More than 3000 prisoners on leftist led hunger strike week 3

[freepalestine]

INTERVIEW WITH MRS. SAADAT AND THE ISSUE OF PRISONERS

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Uploaded by AlJazeeraEnglish on 13 Oct 2011
Israel has agreed to release 1,027 Palestinian political prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli army soldier captured by the Palestinian resistance group Hamas in 2006.

However, thousands of Palestinians remain incarcerated in Israeli prisons.

In June, Israeli PM Binyamin Natanyahu announced tougher restrictions on Palestinian prisoners. These restrictions include limited access to books and clothes, as well as expanded periods of solitary confinement.

To protest against the restrictions, hundreds of Palestinian prisoners have gone on hunger strike. Recently, Palestinians living in the occupied territories have joined the protest.

Al Jazeera's Charles Stratford reports from Ramallah.

[freepalestine]

Third Week of Hunger Strike - Action Grows as Sa'adat's Health in Jeopardy
October 12, 2011

Palestinian prisoners have entered their third week of hunger strike. After two weeks of hunger strike, physical symptoms become increasingly severe and prisoners' lives and health are increasingly at risk. As prisoners have put their lives and bodies on the line to defend the rights of themselves and their people, international support and solidarity is continually escalating and much-needed.

The health of Ahmad Sa'adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian national leader who has been in isolation for two and one-half years and the center of the demand for an end to isolation, is increasingly at risk. Two lawyers visited Sa'adat on October 7 and October 9, and reported that he was fainting and vomiting - a direct consequence of the Israeli Prison Service's confiscation of salt from prisoners. He has already lost over 7 kilos on the hunger strike. Nevertheless, no independent doctors or medical professionals have been permitted to examine Sa'adat.

Despite his own health crisis, when asked about the duration of the strike, Sa'adat responded: "We are going to continue. We will not accept these degrading conditions. Either we live in dignity or we die with our heads high."

As of October 9, 300 prisoners were participating in a complete open ended hunger strike and 3000 in a partial hunger strike. Additional prisoners have been joining the strike on a daily basis - on October 10 and 11, over 1500 prisoners at Nafha, Ramon, Eshel, Asqelan, and Gilboa prisons have joined in.

Hunger strike tents continue to grow in cities throughout Palestine - in Ramallah, Qalqilya, Nablus, Gaza, Salfit, Tulkarem, Nazareth, Haifa. Palestinian activists have gone on solidarity hunger strike and engaged in ongoing mobilizations throughout Palestinian cities. In Gaza, three international activists have joined in the solidarity hunger strikes. Demonstrations in front of Ofer and Asqelan prisons were organized by Palestinians in '48 Occupied Palestine. On October 12, 2011, a general strike is expected to close businesses, schools and offices throughout Palestinian cities for hours, to express mass popular support for the prisoners' struggle.

Negotiations to end the strike failed on Monday as Israeli prison authorities continue to disregard Palestinian prisoners' rights. Prisoners have been repeatedly denied lawyers' visits in several prisons. Prisoners have been increasingly denied salt or their salt confiscated - a potentially deadly action for Sa'adat and other hunger strikers.

Abdel Latif Gheith, Chair of the Board of Directors of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, was today slammed with a six-month ban on entry into the West Bank (as defined by Israel.) Gheith is a resident of East Jerusalem and was called to al-Moskobiyeh interrogation center in Jerusalem to order him arbitrarily forbidden from entering the West Bank, a severe violation of his right to freedom of movement and obvious retaliation for his work in support of the prisoners' hunger strike.
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/thirdweek.html






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The motivating factors in the Palestinian Prisoners' Hunger Strike now into the second week with at least 200 prisoners striking to be released from solitary confinement[etc]. The 7000 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails are now on the verge of joining this protest action for better conditions of existence.

[fionntan]

Solidarity with the Palistine hunger strikers..
Our revenge will be the laughter of our children. Bobby sands

[freepalestine]

LATEST UPDATE ON THE PALESTINIAN PRISONERS’ CAMPAIGN OF DISOBEDIENCE


Ramallah 11 October
The campaign of civil disobedience launched by Palestinian prisoners on 27 September is now entering its third week. Hundreds of prisoners have joined the campaign by going on either open-ended or 3 day hunger strike. On 10 and 11 October, the entire prisoner population in the prisons of Gilboa (336) Nafha (511), Rimon (716), Eshel (262) and Ashkelon (142) have reportedly declared an open ended hunger strike, with more expected to do the same in the coming days. Four women are also on hunger strike at Damon prison and, like other hunger-strikers, have been denied salt and had electronic items confiscated from their cells.

Our lawyers are regularly trying to visit the hunger strikers, despite the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) continuing to place obstacles in the way of these visits by declaring a ’situation of emergency’ in the prisons. Today our lawyers were prevented from meeting hunger-striking prisoners in Jalameh detention center and Megiddo prison. At Megiddo the prison authorities told our lawyer that they could not allow visits to two prisoners as they had refused to stand up for the roll call and are too weak to see him. When asked for an official statement on this policy, the prison authorities refused.
Families of prisoners from Gilboa have reported to Addameer that the hunger strikers call on international human rights activists, groups and organizations to support their struggle by writing to the Israeli Prison Service to protest against the increasingly punitive measures being taken against them. Addameer supports this call, and requests you to take action by sending the attached letters in Hebrew and English demanding that the IPS immediately desist from the use of isolation and excessive fines against the hunger strikers, and from denying the hunger strikers salt - a vital nutrient to maintain their health. The letters include the relevant addressees from the Israeli Prison Service and other Israeli authorities.

http://addameer.info/?p=2270















The Zionist entity maintain its prison facilities aimed at breaking the backs and will of the Palestinian people.

By Hiyam Noir and Fadwa Nassar
Tuesday, October 10, 2011- 12:41 PM

The Zionist entity Israel has ratified international agreements regarding human rights protection, while at the same time they refuse to apply these agreements in the occupied Palestine territories, attempting to create legal justification for its illegal activities, in these essentially political prisons.

For two weeks, Palestinian prisoners are conducting a hunger strike to protest against the indefinite detention conditions in the colonial prison facilities of the Zionist entity. Upon the initiative of PFLP (The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) political prisoners, including the Secretary General of PFLP, Ahmad Saadat, whom are subject to solitary confinement since nearly two years back, the hunger strike was disbursed to other prisoners,before the actions spread out to more than 6500 prisoners,while about 2000 are carrying out a hunger strike all the time.

The Palestinian national movement of prisoners have decided to join the massive infinite hunger strike on Tuesday, October 11, while on to this day, thousands of prisoners in the prisoners solidarity movement will undertake a hunger strike during one or two days every week.
The protest of Palestinian and Arab prisoners may spread wide and last long, and it may lead to martyrdom of some of the prisoners, those whose health since the beginning of the hunger strike has deteriorated suddenly. To stifle the prison movement, the colonial Zionist authorities reacted violently, prison guards removed the salt, the only commodity that can help protesting prisoners to resist death.

By taking all their belongings, and moving the hunger- strikers to other prisons or sections, the Zionists entity are isolating the detainees and prisoners even more from the outside world. On Sunday, information circulated about negotiations between the management of the colonial prisons and the hunger - strikers. However it does not appear that negotiations have led to any substantial change since, the direction is not planning to further stop the attacks.

The prisoners put great emphasis on their claim that nightly assaults against the cell-blocks must be stopped, but to no prevail. The Zionist prison authority are carrying out its immediate and unlawful violent assaults against the so-called "count prisoners", on the pretext that the cells need to be inspected – if the prisoners resist they will be removed by force. The attacks on the cells have been carried out by brutal specially trained forces, four times every day since the hunger strike began, during so called "inspections" and in the "counting" of the inmates.

The prisoners also demand an end to humiliating treatment of their family members,while in extremely harsh conditions on the journey to visit their relatives: The inmates family or other relatives are being held up for hours when passing through dozens of roadblocks, at times suffering from violent attacks by settlers, as a custom greeted by prison guards and interrogators with insults and derogatory searches, often in the very last minutes when the time is out, they are being refused the visit,disappointed and saddened,the long and difficult journey and hours of waiting was to no avail.

The prisoners claim they are forced to wear chuckles on their feet during family visits, furthermore the prisoners demand that Sherut Batei HaSohar, the Israeli Prison Authorities must activate Arab television channels, as well as process the access to academic studies and permission to receive books which the prison authorities banned a few weeks ago. Another curiosity that motivates investigation, the only university open for Palestinian and Arab academic students, is a university authorized and administered by the Zionist entity.

Palestinian and Arab prisoners held in Zionist colonial prisons does not claim, a favor from the leaders of the Zionist entity, the prisoners are only demanding their basic human rights: A decision to be made regarding their solitary confinement. Some prisoners are being held for five years or more, in isolation cells, called "antechamber of death", these dungeons are dark, narrow confined rooms, with a lingering chilling dampness on the ground and inside the walls.

The conditions in these detention centers and prisons both in pre-1967 Israel and the post-1967 in the Palestine Occupied Territories, are designed to destroy the detainees and the prisoners both physically and psychically. This systematic torture is causing severe mental stress, glandular and lung diseases, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure and other pathological and psychogenic conditions, very few detainees can survive months in Zionist dungeons which are no more than 1 meter by 2.5 meter. - twenty-three hours a day.

In short, the hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners are demanding an end to the Zionist's colonial inhuman repressive measures introduced throughout the previous year, while at the same time the Zionist entity to the outside world suggest, it is the "only democracy" in the Middle east and a member of the" international community" and adhering to the international law.

Walid Duqqi a Palestinian man from the territories occupied in 1948, languished in the colonial dungeons of the Zionist entity for over 25 years. He was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court.Walid Duqqi compare the interior and the exterior of Zionist prisons. According to Walid Duqqi, explained in a recent article - the Zionist regime deny the Palestinian people it's mental and material life.The reality of, a Palestinian people, a Palestinian community, and a stable Palestinian life,should be terminated.

On the outside of the prisons, the Palestinian people are killed by the settlers, in military attacks and in violent assaults, subjugated and humiliated in prosecutions, by restrictions on their movement - the dismantling and categorization of the country Palestine.

Inside the prisons of the Zionist entity, the deprivation and instability in the movement of prisoners continues, by region or by the political parties categorization of prisoners, nightly assaults to disturbed these men, women, young and old in the midst of dreams, dreams filled with hope and freedom. Destroyed peace and tranquility, violation of privacy, also their culture and values in lives, to become that of the colonizer not the one individual they are trying to stay, inside the four walls.

Inside the prisons there are also the "song - birds" working. These employed infiltrators, bribed with empty promises, even though results become pointless, because outside the prison - it is the employed collaborator who ends up trapped in their nets. In a steady manner both inside and outside the Zionists colonial prisons, the Zionists continue to carry on with its violent efforts to break the back and the will of the Palestinian people's resistance.
Today;

Palestinian and Arab prisoners are causing tiny cracks in the walls of these fragile prisons, not only by their refusal to eat. The Palestinian prisoner's solidarity movement is growing, no cause is as important and popular as that of political prisoners and their struggle in Palestine, in refugee camps and in the exile. And the solidarity movement unifies the cause of the prisoners, as it is recently declared by a Palestinian personality;" the political prisoners are the true heroes in the life of the Palestinian people."
Tomorrow - or in the near future;

It is the entire colonial Zionist prison system that will share the fate of the Khiam prison in Lebanon, a French barrack complex originally built in the 1930.In 1985 the complex was converted into a prison camp. It remained in use for alleged torture of Lebanese civilians until the Zionist Israelis withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, and the subsequent collapse of the SLA ( South Lebanese Army. The Israeli Air Force destroyed the prison during its war on Lebanon in year 2006. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have reported use of torture and other serious human rights abuses in that prison facility. Not surprisingly the Israelis denied any involvement in Khiam, claiming to have delegated operation of the prison to the SLA as early as 1988.

However the British journalist Robert Fisk, who has spent 25 years reporting from Lebanon, said about this prison:

"The sadists of Khiam used to electrocute the penises of their prisoners and throw water over their bodies before plunging electrodes into their chests and kept them in pitch-black, solitary confinement for months. For many years, the Israelis even banned the Red Cross from visiting their foul prison. All the torturers fled across the border into Israel when the Israeli army retreated under fire from Lebanon almost seven years ago."

The prisoners Qassamite, Ibrahim and Hamed, participants of the extended hunger strike that starts October 11, has called upon all prisoners, saying that:

"The entire Zionist entity is in crisis, take advantage of the good timing, join in solidarity to expand the movement."

The timing is crucial, to broaden the Palestinian prisoners movement of solidarity at all levels worldwide. Public places in the world capitals will be invaded by mass crowds, international institutions will be scrutinized, and progressive international media will be involved in the battle for dignity of the Palestinian people and its living heroes, the Palestinian resistance. End
http://www.freeahmadsaadat.org/noir1010.html

[freepalestine]

Detainees suspend hunger strike 'for 3 days'
Published yesterday (updated) 18/10/2011 23:20


http://www.maannews.net/images/345x230/106457_345x230.jpg
Palestinians participate in a protest in support of Ahmed Saadat, jailed
leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), in the
West Bank city of Qalqilia, on October 5, 2010.



BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) -- Palestinian prisoners in Israel’s Ohalei Kedar jail have agreed to suspend their hunger strike for three days, representatives of the detainees said Tuesday.

Detainees suspended the strike after prison authorities agreed to end the policy of solitary confinement, a statement said.

Israeli prison officials also agreed to transfer Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Ahmad Saadat to hospital for treatment. He will be returned to a normal cell at Ramle prison, after spending three years in isolation, detainees' representatives said.

The agreement also stipulated that prisoners would be subject to less stringent jail policies. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had worsened jail conditions to pressure Hamas to release Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier who was released Tuesday after five years in captivity.

If the Israeli prison authorities do not implement the agreement, the hunger strike will resume after three days, the statement said.

Detainees minister in Ramallah Issa Qaraqe told the official Wafa news agency on Monday that prisoners had suspended a three-week hunger strike after Israeli authorities agreed to end the practice of solitary confinement.

Prisoners went on hunger strike on Sept. 27 to protest their treatment in Israeli jails.

According to recent estimates from the Palestinian Authority, there are currently 6,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=430438



























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Imprisoned PFLP leader Ahmad Saadat hospitalized after 20 days of hunger strike


Submitted by Adri Nieuwhof on Tue, 10/18/2011 - 14:03
The Israeli government and the Palestinian movement Hamas today began implementing their agreement to release 1,027 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one captured Israeli soldier. Meanwhile, PFLP leader Ahmad Saadat has been taken to Al Ramla Prison hospital due to health complications following 20 days of hunger strike.

This news came as the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) promised to end the policy of isolation of Palestinian political prisoners in its jails, following today’s prisoner swap, according to Issa Qaraqi, Minister of Prisoners in the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority. In response, Palestinian hunger strikers have suspended their actions.

Prisoners exchange deal

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association and Al-Haq write in a comment on the prisoners exchange deal:

Only 27 of the total 35 women currently held in Israeli prisons were included in the first list of prisoners to be released, despite agreement by Israel that all female political prisoners would be included in the exchange. Crucially, of the first 477 prisoners to be released, 205 of them will not be reunited with their families as their release has been made contingent on their deportation or transfer, both of which are in violation of international law. Of the West Bank prisoners, including East Jerusalemites, 18 will be transferred to the Gaza Strip for a period of three years while an additional 146 will be forcibly relocated there on a permanent basis. A further 41 prisoners, including one woman, will be deported outside of the oPt, to as-of-yet unknown third countries.

Release into exile is extension of isolation

Sahar Francis, director of Addameer, remarks in the comment that the exile of prisoners to the Gaza Strip or outside the OPT “effectively serves as an extension of their previous isolation from their homeland and families and in many cases can be seen as a second prison sentence”. The organizations note that these terms violate “Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits forcible transfers and deportations of protected persons, a proscription that is part of customary international humanitarian law.”

Moreover, unlawful deportation or transfer also constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GC IV) and qualifies as one of the most serious war crimes, according to Addameer and Al-Haq. They write:

Given the stark asymmetry in power, resulting from the belligerent occupation, between the Palestinian and Israeli parties involved, neither the potential “consent” of the prisoners nor the fact that the deal was negotiated by a Palestinian authority can serve as justification for the deportations as this contravenes the spirit of articles 7, 8 and 47 of the GC IV concerning the inviolability of the protections afforded by the Convention.

Detention of thousands of Palestinian political prisoners continues

Thousands of Palestinian political prisoners will remain in Israeli jails after the prisoners swap. Amnesty International writes in its 18 October press release :

Over 5,200 Palestinians from the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and the Gaza Strip, which together comprise the OPT, are currently detained in facilities run by the Israel Prison Service. The vast majority are detained inside Israel. (..) The fact that they are detained on Israeli territory makes it difficult, if not impossible for their families to visit them, as the Israeli authorities often refuse to grant them travel permits. Israel suspended family visits for all prisoners from Gaza in June 2007, in a punitive policy that penalizes both the detainees and their families.

Addameer and Al-Haq add in their comment:

These political prisoners—arrested on the basis of Israeli military orders that criminalize any form of opposition to the occupation; tried by Israeli military tribunals that do not conform to international due process standards or held in administrative detention without charge or trial; and imprisoned in harsh and illegal detention conditions that have recently led them to launch an open-ended hunger strike—are entitled to justice.

Before the attention they have received as a result of the exchange deal wanes, it is imperative to demand a fair and permanent resolution to their plight, in the form of unconditional release, in compliance with international humanitarian law.”


http://electronicintifada.net/blog/adri-nieuwhof/imprisoned-pflp-leader-ahmad-saadat-hospitalized-after-20-days-hunger-strike#.Tp5Y9ZvNVQD