Ahmad Sa’dat, isolated prisoner for over three years, and imprisoned general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, refused attempts by the Israel Prison Services to meet separately with him to negotiate regarding the hunger strike, reported Addameer Association and the Mandela Associaiton.
Sa’adat told Buthaina Duqmaq, President of the Mandela Foundation, that a delegation of security and intelligence officials had come to his prison hospital bed in Ramleh, asking about the strike. Sa’adat told them that there is a Higher Committee to speak on behalf of the strikers.
Sa’adat reported that “the delegation replied that they wanted to talk with me as human beings, and I said that this is not a dialogue, that there are demands presented by the prisoners which must be met, including ending the prohibition of visits for prisoners from Gaza, ending isolation, and ending collective punishment.” Sa’adat said that there have been prisoners held in isolation for over 10 years without any reason and stressed that the abolition of isolation is essential.
Sa’adat emphasized that there is a Higher Committee responsible for the prisoners’ demands, who is the appropriate party to meet with.
Duqmaq also reported that Ramleh prison hospital is now blocking lawyers until further notice by demanding prisoners in hospital stand to engage in lawyer meetings. She said that this was part of a mechanism to pressure Palestinian prisoners with their deteriorating health.
Duqmaq reported that Sa’adat has lost 9 kilograms of weight, and said that he confirmed that the prisoners are firmly committed to their demands and not to concede on them. He called on the Palestinian people, the Arab nation, and all democratic and progressive forces in the world, to “rally around the struggle of the Palestinian people,” also demanding that the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian leadership uphold their responsibility to the prisoners’ movement and to a political program based on resistance, not on futile negotiations..
