period, the Israeli occupation issued more than 50 administrative detention orders from four to six months against 23 MPs.

The Zionist Occupation is still detaining 27 Palestinian MPs, including the speaker of the PLC Dr. Aziz Dwaik, the secretary of the PLC Dr. Mahmoud Alramhy, MP Ahmad Sa'dat, MP Marwan Albarghothi, two former ministers and a number of political leaders.

During 2011, the Israeli Occupation kidnapped MP Ahmad Atton and MP Sheikh Mohammad Abu Tier from Jerusalem after they had taken refuge in the Red Cross, and deported them to Ramallah. The Israeli Occupation raided the second tent and arrested MP Mohammad Totah, and Minister Khaled Abu Arafa, deporting them to Ramallah also.

10. Hunger Strike Battle:
After the speech of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 23rd June 2011, the war against prisoners started. The Israeli Occupation harassed and provoked prisoners, sparking an intermittent hunger strike in September 2011. At the beginning of 2012, administrative detainee Khader Adnan started his hunger strike, and so did dozens of other administrative detainees, challenging the policy of administrative detention policy in Israeli jails. The Palestinian People, and activists from around the world, stood with them.

The prisoners were specifically protesting against administrative detention, solitary confinement, medical neglect, DNA testing, repression, and deprivation of family visits and education.

11. Recommendations:
1- We call upon the powerful countries to prosecute the Israeli Occupation leaders, politicians, and military for their crimes against Palestinian prisoners.

2- We call upon the Arab League, the Organization of the Islamic Conference, the United Nations, and the Arab and Europeans Parliaments to hold a special session about Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails.

3- We call upon all Arabic and European institutions and parties to continue their activities and solidarity with Palestinian prisoners and MPs held in Israeli Occupation jails.

4- We demand the Palestinian Government establish an archive dedicated to prisoners' issues, to document all crimes against them.

________________________________________

[i] The Shalit Law was introduced by Israel to punish Palestinian prisoners after Shalit's capture. It includes deprivation of family visits, education, watching T.V channels including Aljazeera and holding prisoners in solitary confinement.
[ii] The Illegal Fighter Law enables Israel to detain Palestinians indefinitely without charge once they have been designated as an 'illegal fighter.'

ENDS

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