Responses and denunciations of the detention of Palestinian leader, leftist and parliamentarian Khalida Jarrar continued to mount in the lead-up to the Israeli Ofer military court hearing expected to confirm her 6-month order to administrative detention without charge or trial on April 8.
Ha’aretz, the Israeli newspaper, published an editorial denouncing Jarrar’s administrative detention without charge or trial (link here without registration):
But Jarrar apparently dared to violate the foolish order and for that she is being punished now with administrative detention. This is how Israel seeks to deter every Palestinian public activist — not to mention one involved with advancing the processes in the International Criminal Court — from realizing his or her rights.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights issued a statement demanding Jarrar’s release:
PCHR calls upon the international community to practice pressure on Israeli authorities to put an end to the administrative detention policy, which violates the right to a fair trial.
On Sunday, 05 April 2015, the Israeli military commander issued an order putting PLC member Khalida Jarrar (52) under a six-month administrative detention.
According to human rights sources, a hearing is supposed to be held at the military court in Ofer, west of Ramallah, on 08 April to confirm or reduce the detention order.
The order came four days after Jarrar had been arrested on Thursday morning, 02 April, when Israeli forces raided her house in al-Bireh and took her to Hasharon prison for women in Israel.
It should be noted that Ms. Jarrar is a PLC Member representing Abu Ali Mostafa Bloc and a member of the political bureau of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).
Israeli forces raided her house previously on 20 August 2014 and handed her a military order transferring her to Jericho until 19 February 2015 on the pretext she “poses threat to the security of the region and she should be placed under private surveillance”.
However, Jarrar refused to sign the order that was written in Hebrew, but Jarrar refused to comply with the order and held a sit-in in the PLC yard in Ramallah. Later on, Israeli forces reduced the transfer period to one month, which already ended in mid-September.
Over 500 prisoners are placed under administrative detention in Israeli jails, 15 of whom are PLC Members, including Dr. Aziz Dweik, Speaker of the PLC, in a flagrant violation of the right to a fair trial, including the right to receive an appropriate defense and to be informed of the charges against them.
Administrative detention is applied by an administrative order only without referring to a court, thus violating the standards of impartial judicial procedures, as Israeli forces detain persons in secret preventing the detainees of their lawyers from learning about their charges, or even about evidence used against them.
As a result, they are denied the right to be properly defended in fair trial In light of that, PCHR calls for:
1. The immediate release of Khalida Jarrar and all Palestinian PLC members in Israeli jails; and
2. Human rights organizations and international solidarity organizations to conjugate efforts to force Israel to stop the administrative detention policy, which violates the right to fair trial.
Danish left-wing newspaper Arbejderen featured a full-page article on Khalida Jarrar and her imprisonment on April 8:
French anti-imperialist collective Coup Pour Coup 31 issued a statement in solidarity with Jarrar:
La députée palestinienne Khalida Jarrar, enlevée par les forces d’occupation à son domicile le jeudi 2 avril 2015 a été condamnée sans jugement ni même chef d’inculpation à 6 mois de prison ferme.
Elle doit comparaître devant un tribunal militaire israélien ce mercredi, ou sera confirmée la détention mais sans passer en procès.
Khalida fait maintenant partie des 15 députés palestiniens détenus par les forces israéliennes d’occupation, signale Addameer.
Khalida est dirigeante du Front Populaire pour la Libération de la Palestine (FPLP) et est étroitement impliquée dans les questions liées aux prisonniers.
Le FPLP a déclaré dimanche dernier : “Elle (Khalida) est un exemple de la grande immuabilité du peuple palestinien, qui ne cesse pas de résister à l’occupation malgré les arrestations ou les expulsions, comme elle l’a fait quand elle a défié et défait l’ordre qui l’expulsait à Jéricho.
Le Front a appelé en urgence à une campagne plus large de solidarité avec Jarrar et a pressé toutes les institutions officielles palestiniennes à assumer leurs responsabilités pour agir en urgence aux niveaux politiques et diplomatiques afin de la libérer.”
Des actions de solidarité ont été faites partout dans le monde. Amplifions la mobilisation !
Liberté pour Khalida Jarrar !
Liberté pour tous les prisonniers palestiniens !
Italian organization Fronte Palestina also issued a statement of solidarity:
On the morning of Thursday, April 2 the forces of Zionist occupation army arrested in Ramallah Comrade Khalida Jarrar, member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a lawyer and deputy of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Khalida is also a member of the Palestinian National Commission for the International Criminal Court. In occupied Palestine, she was seized from her home, surrounded by over sixty Israeli soldiers and several snipers.
This operation is clearly intended to intimidate the Palestinian Resistance to the Zionist Occupation and to the normalization projects – read collaboration- implemented by the Palestinian bourgeoisie in the Authority. Of course, the repressive Zionist compulsion to repeat this makes this attack a “routine” operation, echoed and amplified in the attacks against prisoners by Zionist guards.
The operation that led to the arrest of Khalida Jarra is already being confronted with international solidarity and is doomed to fail, as did the previous “expulsion order” of Khalida from her city of Ramallah to Jericho, ordered against Khalida in September 2014 and quashed after a large popular mobilization.
In reaffirming our total and unconditional solidarity with Comrade Khalida Jarrar and all the comrades and Palestinian prisoners in the jails of the occupation, and in those of the Authority, we reiterate our commitment to the side of the Palestinian resistance.
Freedom for Khalida Jarrar!
Freedom for the Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails!
