Euro-Mid: Israeli army increases detentions of Palestinian children by 80%

18 March 2014

The following press release was issued March 17, 2014 by the Euro-Mid Observer in Geneva: A report issued on March 17^th by the Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights points out that the Israeli forces have detained 740 Palestinian children during the first two months of 2014, 465 of them remained in custody for at least one week.

The Euro-Mid Observer, an independent human rights organization based in Geneva, states that approximately 200 Palestinian minors were detained monthly on average by the Israeli forces during 2013, and 197 on average during 2012, according to data published by Defense for Children International (DCI) and Israel Prison Service.

The first month of 2014 witnessed the detention of 350 Palestinian children; some of them were released within hours of their capture, while 220 others were held for one week or more. However, in February 2014, 390 children were arrested, of whom 245 were kept under custody up to one week or more. This indicates an increase in the number of detained Palestinian children by 80% during the first two months of 2014 in comparison with monthly average of detentions during 2013.

Euro-Mid’s report notes that after following up the cases of the detained Palestinian children, it was apparent that most charges held against them were linked to throwing stones at Israeli patrols roaming around in Palestinian cities, or taking part in a peaceful demonstration condemning Israel’s separation wall, or for shouting slogans, writings statements or paintings glorifying Palestine and rejecting the occupation. Such acts, the report confirms, are not deemed as crimes in international law and do not require the detention of a child as punishment.

According to the Israeli Military Order 1651, Palestinian child prisoners may be sentenced in military courts from the age of twelve, which violates both international and Israeli juvenile law.

The Israeli Military Order 1651 establishes a minimum age of criminal responsibility at 12 years, and sets out the maximum penalties that can be imposed on children in various age categories for a number of listed offences. The most common offence that children are charged with in the military courts is for stone throwing.

Euro-Mid draws the attention to the fact that most cases of detention against Palestinian child prisoners are carried out after midnight, and are accompanied by repressive police actions frightening children and their families without acute or security necessity. Moreover, the children’s parents are not allowed to accompany their children and are not told where they are taken to. Most children, meanwhile, are denied from their right to immediate legal assistance as Israeli authorities often starts investigations right after the detention of the child without the presence of a lawyer. No child should be interrogated in the absence of a lawyer of choice and family member. Additionally, the majority of those children are faced by solitary confinement, a practice with severe negative psychological impacts on the children.

A number of children told Euro-Mid following their release that during their interrogation by the Israeli forces, they were subjected to psychological pressure, scolding, deprivation of sleep, denial of access to toilets, and beating; different forms of torture and “harm, abuse, and violence” prohibited under the provisions of article (19/1) of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The report stressed that such escalation in detentions against Palestinian children without any legal basis is at odds with article 37 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that : (a) No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; (b) No child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time”.

” The report, more importantly, made clear that the detention of Palestinian children mounts to “a stark violation of their right to their freedom of expression.”

Mira Bushara, a researcher at Euro-Mid’s legal department, said “Israel is totally indifferent to the Convention on the Rights of the Child when it comes to Palestinian children” pointing at the incident of Wadea Muswada, a 5 years old Palestinian child from Hebron detained in June 2013 on the charge of “throwing stones”.

Bushara said incidents documented in the film “Children in Chains” by British director Jonathan Pullman, “shows us that what Israel is practicing against the rights of Palestinian children represents a methodology that applies to all Palestinian cities and are not mere individual incidents that happen here and there, especially when nearly 190 Palestinian children under the age of 8 are held in Israeli prisons until this moment”.

Link: http://euromid.org/en/article/505

Palestinian detainees continue hunger strikes as health declines

15 March 2014

Palestinian administrative detainees, Muammar Banat, Waheed Abu Maria, and Akram Al-Fassisi have now been on hunger strike for 64 days, and have held continuously to their strike over that time. All three are held without charge or trial under secret evidence. On March 9, the three had appeal hearings in their cases, seeking their release, at Ofer military court.

Due to the deterioration in their health, Banat and Al-Fassisi are held in Kaplan hospital and Abu Maria in Wolfson hospital. Abu Maria was shackled hand and foot to his hospital bed in order to forcibly take blood samples from him after he rejected vitamins and medical tests, the Palestinian Prisoners Society reported on March 6.

Banat, 26, is from Arroub refugee camp and has been held since August 13, 2013; al-Fassisi, 31, from Ithna and detained since November 2012, engaged in a previous 59-day hunger strike demanding his release. He ended his earlier strike due to serious health problems. Abu Maria, 46, has been held without charge since October 2012.

Ameer Shammas, 22, from al-Khalil, is also held in administrative detention without charge or trial. He is now on the 61st day of his hunger strike, seeking his release from detention without charge, in which he has been held since September 2013.

Addameer reported that in addition to regular confinement in isolation cells and 24-hour video monitoring through camera systems provided by British-Danish security firm G4S, “they have been denied recreational hours in the yard, family visits, the ability to purchase basic supplies and goods from the prison canteen, and have been subject to frequent night raids and searches.”

In addition, Aref Hareebat, 30, Ayman al-Tabeesh, 33, Ahmed Abu Ras, 31, and Kifah Hattab, launched a hunger strike on February 28 that they have now engaged in for 15 days. All are held in administrative detention without charge or trial. Al-Tabeesh relaunched his hunger strike after, in violation of the agreement that ended his earlier 105-day hunger strike, his administrative detention was extended in January 2014. He had ended his strike in September 2013 with a written agreement that his detention would not be further renewed.

Hareebat reported that prison officials are attempting to pressure the hunger strikers to end their strikes by denying family visits and holding them during the day in a dirty room, reported the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.

Shireen, Shadi and Medhat Issawi seized by occupation, held without charge

15 March 2014

Shireen Issawi, Palestinian lawyer, activist, and the sister of long-time hunger striker, Samer Issawi, and their brother Shadi Issawi, were detained by occupation military forces on March 6, 2014. Shireen Issawi was perhaps the most prominent spokesperson for her brother’s case throughout his 270-day hunger strike.

Shireen Issawi was seized at a flying checkpoint while Shadi was taken in a raid on the Issawi home in Issawiyeh. On March 13, another brother, Medhat Issawi, was arrested at the Issawi home. Shireen and Shadi’s detention has been extended until March 20, most recently on March 13.

Palestinian lawyer Amjad Hussain Al-Safadi, 39, was also seized as he visited the Palestinian prisoners he represents at Hadarim prison. His detention was also extended until March 20. The Issawis have not been charged and the occupation has refused to release any details regarding their arrest. Their computers and cell phones were seized.

Click here to take action and demand the freedom of Shireen, Shadi and Medhat Issawi!: http://www.palestinematters.com/Please-demand-release-of-Shireen-and-Shadi-Issawi_Appeal_3119.aspx

Eight Years After the Attack on Jericho Prison: Free Ahmad Sa’adat and All Palestinian Prisoners

15 March 2014

The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat issued the following statement on the eighth anniversary of the abduction of the PFLP General Secretary and PLC member from a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he and his comrades were held under US and British guard:

On March 14-15, 2006, eight years ago, Israeli military forces surrounded the Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa’adat was imprisoned with his comrades, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar and Hamdi Qur’an, attacking and destroying the prison itself while abducting the Palestinian prisoners of freedom held inside. While in Jericho, Sa’adat and his comrades – and fellow prisoner Fouad Shubaki – were held under United States and British guard, who left Jericho prison in advance, knowing that it would soon come under heavy attack from Israeli weaponry (often itself US-manufactured, funded and supplied.)

Sa’adat and his comrades were kidnapped as the Israeli army laid siege for twelve hours, attacking the Palestinian Authority prison with bulldozers and tanks, killing two Palestinians and injuring twenty-three more. Eight years on, as Sa’adat and his comrades number among 5200 Palestinian political prisoners behind bars of the occupation, it is more urgent than ever that people act and demand their freedom, and the freedom of all Palestinian prisoners. We particularly note the crisis of sick prisoners facing death behind prison walls.

Today, Ahmad Sa’adat called for escalating the campaign, focusing specifically on the sick prisoners suffering medical neglect and abuse in the dungeons of the occupation, urging international exposure of the crimes of the occupation in order to “save the lives of the prisoners held for slow death in the Ramle prison clinic.”

This anniversary demands, once more, that it is long past time to bring the Palestinian Authority’s shameful, dangerous, threatening policy of security cooperation with the Zionist state to an end. This policy is responsible for the imprisonment of Sa’adat and his comrades in a Palestinian Authority prison to begin with; it plays a significant role in continued suppression of resistance. Its echoes are felt in the ongoing arrest raids and assassinations targeting Palestinian activists. Sa’adat and his comrades were not abducted from their home but from a PA jail which had held them – contrary to Palestinian law and Palestinian court orders – for over four years.

Furthermore, the case of Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades highlights the central complicity and responsibility of the U.S. and British states, and their historical and present-day imperial and colonial interests in Palestine, in the imprisonment of Palestinian leaders and fighters and the colonization of Palestine by the Zionist movement. United States and British guards’ presence was justified as “protection,” when in fact they left in a coordinated fashion immediately prior to the attack of occupation forces, leaving an open area for their assault. This collusion must be exposed once more, particularly when Palestinian Authority officials seek to accept imperial “NATO forces” on Palestinian land suppressing resistance.

Meanwhile, on the political level, the US not only funds and provide the weaponry that attacks, abducts and assassinates Palestinians, but provides the critical political foundation for the so-called “negotiations” process that threatens the core of the Palestinian cause, the right of return of Palestinian refugees, and seek to impose a defeatist solution upon the Palestinian people to serve the interests of US imperialism.

And it should not be forgotten that some of the earliest pages of Palestinian prisoners’ poetry were written in British jails as they were imprisoned en masse as they fought the colonialism of the British and the Zionist movement in the 1920s and 1930s, and that Palestinians were detained without charge and their homes demolished by British military orders as a British lord sought to grant the land of Palestine to the settler colonial Zionist movement.

Yet, despite these forces arrayed against the Palestinian liberation movement and resistance, eight years after the abduction of Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades, the resilience and steadfastness of Palestinian prisoners remains legendary. They are an international symbol of political steadfastness in the face of colonialism. Their names echo in salute to comrades in the struggle for liberation around the world: Nelson Mandela, Bobby Sands, Victor Jara.

And the call for the freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat is also a call for the liberation of all prisoners of racism, imperialism and settler colonialism: from Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, and Oscar Lopez Rivera, to Zara Alvarez, Ricardo Palmera, the Cuban Five, and every prisoner of freedom held for seeking the liberation of their people. It must also be a call for the freedom of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah and all Palestinian political prisoners held in international jails; Abdallah has been victimized for over 28 years in French prison on trumped-up charges and remains imprisoned today because of the power of US imperialism to undercut even French court rulings.

The valiant struggle of Palestinian prisoners achieved the end of isolation of Sa’adat and fellow Palestinian leaders after over three years in a mass hunger strike. Their daily confrontation with the occupation behind bars must remind all of us internationally of our duties to seek justice, freedom and liberation for these thousands of Palestinians and for the self-determination, return, and liberation of the entire land and people of Palestine itself.

Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat

Take Action!

1. Picket, protest or call the Israeli embassy or consulate in your location and demand the immediate freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Basil al-Asmar, Hamdi Qur’an, and all Palestinian political prisoners.

2. Distribute the free downloadable Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat materials in your community at local events.

3. Write to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other human rights organizations to exercise their responsibilities and act swiftly to demand that prisoners’ rights are recognized. Email the ICRC, whose humanitarian mission includes monitoring the conditions of prisoners, at JER_jerusalem@icrc.org.

4. Use the form to let the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat know about your local action or email us at campaign@freeahmadsaadat.org.

WHO IS AHMAD SA’ADAT?

Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was elected to his position in 2001 following the assassination of the previous General Secretary, Abu Ali Mustafa, on August 27, 2001 by a U.S.-made Apache missile shot from an Israeli military helicopter as he sat in his office in Ramallah. PFLP fighters retaliated by assassinating Rehavam Ze’evi, the racist extremist Israeli tourism minister and head of the Moledet party, notorious for his political platform based on the “transfer” or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, on October 17, 2001.

Sa’adat was abducted by Palestinian Authority security forces after engaging in a meeting with PA officials under false pretenses in February 2002, and was held in the Muqata’ PA presidential building in Ramallah until April 2002, when in an agreement with Israel, the U.S. and Britain, he and four of his comrades were held in the Palestinian Authority’s Jericho prison, under U.S. and British guard.

He remained in the PA jails, without trial or charge, an imprisonment that was internationally condemned, until March 14, 2006, when the prison itself was besieged by the occupation army and he and his comrades were kidnapped. While imprisoned in the PA jail in Jericho, he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council. Since that time, he has been held in the prisons of the occupation and continually refused to recognize the illegitimate military courts of the Israeli occupation. He was sentenced to thirty years in prison on December 25, 2008 solely for his political activity, including membership in a prohibited organization, holding a post in a prohibited organization, and incitement.

Born in 1953, Sa’adat is the child of refugees expelled from their home in the village of Deir Tarif, near Ramleh, in the 1948 Nakba by attacking Zionist forces and is himself a refugee denied his right to return along with six million others in Palestine, in the refugee camps in the Arab world and in exile and diaspora internationally. A math teacher by training, he is married to Abla Sa’adat, herself a noted activist, and is the father of four children. He has been involved in the Palestinian national movement since 1967, when he became active in the student movement. Prior to his abduction from Jericho in 2006, he had been held at various times as a political prisoner in Israeli jails, for a total of ten years.

Protest in Al-Khalil marks eight year anniversary of Jericho assault

15 March 2014

The Palestinian Prisoners’ Society in al-Khalil held a sit-in on Saturday, March 15, marking the eighth anniversary of the attack on Jericho prison and the kidnapping of Palestinian leader and PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Hamdi Qur’an, Basil al-Asmar and Majdi Rimawi, and the struggler Fouad Shubaki.

The rally called for their freedom and the freedom of Yasser Abu Turki, leader of the Al-Aqsa Brigades in al-Khalil. Palestinian political organizations, the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees and other local institutions participated in the gathering. Amjad Najjar of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society condemned the role of Britain and the United States, who were responsible for protecting the prisoners held in Jericho, and who were fully complicit in thee attack on Jericho. He urged the United Nations to open this file and convene an international investigation committee, and called for the freedom of these prisoners.

Badran Jaber of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said, “We recall that dark day when the Zionist forces launched their assault and kidnapping of the Secretary-General of the PFLP, the militant Ahmed Saadat and his comrades from the Jericho prison. This is one chapter of the continuous Zionist aggression against our people, and further evidence of the terrorist practices of the enemy.”

Representatives of Fateh, the Democratic Front and the People’s Party also spoke at the event, noting that the kidnapping and attack was a violation of international law.

Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh transferred to Shata prison

15 March 2014

Palestinian prisoner Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine’s prison branch, was transferred on March 9 from Hadarim prison to Shata prison; no explanation was given for the sudden transfer, which often target leaders within the prisons.

Abu Ghoulmeh, 46, from Beit Furik near Nablus, has been transfered multiple times from one prison to another – 20 times in his first year in detention – and his family have been denied visits regularly; his wife Wafa has not been permitted to visit him since 2009. He was kidnapped with PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat, Hamdi Qur’an, Majdi Rimawi and Basil al-Asmar, as well as Fouad Shubaki, from the Palestinian Authority’s Jericho Prison on March 14-15, 2006, when the occupation military attacked the prison with bulldozers and tanks, seizing the Palestinian political prisoners held there.

He was held responsible in Israeli military courts of commanding the PFLP military unit that organized the assassination of racist Zionist tourism minister Rehavam Zeevi in 2001, in retaliation for the assassination of PFLP General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa in his Ramallah office. Click here to read Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh’s article on the experience of Israeli prison.

Palestinian political prisoners continue to face health crises within the occupation prisons

15 March 2014

The Palestine Prisoners Center for Studies reported on the cases of Ayman alKhader Alaya, from Jenin, and Dirar Abu Sisi, of Gaza, after the ongoing deterioration of their health.

Abu Sisi has remained in an isolation ward in Eshel prison with only three other prisoners despite repeated promises from occupation authorities to remove him from isolation, in which he has been held since he was kidnapped from Ukraine by Israeli forces in 2010, until his recent transfer to Soroka hospital for two days. He is suffering from heart problems, gallbaldder, kidney and stomach disease, and has vision problems in his left eye.

He was diagnosed with a serious gastrointestinal infection, and that antibiotics did not teat the infection. He is taking 11 pills daily, yet despite no notable improvement in his condition, was returned to the isolation section in Eshel. Alaya is also held in the isolation section of Eshel and suffering from a serious infection in his foot and elsewhere in his body. He is serving a 16 year sentence and has been imprisoned since 2003.

Thaer Halahleh, who suffers from Hepatitis C, contracted during a prison dental operation, also called for solidarity to save the sick prisoners, reported his lawyer Moataz Shukeirat.

Halahleh not receiving proper treatment for hepatitis, reported Shukeirat; he is also experiencing severe stomach pain and lost consciousness for two hours recently. Halahleh is a former long-term hunger striker who secured his release from administrative detention through a lengthy hunger strike in 2012, only to be re-arrested by the occupation in April 2013.

He called for human rights organizations to follow up on the health conditions of the Palestinian political prisoners, noting that they face significant neglect in treatment and delay in the diagnosis of disease. Halahleh particularly highlighted the cases of Moatassem Raddad, Khaled Shawish, Mansour Moqtada, Murad abu Maliq and Yousry al-Masri, facing severe health crises.

Shukeirat also raised the case of Munif Mohammed Abu Atwan, who has lost 70% of his vision. He is held in Ramon prison and serving five life sentences. Abu Atwan has requested to have an outside physician enter the prison, but his request has been denied, and he is not receiving treatment despite needing surgical intervention for his vision loss.

The Center said these cases demonstrate a policy of deliberate disregard for the lives of sick prisoners by the occupation authorities, subjecting them a slow death in prison. The number of seriously ill Palestinian political prisoners continues to increase due to this policy, reported the Center.

Occupation renews Hussein Amr’s administrative detention for fourth time

15 March 2014

Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies said in a statement that the administrative detention of Hussein Amr, age 61, from al-Khalil, was renewed for the fourth time on March 13 for a three-month period.

He has been detained since July 13, 2013, without charge or trial; he suffers from high blood pressure, gout, rheumatism, and varicose veins. Amr was held under solitary confinement after refusing to be taken to court two weeks ago, and shackled and transferred to Ramle prison by force; he is now held in Negev prison’s solitary confinement cells, the center added.

The center also warned against neglecting the health status of Amr, who suffers from diabetes and takes two insulin doses a day, holding Israel responsible for his life.

Palestinian group Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights said, on February 20th, that the number of Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli jails passed 200.

Usama Maqbol, a lawyer from the group, said that the rise in the number of administrative detainees is the result of an ongoing campaign of daily arrests of freed prisoners and leaders of Palestinian political groups.

“Administrative Detention” is the imprisonment of a Palestinian without trial or charge, indefinitely renewable, under secret evidence to which the detainee and his lawyers do not have access. Israel routinely uses this tactic on detained Palestinians, even though international law stipulates it only be used in exceptional circumstances.

(Via International Middle East Media Centre: http://imemc.org/article/67264)

Israeli Occupying Forces Target Palestinian Human Rights Organization in Coordinated Night Raids

1 March 2014

25 February 2014, Occupied Ramallah – Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association condemns the continued targeting of Palestinian civil society by Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF). In the early hours of this morning the offices and the homes of a number of employees of the Solidarity Foundation for Human Rights, based in Nablus, were targeted in a number of coordinated raids. In total five current employees and one former employee of the organization were detained by IOF and are currently being held in a number of Israeli detention centres.

At 1 am this morning approximately 35 IOF soldiers and attack dogs raided the home of Fares Abu Hasan, the director of the organization, by blowing open the door of his house with explosives. His family, including his wife and six children, the youngest of which is just three months old, were at home at the time. The IOF subsequently ransacked his house destroying personal property and stealing the families’ mobiles phone, laptop computers, iPad’s and personal papers. The raid lasted for two hours during which time Fares was separated from his family and interrogated. He was subsequently taken to Petah Tikva interrogation centre where he remains.

At the same time this morning the house of Osama Maqboul, a lawyer with the organization, was raided by IOF. A large number of IOF soldiers surrounded his house and approximately 15 soldiers entered his home. The IOF also ransacked his home, destroying much of his personal properly and stealing money, his mobile phone and computer. Osama was subsequently taken to an unknown location.

The secretary of the organization, Narim Salem, was also arrested from her home in the early hours of this morning and was subsequently taken to Petah Tikva interrogation centre. Narim’s computer was also stolen from her house by IOF.

Mohammed Abed, a lawyer and Ahmed Bitawi, a journalist, both working with the organization were also arrested this morning. A former employee and lawyer with the organization, Ahmed Sharif was also arrested.

In protest of today’s arrests Palestinian lawyers demanded the immediate release of their colleagues and all lawyers are boycotting the Israeli military courts of Ofer and Salem today and tomorrow.

In another development Abdel Razek Farraj, an employee with the Agricultural Workers Committee was arrested from his home in Ramallah at 2 am. Abdel has previously spent 11 years in Israeli jails, including five years under administrative detention, which is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold detainees indefinitely on “secret information” without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Abdel was released from his last period of administrative detention in July 2012. His whereabouts are currently unknown.

Today’s arrests are clearly a continuation of the Israeli policy of targeting of Palestinian civil society organizations in an attempt to suppress their important work in exposing the brutalities of the occupation and defending Palestinian rights.

Addameer calls on the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations to hold Israel to account and protect civilians living under occupation according to Articles 4, 13, 27 and 47 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Addameer also stresses the importance of the immediate intervention of international human rights organizations to help bring about the release of all those arrested today and condemn the continued policy of targeting Palestinian civil society.

ACT NOW!

*Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand the release of all those arrested today.

Brigadier General Danny Efroni
Military Judge Advocate General
6 David Elazar Street
Harkiya, Tel Aviv
Israel
Fax: +972 3 608 0366; +972 3 569 4526
Email: arbel@mail.idf.il; avimn@idf.gov.il
Maj. Gen. Nitzan Alon
OC Central Command Nehemia Base, Central Command
Neveh Yaacov, Jerusalam
Fax: +972 2 530 5741
Minister of Defense Moshe Smilansky
Ministry of Defense
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
Fax: +972 3 691 6940 / 696 2757
Col. Eli Bar On
Legal Advisor of Judea and Samaria PO Box 5
Beth El 90631
Fax: +972 2 9977326

Feb. 14, London: Protest G4S complicity in torture: Free Lena al-Jarboni and the Hares Boys

10 February 2014

Friday 14th Feb – PROTEST G4S COMPLICITY IN TORTURE – FREE LENA AL-JARBONI – FREE HARES BOYS

Date: Friday 14th February 2014, 2pm – 4pm
Location: G4S HQ, 105 Victoria Street (Closest public transport: Victoria Tube/Rail station)
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/699294506788733/

PALESTINIAN WOMEN POLITICAL PRISONERS – FREE LENA JARBONI

We will highlight the plight of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons and in particular Lena Jarboni, and specifically G4S complicity in their torture and suffering.

Currently there are 17 Palestinian women political prisoners in Israeli prisons. All but one is in HaSharon prison in Israel. The British private security contractor G4S provides the full security system at HaSharon including the central command room for the entire prison. The transfer of Palestinian prisoners from the occupied West Bank and Gaza to into Israel (to HaSharon Prison) is illegal under international law and constitutes a war crime, G4S is complicit in this by the services it provides to HaSharon Prison.

Before being brought to prison the women have to endure weeks, sometimes months, of torture at one of Israel’s interrogation centres to extract confessions from them – usually the infamous ‘Russian Compound’ in Jerusalem or the notorious Al-Jalame torture den – both these facilities are also secured by G4S.

The longest serving Palestinian women prisoner is Lena Al-Jarboni who has endured nearly 12 years in HaSharon. The campaign centres around her as an example of what Palestinian women have to endure and their resilience and steadfastness in the face of the occupation prisons.

Please note that the information about Lena Jarboni below has been updated after receiving new information from her family about her interrogation and the torture and threats against her family that lead to her forced confession.

LENA Al-JARBONI

Lena was born in 1974 to a Palestinian family near Acre in 1948 Palestine. Due to financial difficulty she could not complete her studies and worked in sewing workshops to help her family. In 2002 she was picked up by Israeli security on suspicion of “collaborating with the enemy” – she unlike her Palestinian friends has Israeli citizenship. They tortured her for 30 days at Israels notorious G4S secured Al-Jalame torture den. Interrogation sessions lasted up to 20 hours at a time. Deprived of sleep, she was made to stand stationary in stress positions for that time – her joints have never recovered. Between interrogation sessions she was caged in a tiny 1m x 2m hole in the ground cell. They brought her younger brother in and brutally tortured him, beating him mercilessly in front of her to pressure her to confess. When she didn’t break they released him and abducted her younger sister and tortured her, and then they dragged her elderly mother to the interrogation room and threatened to torture her. Her frail mother suffers from heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes. To save her family Lena confessed to the fabricated charges and she was sentenced to 17 years in HaSharon women’s prison.

At HaSharon prison Palestinian women prisoners have to endure beatings, insults, threats, sexually explicit harassment and sexual violence, and humiliation at the hands of Israeli guards. They are often forced to undergo degrading strip searches during the middle of the night – forced to squat naked and subjected to intrusive internal body searches, for no reason other than as a punitive measure. Women have been beaten and left tied to their bed for a day and a half and not allowed to go to the toilet as punishment for spilling water. The cells at HaSharon prison are overcrowded, dirty and infected with rodents and cockroaches. There is a total absence of basic hygiene, women have even been denied sanitary pads when menstruating. The heat is unbearable, The windows are closed and covered so that hardly any air or daylight can enter. The food is insufficient, and of inferior quality & dirty, often containing insects & worms, at times there are not enough portions for all the women. At HaSharon Lena became the spokeswoman for the other prisoners and converted the squalid rat infested cellars in to an area for prayer and education. She taught sewing classes and Quran.

Israel has adopted a systematic policy of medical negligence regarding Palestinian prisoners, a study conducted in 2008 revealed that 38% of Palestinian female prisoners suffer from treatable diseases that go untreated. Due to medical negligence Lena can no longer walk and suffers from extreme pain in her stomach and constant migraines. The prison refused to transfer her to hospital for an essential cholecystectomy operation in time. It was only when all the women prisoners threatened to go on hunger strike that they finally allowed her the operation. She has never recovered and her condition is deteriorating. Having endured nearly 12 years in HaSharon prison she is the longest serving Palestinian woman prisoner. She has over 5 more years left of her sentence, in her condition it is very unlikely she can survive that. We are demanding her immediate release.

Photo from the last protest outside G4S HQ in London (31st Jan 2014)

PALESTINIAN CHILD PRISONERS – FREE HARES BOYS

Solidarity with 5 Palestinian children tortured and caged by Israel for a crime that never happened.

On 14th March 2013 a simple car accident, when a illegal Israeli settler car speeding along a road built illegally on stolen Palestinian land, crashed in to the back of an Israeli truck which had stopped to change a flat tire resulting in four people being hurt, was later at the behest of angry settlers presented as an attack by Palestinian stone throwing youth. The truck drivers earlier testimony that he stopped due to a flat tire was replaced with the new reason being that he had seen stones by the road, and an accident that nobody saw suddenly became a terror attack with 61 witnesses including the police!

Over the next few days over 50 masked Israeli soldiers with attack dogs stormed the local village of Hares in the early hours of the morning and in waves of violent arrests kidnapped the children of the village. In total 19 children were taken to the infamous G4S secured children’s dungeon at Al Jalame and locked up in solitary confinement for up to 2 weeks in filthy windowless 1m by 2m hole in the ground cells with no mattress. The Israeli prime minister Benyamin Natanyahu announced to the settlers that he had “caught the terrorists”. The children were violently tortured and sexual threats were made against the female members of their families in order to coerce confessions from the boys.

With the confessions and the new “eye-witness” statements, five of the Hares boys were charged with 25 counts of attempted murder each, even though there were only four people in the car and all are now safe at home. Apparently the military court had decided that 25 stones were thrown, each with an “intent to kill”. The five boys – Ali Shamlawi, Mohammed Kleib, Mohammed Mehdi Suleiman, Tamer Souf, and Ammar Souf are currently locked up in another G4S secured facility – Megiddo prison where G4S provides the entire central command room.

In violation of international law Israel has turned prisons in to money making enterprises with the boys essentially forced to pay for their own imprisonment. Israel deliberately fails to provide Palestinian prisoners the basic essentials – edible food, cloths (underwear, shoes..) and hygiene products (soap, toothbrush..). The boys are forced to buy these at the extortionately priced prison shop costing the families over € 125/month to provide for one child’s basic needs in prison.

With no evidence of a crime the military court keeps on postponing the hearing dates from one month to the next, meanwhile the boys remain caged indefinitely and their families facing financial ruin in the process. The occupation in its cruelty doesn’t inform the families of cancellations. The families spend most of their day queuing and enduring the humiliation at the checkpoints, then waiting at the court in anticipation of catching a glimpse of their son.. only to be disappointed at the end. Not that evidence, or lack of it, has any bearing in an Israeli military court – a study conducted by the Israeli NGO ‘No Legal Frontiers’ over a 12 month period concluded that 100% of Palestinian children brought before the military court are convicted. If the five boys are convicted they will be locked up for over 25 years – five young lives ruined with no evidence of a crime let alone their guilt.

We are demanding the immediate and unconditional release of all the children and hold G4S complicit in Israel’s crimes, particularly in the torture of Palestinian women and children.

LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST

We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live (hash tags #FreeHaresBoys #G4S #FreeLenaJarboni) from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can’t join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.

https://www.facebook.com/inmindscom

https://twitter.com/InmindsCom

JazakAllah

Abbas Ali

Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
www.inminds.com/caged

The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.

Follow us on Instagram @samidounnetwork