SPHR Concordia, the Syrian Student Association, and Tadamon! called for an emergency demonstration outside Concordia University’s Hall Building to show solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners and to call on the Canadian government to end complicity with Israel’s apartheid policies and international law violations.
1, 027 prisoners were released in the prisoner exchange deal for sole Israeli prisoner Gilad Shalit between October and December of 2011. Since then, these same prisoners have been targeted and re-arrested under administrative detention.
According to Addameer, a prisoner support and human rights association founded in Jerusalem in 1992, administrative detention is:
“… a decrepit policy that Israel uses to hold Palestinians on secret information indefinitely without charging them or allowing them to stand trial.
Not only are these prisoners held arbitrarily, but Israel’s use of administrative detention violates several international standards, such as deporting Palestinians from the occupied territory to Israel, denying regular family visits and failing to take into account the best interests of child detainees as required under international law .”
Names of current hunger strikers:
Ayman Sharawna
Tareq Kaadan
Samer Issawi
Jafar Izedine
Hazem Jawil
Current situation in numbers:
Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails: 4743
Of those prisoners:
178 are in administrative detention
193 are child prisoners
23 are under the age of 16
12 are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council
For more information on the Palestinian prisoner situation:
www.addameer.org
www.samidoun.ca
