Naim Shawamreh, freed Palestinian prisoner, was hospitalized on Wednesday January 1 as his health deteriorated, following his release early Monday morning.
Shawamra spent 19 years in Israeli jails and suffers from muscular dystrophy. He was unable to walk by the time of his release.
He was taken to the emergency room in Dura on Wednesday and then transferred on January 2 to al-Ahli hospital in al-Khalil, reported the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society.
From within Israeli jails, we send our deep condolences to the family of Nelson Mandela, to the people of South Africa and to the entire humanity, in particular to all victims of oppression and injustice as well as to all those struggling for freedom and human dignity. We share the sadness and the strong feeling of gratitude towards Nelson Mandela.
We, the PPP, send our condolences to our Palestinian people who had the honor of having Nelson Mandela as the greatest friend of us as a people seeking national liberation, decolonization and dezionisation of Palestine.
Mandela made the linkage more clear between the struggles of our two peoples. He considered that the liberation of South Africa would be completed with the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation.
Nelson Mandela will not be missed, he cannot disappear, he exists and will continue to exist and be alive in the hearts and minds of all nations. Among Palestinians, Nelson Mandela symbolizes the most promising story in our long road to freedom. For decades, Mandela has been an anchor of hope, an integral part of our history of struggle as well of Palestinian and Arab poetry, literature, songs, names of persons and institutions. Mandela is not just a symbol of South Africa but also a symbol of Palestine besides the historical Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat and the great fighters. We consider the South African people as sisters and brothers of all Palestinians.
On the contrary, Israel as the remaining colonial racist enterprise of Zionism in Palestine and the apartheid regime of the past in South Africa were strategical allies and shared the same ‘values’. Israel, apartheid as well as all illegetimate regimes are allies.
It is repugnant to listen to Israeli leaders who abuse Nelson Mandela’s values with their fulsome campaign that makes short work of his!
Mandela symbolized three major landmarks: struggle for freedom, the failure of the apartheid regime and the act of forgiveness. Only great leaders with great victories have the capacity to forgive. But forgiveness is possible after liberation, not before. Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting. The oppressors want their victims to forget in order to undermine their rights, abused and violated by the oppressor.
Mandela, ANC and all South African people deserve the greatest respect and mourning from the people. Mandela deserves the respect all the world leaders showed him. But those leaders, in particular those of the USA and the post-colonial countries of Europe, should apologize to the people of South Africa as well as to all peoples who suffered slavery and colonization at the hands of these countries. The crimes of their countries against humanity shouldn’t be forgotten.
Of the Palestinian political prisoners (PPP) in Israeli jails, who currently number 5,000, hundreds have spent already 27 years imprisoned as did Mandela. When we as PPP and as Palestinian people think of Mandela, we are sure that freedom can be achieved only through the struggle for it. The Israeli colonial enterprise is not stronger than the apartheid regime. Palestine will be free.
Thank you Nelson Mandela…
Ameer Makhoul
On behalf of PPP
Ali Fahmi Ibrahim Da’na, 35, has now been on open hunger strike for 29 days amid worsening health, reported lawyer Fares Ziad of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.
Ziad visited with Da’na in the Ramle prison clinic, noting that he suffers from poor health, low blood sugar; he has vomited blood on three occasions and continues to refuse all medical tests. Da’na is striking in protest of medical neglect by the prison administration.
The director of intelligence in the prison agreed to some of Da’na’s demands including visits with his mother and daughter, ending sanctions upon him for striking and transfer to Hadarim prison as well as providing treatment for his illness, during a meeting with Da’na, asking him to end his strike. However, an agreement was not made and additional meetings are planned in order to reach an agreement between Da’na and the prison administration.
Following his announcement of hunger strike, the prison administration banned Da’na from receiving family visits for 3 months, placed him in isolation for two weeks and fined him. Da’na’s isolation cell was inspected hourly at night, depriving him of sleep. Da’na was transferred to Ramle hospital after 14 days of strike and solitary confinement, suffering numbness, muscle spasms and low blood pressure.
Da’na suffers from health problems including chronic inflammation in the large intestine and chronic constipation. He was receiving medications on a permanent basis for both of these medical issues, but the prison doctor in Negev prison cancelled his prescription for three months and his attempts to receive treatment or resume his medications were rejected.
In mid-November 2013, while he was held in Negev prison, Da’na sued the prison clinic for denying his appointments and refusing to provide him with needed medication. Two days later a special unit ransacked and searched his room. He began his open hunger strike on December 3, 2013 and was transferred to solitary confinement. Da’na, of Ras al-Amud in Jerusalem, was arrested on July 16, 2003.
Mohammed Badr, 25 and Islam Badr, 20, two Palestinian men held in Israeli occupation prisons, ended a 38-day hunger strike on December 22, 2013 after they were removed from administrative detention and transferred for trial.
Ma’an News reported that their families reported that they would now face charges in Israeli military courts. The brothers were arrested on October 28 by undercover Israeli military forces in Beit Liqya village.
Mohammed and Islam Badr launched a hunger strike in mid-November in protest against their administrative detention without charge, but ended the strike after the agreement was reached.
Their family told Ahrar Center for Prisoners’ Studies and Human Rights that the administrative detention against the two brothers had been concluded as a part of the deal.
Administrative detention refers to the tactic of keeping a prisoner without charge or trial for extended periods of time.
Also on hunger strike with the Badr brothers is Thaer Abdu. Reports indicate that he is continuing his strike.
On December 30, 26 long-time Palestinian prisoners were released, the latest of the 104 prisoners scheduled to be released. The releasees included Naim Shawamreh, the severely ill Palestinian prisoner suffering from severe health problems and facing inadequate medical treatment in occupation prisons. The full list of releasees is below:
Ahmad Farid Shehadeh – Jerusalem, life sentence
Yassin Abu Khudair – Jerusalem, 28 years
Bilal Abu Hussein – Jerusalem, 38 years
Ibrahim Taqtouq – Nablus, life sentence
Bilal Ibrahim Damra – Salfit, life sentence
Mukhlas Sudki Sawafteh – Jenin, life sentence
Faisal Mustafa Abu Rub – Jenin, life sentence
Mahmoud Atta Mouammal – Bethlehem, life sentence
Nu’man Yusef Shalabi – Jenin, life sentence
Adnan Mohammad Affandi – Bethlehem, 30 years
Jamal Khaled Abu Mohsen – Tubas, life sentence
Ibrahim Khalil Salah – Bethlehem, life sentence
Ahmad Juma’ Khalaf – Jerusalem, 21 years
Osama Silawi – Jenin, life sentence
Mahmoud Da’ajneh – Jerusalem, life sentence
Mohammed Afaneh – Ramallah, 40 years
Ramadan Abu Yacoub – Ramallah, life sentence
Ayman Jaradat – Jenin, life sentence
Ahmad Kamail – Jenin, life sentence
Said al-Tamimi – Ramallah, life sentence
Nasser Barham – Tulkarem, life sentence
Mahmoud Salman – Gaza, life sentence
Jamal Abu Jammal – Jerusalem, 22 years
Ibrahim Abu Ali – Gaza, life sentence
Naim Shawamreh – al-Khalil, life sentence
Rami Barbakh – Gaza, life sentence
Palestinian political prisoner, Samer Issawi, whose 222-day hunger strike captured the attention and solidarity of the Palestinian people and people around the world, was released on December 23 to mass celebration.
Though the Israeli occupation forces attempted to prohibit marches or rallies in his Jerusalem hometown, Issawiyeh, and raided his home a day before, summoning Samer’s father, Tariq and brother, Medhat, Issawi was welcomed home by cheering crowds, celebrating his victory.
Issawi was released from occupation prisons in the October 2011 prisoner exchange agreement and was re-arrested in July 2012, accused of travelling to another Jerusalem-area town, allegedly violating the terms of his release (although the town sits within Jerusalem municipal boundaries.) The Israeli occupation threatened to re-impose his original twenty-year sentence. In protest, Issawi launched a hunger strike which ended with an agreement to release him on December 23.
The Free Samer Issawi Campaign, now called the Global Campaign for Palestinian Political Prisoners, held daily “Twitter storms” using social media to highlight Issawi’s case. Events took place across Palestine and around the world in solidarity with Issawi’s strike.
He rejected multiple proposals to displace him to Gaza, insisting that Jerusalem – Issawiyeh – was his hometown, and he would not leave.
Issawi was recently named 2013 Person of the Year by Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, and the Electronic Intifada published a new interview with Issawi following his release.
For more information:
Free Samer Issawi Campaign/GCPPP on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/GCFPPP
Issawi’s release places individual hunger strikes in spotlight, Linah Alsaafin, Al-Monitor: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2013/12/samer-issawi-release-palestine-prisoners-hunger-strike.html
Person of the Year 2013: Palestinian hunger striker Samer Issawi, Al-Akhbar English: http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/person-year-2013-palestinian-hunger-striker-samer-al-issawi
Solidarity helped me keep fighting, says released hunger striker Samer Issawi, Budour Yousef Hassan, Electronic Intifada: http://electronicintifada.net/content/solidarity-helped-me-keep-fighting-says-released-hunger-striker-samer-issawi/13049
Thaer Halahleh, Palestinian prisoner and former long-term hunger striker, was transferred from Ramon prison to Soroka Medical Center on December 26 after his health condition seriously worsened.
Halahleh was on hunger strike in 2012 for 77 days in protest of his administrative detention without charge or trial, and was released in June 2012 at the conclusion of his administrative detention order.
He was re-arrested in April 2013 and diagnosed by Israeli doctors in Ofer prison as having contracted Hepatitis C during a dental operation in Ashkelon prison with non-sterile tools.
The Electronic Intifada reported that:
Israel put Palestinian prisoners, including children, in outdoor cages during the severe winter storm that struck the region in the middle of last month.
“The shocking practice was highlighted in a year-end statement by the advocacy group, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and discussed by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, this week.
“Also detailed in a letter from the office of Israel’s National Public Defender, the practice had been going on for months, but has now supposedly been halted.
The 16 December letter to the head of the Israel Prison Service (IPS) says that lawyers from the public defender’s office had learned of the practice during an official visit to the Ramle prison compound where Palestinian political prisoners, including children, are often transferred from the occupied West Bank in violation of international law.”
Iron cages
During the visit by two of its lawyers “which coincided with the fierce storm that struck the country, the attorneys met prisoners who described a shocking picture: in the middle of the night, dozens of prisoners were transferred to iron cages built outside the IPS facility in Ramle,” according to a 17 December statement from the public defender.
“In these cages, which were exposed to the weather, they spent several hours in the freezing cold and rain, until the transport arrived to take them to court around 6am,” the statement adds.
The statement said that the practice had been going on for months, a fact “verified during other official visits and not denied by IPS.”
The public defender launched an emergency appeal to various official bodies, including the ministry of justice, “in order to prevent another night of such grave harm to humanity.”
The statement notes that some of the prisoners in the cages were “minors” – children.
The Jerusalem Post reported on 31 December that Tzipi Livni, Israel’s justice minister “immediately telephoned Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, telling him to end the practice.”
The matter was also discussed Tuesday in the Israeli parliament’s public petitions committee where, according to the Post, “the Knesset committee said that the manner of arrest and detention conditions of Palestinian children was violating Israeli law for dealing with children.”
“Alarm”
PCATI’s statement notes “with increasing alarm and condemnation Israel’s failure to protect Palestinian children from direct and indirect torture and ill treatment.”
It says it has received “dozens of complaints of torture and ill treatment from children in the last 10 years” and is currently working on cases “concerning children’s complaints of torture and ill treatment at the hands of Israeli soldiers and interrogators.”
For the full report, please visit Electronic Intifada.
Friday 3rd Jan – PROTEST G4S COMPLICITY IN TORTURE
– FREE HARES BOYS – FREE HUNGER STRIKERS
Date: Friday 3rd January 2014, 2pm – 4pm
Location: G4S HQ, 105 Victoria Street (Closest public transport: Victoria Tube/Rail station)
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/245697525591921/
G4S – HARES BOYS
Solidarity with 5 Palestinian children tortured and caged by Israel for a crime that never happened.
On 14th March 2013 in what appears to have been a car accident when a speeding illegal Israeli settler car crashed in to the back of an Israeli truck which had stopped to change a flat tire, on a illegal Jews-only road in the West Bank, resulted in four people being hurt. At the behest of angry settlers, the incident was later presented as an attack by Palestinian stone throwing youth.
The truck drivers earlier testimony that he had 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 cells with no mattress. 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. Apparently the military court had decided that 25 stones were thrown, each with an “intent to kill”. The five boys – the “Hares 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.
With no evidence of a crime the military court keeps on postponing the hearing dates for the children. All the October, November and December military court dates so far have been postponed and new ones issued for January by the Israeli military to the families of the boys, meanwhile the boys remain caged now for nearly 10 months now. Family visits are routinely cancelled with no notice being given, Ali Shamlawi mothers last scheduled visit on 17th Dec was cancelled – its a way to exert psychological pressure on both the children and their families.
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 children.
FREE THE HUNGER STRIKERS – MOHAMMAD BADR, ISLAM BADR & THAER ABDU
We will also be protesting in solidarity with the three hunger strikers Mohammad Badr, Islam Badr, and Thaer Abdu who have been on hunger strike since 16th November to protest their ‘administrative detention’ – the practice used by Israel to imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial.
Under administrative detention prisoners are given rolling detention orders which can be anything from 1-6 months, renewable indefinitely. This is against international law. In the past administrative detainee Mazen Natsheh has been locked up cumulatively for nearly 10 years without charge or trial. Detention orders can be based on so called “secret information” which never needs to be produced, either to the detainee nor their lawyer, but often administrative detention is used to arbitrarily jail Palestinians where there is no evidence for a trial, or as a form of punishment as in the case of 10 Palestinian MPs currently locked up without charge. Israel has on average issued over 2000 detention orders every year (2007-2011). Today there are 145 administrative detainees.
Thaer Abdu was abducted by the Israeli occupation forces from his home on 27th October and is being held under a 6 month administrative detention. Mohammed and Islam Badr are brothers, and were abducted from their family shop on 28th October. Mohammad is being held under a 6 month detention order whilst Islam is on an initial 3 month detention. All three are held in G4S secured Ofer prison, but unlike other Palestinians who are placed in the political “security” section, they have been put in section 14 which is for common criminals. Until recently they were on total hunger strike, taking only water (no salts and no medication). As a result their health deteriorated very rapidly and they had to be transferred to hospital on 12th December. Now they are taking salt with water. Both Mohammad and Islam have lost 12kg in weight since the beginning of their strike. To punish them for their hunger strike the prison has put them in isolation and taken all their personal possessions from the cell and denied then adequate blankets and bedding whilst being kept in a very cold room making even drinking water difficult to swallow. Everyday the prison guards continue the punishment by violently raiding their rooms at least 5 times daily under pretext of inspection. Despite their hardships all three prisoners are committed to their hunger strike.
The British security contractor G4S is complicit in Israel’s illegal practice of punitive administrative detention. Figures from April show that 86% of administrative detainees – the vast majority, are locked up in G4S secured Israeli prisons. Most of them having been transferred from the West Bank into Israel in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST
We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live (hash tags #FreeHaresBoys #G4S ) 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/
PLEASE HELP RAISE MONEY FOR THE HARES BOYS
Please help raise money for the Hares Boys – five Palestinian children abducted from their homes in the village of Hares and caged in a hole in the ground and tortured until false confessions were extracted for stone throwing and are now facing possible life sentences. The aim is to raise as much as we can in 80 days (starting 30th Oct) to help all the 5 families to deal with the financial burden associated with having their children imprisoned. The children have already spent 8 months in an Israeli dungeon.
Israel is the only country in the world that charges prisoners for their imprisonment. They have to buy food, soap, toothpaste, and everything else for highly inflated prices in the prison shop, because the Apartheid state does not provide for the people it incarcerates. Not only are such policies designed to break the spirit of the imprisoned and their families – they also intend to ruin them financially. Its costs over 125 euros per month to provide for one child’s basic needs in prison.
The initial target of 2000 euros has been reached thanks to our French comrades, who raised a magnificent 1000 euros. The target was however kept low because of the way the fundraising works – if you don’t reach the target in 80 days all the money is returned and the families don’t get any of the money. So we still need people to contribute, every little helps. So far 2,822 euros have been raised with just 19 days remaining. Around 6% of the amount raised goes towards administrative and bank fees of namlebee – the hosts of the fundraising.
Please give generously, thank you.
http://www.namlebee.com/
JazakAllah
Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
www.inminds.com/caged
Palestinian writer, academic and leader Ahmad Qatamesh was released after two and one-half years in administrative detention, held in Israeli jails without charge or trial. He was taken from his home by Israeli occupation forces on April 21, 2011; he had earlier served 6 years in administrative detention from 1992 to 1998.
Suha Barghouthi, his wife, spoke to Al-Watan News, saying that Qatamesh is being released on the evening of December 26 at the Salem checkpoint, where his family was informed of the release by Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association lawyer Mahmoud Hassan.
Qatamesh teaches at Al-Quds University in Abu Dis and is a longtime political and social activist, accused by the Israeli state of membership in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and repeatedly detained without charge or trial as a “threat to the security of the area.” After an extensive legal battle Ofer military court had declared that his current administrative detention period would be the final such order in October 2013.
Qatamesh’s book “I will Not Wear Your Tarboosh” recounted his experiences in solitary confinement and under torture during his time in detention in the 1990s. In his current detention, Amnesty International, among many others, consistently called for his release as a prisoner of conscience.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network greets and salutes Ahmed Qatamesh upon his release, who has continued the struggle for justice and liberation for the Palestinian people inside and outside prisons for decades and has faced severe repression for his clear voice of advocacy. Like Samer Issawi, released on December 23 after securing victory in a legendary hunger strike, Qatamesh is a clear and heroic voice of dignity, justice, steadfastness and commitment to Palestinian rights.
Article by Ahmad’s daughter Haneen about his arrest: http://electronicintifada.net/content/when-israeli-soldiers-came-arrest-my-father/9901
Addameer profile of Ahmad Qatamesh:
http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=156
1998 interview with Ahmad Qatamesh:
http://www.freearabvoice.org/interviewSeniorAdministrativeDetaineeQatamesh.htm
In 1999, Ahmad Qatamesh was detained by the Palestinian Authority for joining a protest against corruption:http://www.phrmg.org/pressrelease/1999/04dec1999.htm
