The youth of the Democratic Popular Unity Party (Wihda Party) in Jordan organized a protest on Sunday, 3 July outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Amman, Jordan, demanding action on the case of Bilal Kayed, Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike since 15 June against his administrative detention without charge or trial.
Kayed was ordered to administrative detention after completing his 14.5 year sentence in Israeli prisons. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners – and people in Palestine and around the world – have protested in solidarity with Kayed, demanding his immediate release. His case is seen as threatening a dangerous precedent of the indefinite imprisonment of Palestinian prisoners after the completion of lengthy sentences.
At the protest, participants read out a letter which they addressed to the director of the ICRC’s presence in Jordan, before delivering the letter to the ICRC’s media representative.
The letter stated that “We extend to you this letter while Palestinian prisoner Bilal Kayed, continues his open hunger strike in Israeli occupation jails since 15th June 2016, in protest of his administrative detention without charge or trial following the completion of his 14.5 year sentence in Israeli prisons on 13 June.
“This letter comes as the Israeli authorities and its successive governments continue to exercise the policy of arrests, which took the picture of arbitrary and programmed arrests in a desperate attempt to break the steadfastness and will of the Palestinian people to end the occupation perched on for more than half a century.
“On hunger strike for eighteen days now, in isolation in Ahli Kedar prison, Kayed declared that any offers of deportation are unacceptable and his imprisonment is illegitimate, and that he will continue his hunger strike until his detention is ended and he is freed.”
