PFLP prison branch responds to isolation of Hamed with call for action

prisonerrThe Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s Prison Branch issued a statement on January 11 following the isolation of Ibrahim Hamed, calling on “Palestinian forces and factions to build a comprehensive and inclusive national framework to take up and lead the struggle on the ground to confront the occupation assaults against Palestinian prisoners and to activate all means to ensure their liberation.”

The statement said that “current conditions within the occupation prisons must inspire a serious escalation in the forms and methods of mass action in support of the prisoners. The prison administration continues to escalate its methods of repression and attack against the Palestinian political prisoners.”

“The occupation continues its policy of medical neglect of prisoners as a method of punishment and revenge, said the Front, and it is re-activating the policy of solitary confinement and isolation. The latest Palestinian prisoner subject to this policy is the leader Ibrahim Hamed of al-Qassam Brigades.”

Further, the statement said, “These actions come in addition to continuing crack-downs on prisoners’ families during visits, searching, harassing, and detaining them; the occupation has refused to improve the visit conditions for prisoners from Gaza and facilitate visits. Furthermore, occupation authorities are assaulting prisoners and planting surveillance cameras in Ramon prison.”

The PFLP prisoners’ statement concluded by saying that “that these practices of terror against the prisoners are a normal part of the ongoing policy of the occupation state against our people in general.” They called for international action in order to expose the crimes against prisoners and to hold occupation authorities accountable in international courts.