Palestinian prisoner Riyad Albustanji denied medical care in Italian prison

Palestinian prisoner Riyad Albustanji — imprisoned in Italy in pretrial detention since 27 December 2025, alongside fellow Palestinian community leaders Mohammed Hannoun, Raed Dawoud, and Yaser Elasaly — is currently suffering from serious health problems. However, Albustanji, 60, a Palestinian sheikh, held in the high-security section of Rossano prison in Calabria, is being systematically denied medical care and treatment, despite the requests of his lawyers for medical visits for diabetes, prostate problems, and other serious physical conditions.

Albustanji’s lawyers, Marian Prosperi and Fausto Gianelli, have reported the health emergency to the regional Italian ombudsman for prisoners and requested an immediate hospital visit; they have filed direct petitions with the prosecutor’s office to receive treatment and a medical examination outside prison. In a video conference where Albustanji appeared, he was losing vision in one of his eyes; nonetheless, he continues to be denied medical care as the appeals of his lawyers have gone ignored, with no response for two months despite the urgency of the situation. Member of European Parliament Mimmo Lucano also visited Albustanji in Rossano prison, urging he receive immediate medical care; when leaving the prison, he said: “Their only crime is that they are Palestinians and they want to show solidarity with their people, who for three years now have been victims of a criminal genocide at the hands of Israel. Their detention is absurd and inconceivable, when I too am guilty of the crime of Palestine.”

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all supporters of justice to act to put pressure on the Italian legal and carceral system to immediately provide medical care for Sheikh Riyad Albustanji and all other prisoners. This form of medical mistreatment and neglect is a dangerous indication that Italy is mirroring the practices of the Zionist entity towards imprisoned Palestinians jailed because of their support for Gaza against genocide and Palestinian liberation — systematic medical neglect and mistreatment that has caused the martyrdom of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails.

Albustanji, Hannoun (the president of the Association of Palestinians in Italy), Dawoud and Elasaly have been imprisoned since 27 December 2025, when Italian special police carried out a series of raids on their homes and offices, accompanied by high-profile media releases and promotions of the arrests. The seven Palestinians arrested, all prominent leaders of the Palestinian community in Italy and well-known for their involvement in both providing direct aid and support to Palestinians under occupation and in the refugee camps, as well as in the mass movement against U.S.-Zionist genocide and Italian imperialist complicity, were accused of funding the Palestinian resistance.

The government’s case has already begun to fall apart. Three of the arrested Palestinians, Adel Abu Rawwa, Khalil Abu Deiah and Raed Salahat, have been released after courts excluded the “evidence” against them, that relied primarily on dubious intelligence information and alleged stolen documents from Gaza by the Zionist occupation regime. The ABSPP (Beneficial Association in Support of the Palestinian People) in Milan reopened its offices two weeks ago after another higher court found that the arrest of Hannoun was based on the same illegitimate basis — the dubious Zionist documents; nevertheless, Hannoun, Dawoud, Elasaly and Albustanji remain imprisoned, often in maximum-security facilities, while being denied medical care.

This video features Falastin, Raed Dawoud’s daughter, at the reopening of the ABSPP office:

The Zionist entity, Zionist organizations, and the United States, have long been engaged in a campaign of defamation and intimidation against the ABSPP, seeking to cut off a successful, popular stream of independent aid and support to Palestinians, especially those confronting genocide in Gaza. This included U.S. sanctions, with the label of “Specially Designated Global Terrorist,” imposed on Hannoun and the ABSPP. By denying Palestinians independent aid from their own community, the U.S. and “Israel” maintain the ability to control access to money, food, and basic necessities.

Hannoun, Dawoud, Elasaly and Albustanji are not the only Palestinian prisoners in Italy. Anan Yaeesh, from Tulkarem, was sentenced to five years and six months in Italian prison in January 2026. Accused of supporting Palestinian resistance in the West Bank through the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Yaeesh turned his trial into a platform to defend the Palestinian right to resist. Meanwhile, Ahmad Salem, a Palestinian refugee born in Baddawi camp in Lebanon, was sentenced to four years in prison on 19 April 2026, accused of “training himself” by having publicly widely circulated resistance videos on his phone, and recording himself calling for Arabs to take action against the imperialist-Zionist genocide. He was arrested when his phone was searched after he applied for asylum in Italy. Both Yaeesh and Salem are appealing these injustices.

Italy is not alone in this regard; imperialist states, including the United States, Germany, Britain, France, and Belgium, continue to imprison Palestinians and activists for Palestine for their action to end the genocide or even for their identity alone. This is part and parcel of the imperialist participation and direction of the Zionist genocide of the Palestinian people, meant to suppress the Palestinian people’s movement outside Palestine in exile and diaspora as well as the burgeoning international solidarity movement. It is part of the same framework of imprisonment under which 9600 Palestinians are held in Zionist jails, facing extreme forms of torture, abuse and starvation as well as the new “Prisoners’ Execution Law,” and their circumstances — and their resistance — require all of our action.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges immediate medical treatment and independent care for Riyad Albustanji, as well as the immediate release of all Palestinian prisoners in Zionist and imperialist jails. We urge the broadest mobilization to drop all of the charges against Albustanji, Hannoun, Dawoud, Elasaly and their fellow Palestinians and to secure their immediate liberation, as well as the escalation of the global movement, including and especially direct action, to confront the Zionist-imperialist genocide and aggression in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and throughout the region, and to liberate all Palestinian, Lebanese and Arab prisoners in Zionist jails.