US political prisoner Lynne Stewart denied compassionate release – rally in New York City

30 June 2013

Samidoun distributes updates on the cases of political prisoners outside Palestine. Today we are distributing the following urgent news about US political prisoner and longtime people’s lawyer Lynne Stewart.

Lynne-Stewart-poster-General-Strike-111909-by-Christopher-Hutchinson Lynne Stewart has been denied “compassionate release.” We must mobilize to save Lynne’s life!

There is an emergency rally in New York City for Lynne Stewart, Monday, July 1 in Foley Square, NYC, from 4 to 7pm (take any train to Chambers Street). We will march from Foley Square to the nearby 500 Pearl Street courthouse. Please be there!

Behind Lynne Stewart’s Denial of Compassionate Release

BY JEFF MACKLER

When I visited Lynne Stewart at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas last month, in a dark moment she wondered whether the cynicism of the Justice Department and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) might descend to the level of denying her the then much expected compassionate release. Whether these agencies might sight as grounds for such denial that her initial rounds of chemotherapy had slightly reduced in size some of the malignant tumors in her lymph nodes, sternum and back while leaving the most threatening of her Stage Four breast cancer tumors in her lungs unaffected could not but cross her mind.

At that moment Lynne had good reason to expect that her release was imminent. It was recommended by the FMC warden and New York-based probationary officials had inspected and approved an appropriate Brooklyn family residence where she would reside during treatment and for permanent proper care. Lynne even pointed to statements from her Fort Worth hospital oncologist to the effect that it was likely that they would not see each other again, implying that she too recognized that Lynne’s only serious hope for life was to be rapidly transferred to the world renowned Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

On June 25 Lynne’s most feared outcome was confirmed in a three-paragraph letter from BOP General Counsel Kathleen M. Kennedy in Washington, D.C. Kennedy denied Lynne’s request because Lynne’s “health is improving,” and that her situation is “not extraordinary and compelling.”

Lynne’s response, “Disappointed But Not Devastated” (See below.) indicates that her legal team intends to appeal this decision to Judge John Koeltl, the judge who initially sentenced her to 28 months in prison but who later acceded to political pressure, ordered a new sentencing hearing, and condemned Lynne to ten years at FMC Carswell.

Stewart’s case is the first in many years to expose yet another blatant government violation of U.S. law, this one mandating compassionate release in specified circumstances that particularly apply to Lynne. Indeed this 1984 law has been virtually ignored, according to the government’s own study, with barely a dozen people being granted compassionate release annually out of hundreds of thousands of federal prisoners over the past 30 years.

The scientific community considers Stage Four breast cancer to be incurable. But many prominent institutions have noted that with excellent medical care and high patient motivation, life can extended in some circumstances for several years. The Fort Worth medical facility that FMC Carswell uses and the conditions under which Lynne is permitted to receive treatment are far from “excellent.” She is literally shackled hand and foot and around her belly while be taken to and from this facility. The results of her treatments are routinely withheld for months, while necessary follow-up treatments are delayed, as was the case when a newly discovered tumor in one lung was ignored and soon after metastasized to the other and beyond.

Yet the most optimistic prospects for Lynne to live a few more years, provided she receives “excellent” treatment are used to reject her request. In the BOP’s view Lynne must be not only dying but virtually near death to qualify for compassionate release. The fight for her release now, Lynne repeatedly states, is a matter of life and death.

Lynne’s request that the U.S. Supreme Court hear her appeal is pending and could be decided soon. If the hateful authorities at the BOP continue to reject her compassionate release request, she could well be found innocent of the frame-up terrorist conspiracy charges against her as a result of being the lead counsel in the internationally watched case of the “blind sheik” Omar Abdel Rachman and yet too close to death to experience but a few weeks or months of life as a vindicated and free woman.

There is no time to delay. Join the fight for Lynne’s life and freedom now.
Call today:

• US Bureau of Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels: 202-307-3198-ext. 3

• US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2001

• President Barack Obama: 202-456-1111

Rana Nazzal and Nariman Tamimi arrested in Nabi Saleh, facing Ofer military court

30 June 2013

nariman-rana Occupation forces seized Palestinian activists Nariman Tamimi and Rana Nazzal in Palestinian village Nabi Saleh on Friday, June 28 as they participated in the weekly protest against settlements on their land.

They are being charged with “entering a closed military zone” and are expected to face another hearing at Ofer military court on Monday, July 1.

Rana Nazzal, a Palestinian activist based in Ottawa, Canada, blogs at http://zaytouni.wordpress.com/

Nariman Tamimi is one of the leading organizers of Nabi Saleh’s popular resistance to settlement and occupation. Read an interview with her here: http://electronicintifada.net/content/eu-must-do-more-pay-lip-service-nariman-tamimi-interviewed/10187

Israel’s kidnapping of Palestinian prisoner from Egypt confirmed

30 June 2013

By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Sunday, June 30, 2013

(Reuters) – A Palestinian from the Gaza Strip who vanished while visiting Egypt this month is under arrest in Israel for alleged security offences, his family and his Israeli lawyer said on Sunday.

They said they did not know how Wael Abu Rida, 35, ended up in the Jewish state. The possibility he was seized from Egyptian Sinai territory could embarrass the Islamist-rooted government in Cairo at a time of major domestic unrest.

Abu Rida, who lives in the southern Gaza Strip, went to a town near the Egyptian capital two weeks ago to seek medical treatment for his son, according to his wife, Amani, who accompanied him there.

“While we were in Egypt, Wael received a call from a friend asking him to come to Sinai,” she told Reuters. “I never heard from him since.”

The rendezvous, Amani Abu Rida said, was in the Egyptian side of Rafah, a town that straddles the Gaza-Sinai border. She added that she did not know the friend who summoned her husband.

Israel’s Public Defender’s Office said it had received Abu Rida’s case on June 22 and assigned him a lawyer, Elziadna Kamal. Reached by phone, Kamal said the case was “security related rather than criminal”.

Kamal said he did not know how Abu Rida was brought to Israel and declined to discuss the case further, citing a court-issued gag order in Israel.

Relatives said an unidentified man had informed the family by phone last week that Abu Rida was in Israeli custody, adding that they knew of no ties he may have to Palestinian militants.

“I am clueless. We are all clueless as to why this happened,” Abu Rida’s brother Ibrahim said.

Amani Abu Rida said her husband was a former policeman who lost his job when Hamas Islamists took over Gaza in a brief 2007 civil war with the rival U.S.-backed Palestinian administration.

Egyptian officials had no immediate comment.

SHADOW WAR

Locked in an armed standoff with Hamas and other Gaza factions, the Israelis have sometimes struck further afield against targets suspected of being part of the supply line for rockets to the Palestinian enclave.

Dubai accused Israeli spies of killing a Hamas armourer in the Gulf emirate in 2010. The next year, a Gazan engineer was abducted while visiting Ukraine and is now being prosecuted in Israel as a Hamas rocket expert – charges he has denied.

Any such actions in Sinai would be especially touchy, however, given widespread hostility among Egyptians to Israel and the landmark 1979 peace accord between the countries.

As part of that agreement, the desert peninsula is largely demilitarized. But the Egyptians have been stepping up security sweeps, with tacit Israeli backing, in a bid to stem spreading lawlessness, Islamist militancy and weapons trafficking to Gaza.

A senior Israeli official who spoke to Reuters about relations with Egypt declined all comment on Abu Rida.

But the official stressed that Israel, as a matter of policy, did not send its forces into Sinai: “It would threaten the very foundation of our peace accord with Egypt because what sets the tone today is (Egyptian) public opinion.”

“I can say that, when there is a threat, our clear preference is that the Egyptian authorities deal with it,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The International Committee of the Red Cross in Jerusalem said it was helping Abu Rida’s family determine his whereabouts.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Gareth Jones)

Statement of the families of Jordanian hunger strikers in Israeli jails

30 June 2013

The families of the Palestinian political prisoners holding Jordanian citizenship who have been on hunger strike for 60 days sent the following statement to a protest organized in London outside the Jordanian Embassy in solidarity with the strikers:

With great respect and love we salute all of you the free people of the world who stand with our right for freedom and justice.

The Jordanian Political prisoners have been engaged in hunger strike for over 60 days now, taking only water and salt.
From the first day the Israeli jailers made it worse for them by forcing them to stand for long hours, and later confiscated salt, a very important substance for strikers. Israeli Jailers continue to humiliate the prisoners in various forms and methods.

Mohammad Al-Rimawi who is suffering from heart condition is facing death any time, with no real medical support. In fact the Prison authority had promised him medical care only if he ends his strike!

Also political prisoner Hamza Othman Al-Dabbas is facing real threats to his life and was punished repeatedly in order to force him to stop his strike.

The Mother of Political prisoner Abdullah Barghouti said “I miss my son. I did not see him for 8 years, and it breaks my heart to know that he is on hunger strike for 60 days and has been beaten many time at the hands of jailers. My husband and I are elderly, we are over 75 years old and we want see our son free before we die. I thank you for standing with my son in this crisis and we will not rest before he is freed from Israeli Jails,” she said.

The wife of prisoner Al’a Hammad said “I have 6 children and they did not see their father for 7 years now. They love their father and they keep looking at his picture. We all have been involved in organizing and participating in sit-ins and demonstrations but it seems to me that our government cares about its relation with Israel more than they care about prisoners.”

Shahin Mer’i, the brother of Munir Mer’i, salutes you all and he has received a message from the prisoners declaring that they will be on open-ended hunger strike starting July 3rd . They will only consume water and they will reject any intravenous supplies, this means they can be facing death in less than 5 – 6 days.

We greet you from our hearts
Support Jordanian Political Prisoners in Israeli jails.
Free all political prisoners.

Protest in London supports Jordanian hunger strikers, demands Jordan take action:

30 June 2013

The Innovative Minds campaign supporting Palestinian political prisoners organized a protest in solidarity with Jordanian hunger strikers in Israeli prisons outside the Jordanian Embassy on Sunday, June 30 from 2-4 pm.

The call to the protest was as follows:

On Sunday 30th June it will be the 60th day that 5 Palestinian political prisoners with Jordanian citizenship have been on hunger strike in Israeli occupation jails. The prisoners families are asking for the immediate release of all Palestinian political prisoners, and in the very least Israel be made to abide by its side of the shameful Wadi Araba normalisation agreement which King Hussein signed with Israel in 1994, under which Jordanian prisoners in Israeli jails should be transferred to Jordan to serve their sentences where at least the families of the prisoners can visit – something Israel is not permitting. The prisoners are also demanding Israel disclose the where abouts of 20 Jordanian prisoners which are missing, and to return the bodies of the prisoners who have died in Israel custody, which Israel has dumped in numbered graves, back to their families.

It should be noted that Jordanians have consistently demanded their government tear up the treacherous Wadi Araba peace agreement in which King Hussein sold out the Palestinians, and in return gained nothing other than shame for Jordan. Needless to say Israel has been a serial violator of the treaty from day one.. its assassination attempt of Khaled Meshaal in 1997 to its Judaisation of Jerusalem, and its restrictions on access to holy places in Jerusalem..

The five hunger strikers: Abdullah Al-Barghothi, Hamzah Al-Dabbas, Muneer Merei, Alaa Hammad and Mohammad Al-Rimawi have each lost over 18kg in weight. Some of the prisoners have lost their ability to walk and are confined to wheel chairs. Mohammad Al-Rimawi, who suffers from a heart disorder where sometimes his heart beat is 125 and sometimes it drops to 50 beats per minute, is being denied his medicine by the Israeli Prison Service until he agrees to stop his hunger strike. Prisoners are being pressured to stop their hunger strikes with their cells being raided and attack dogs being used in order to intimidate them. As the strike persists the methods employed by Israel are getting more violent. Yesterday (26th June 2013) Israeli guards attacked Adbullah Al-Barghouti in the hospital, they dragged him from his hospital bed to the concrete floor and kicked him in the face, causing bleeding.

There have been over 70 demonstrations in Jordan by the families of the prisoners. The Jordanian government has shamefully abandoned the prisoners and according to some accounts is also pressuring the prisoners to give up their hunger strike. We have been asked by our brother and sisters in Jordan to protest outside the Jordanian Embassy in solidarity with their protest on the same day in Jordan outside the Royal Court (Central Government buildings). Please join us in this act of solidarity.

Jordanian prisoners enter 60th day of hunger strike as solidarity protests attacked by occupation forces

30 June 2013

RAMALLAH, (PIC)– The Jordanian prisoners entered the 60th day of their hunger strike on Sunday, June 30, which they started on the second of May to pressure the Israeli prison authority to respond to their just demands.

The Jordanian hunger strikers are Abdullah Al-Barghouthi, Mohamed Remawi, Munir Marei, Ala Hammad, Hamza Othman, and they demand the prison authority to allow their families to visit them in prison and to transfer them to Jordanian jails. Abdullah Barghouthi is beginning to suffer severe health impacts, and is held in Afula hospital, where he was earlier assaulted by occupation guards.

In a related incident, hundreds of Palestinians rallied on Friday afternoon in the villages of Kafr Qaddum, Bil’in and Nabi Saleh in solidarity with the Jordanian hunger strikers in Israeli jails.

According to local sources, many Palestinian and foreign activists suffered tear gas and rubber bullet injuries when the Israeli occupation forces suppressed their marches.

Several activists were also arrested during the events.

Palestinian prisoners face medical neglect and abuse in occupation prisons

30 June 2013

Palestinian prisoner Shadi Qar’an, 30, of Tulkarem, is currently suffering from potentially cancerous tumors and severe abdominal pain, but has received no treatment apart from painkillers. Palestinian lawyer Ashraf Al-Khatib has petitioned for him to receive treatment and surgery, but the military court postponed hearing this case until September 10, 2013 on June 30. Qar’an has been in occupation prisons since 2007, with a 28-year sentence, and is held in Gilboa prison.

Palestinian prisoner Salim Kassab, imprisoned since 2003, faces the loss of sight in his left eye. He was given injections of cortisone, and Afula hospital has documented that without immediate treatment he will lose his sight. However, the prison medical authorities have refused to provide surgery to save his eye.

Simultaneously, the family of prisoner Hassan Sharif, 31, said that their son is suffering from urinary and kidney disease and severe joint pain, and also has received no treatment except for painkillers, calling for Doctors Without Borders, the ICRC and other international institutions to protect the medical rights of prisoners.

Samer al-Barq’s administrative detention renewed yet again as occupation forces continue to violate agreement with long-time hunger striker

30 June 2013

barq Previous long-term hunger striker Samer al-Barq’s administrative detention was renewed for another six months on June 27, despite the previous agreement of the occuation to release him to Egypt in exchange for ending his hunger strike.

Samer Al-Barq has been held by the occupation forces since July 11, 2010, when he was deported by Jordanian security forces to the bridge to Palestine and transferred to occupation forces, after his detention in Jordan. (Born in Qalqilya, al-Barq had lived in Pakistan for a number of years and married a Pakistani woman.)

Since that time, al-Barq has been held in administrative detention without charge or trial. After his first open-ended hunger strike, he stopped his strike based on the occupation authorities’ promise to not renew his administrative detention, deport him to Egypt from where he could return to Pakistan. The occupation authorities violated their promise and instead renewed his administrative detention. He launched a new hunger strike that lasted for 120 days and which was once again suspended when the occupation promised to apply the agreement, which they again violated. He went on a third hunger strike for 43 days, which he ended after a health crisis.

The occupation again renewed his administrative detention for an additional six months on June 27. Palestinian human rights organizations called for international action to defend Samer in the face of the occupation’s impunity.

11 Palestinians, including 2 minors, seized by occupation soldiers on June 29-30

30 June 2013

The Palestine Information Centre reported on June 30, 2013 that Israeli occupation forces (IOF) kidnapped eleven people on Saturday night and Sunday morning throughout the West Bank.

Local sources told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that the IOF kidnapped a young man named Hisham Abu Sheikha from his home in Al-Khader town to the south of Bethlehem. Earlier on Saturday, two Palestinian boys, Attiya and Shadi Asakra, both 17, were seized by occupation forces in the Bethlehem village of Asakra.

In Aida refugee camp to the north of Bethlehem, the IOF stormed and ransacked the house of Hasan Mashayekh and handed his 25-year old son Seif a summons for interrogation from the Israeli intelligence in Gush Etzion settlement.

Three others citizens were also taken prisoners during raids at dawn on their homes in Tabaka village, south of Dura town in Al-Khalil.

Eyewitnesses told the PIC that the IOF raided other homes and established checkpoints in several villages near Dura town like the villages of Abu Asja, Sura, Kharsa.

Last night, the IOF kidnapped four young men near Tarqoumiya checkpoint in Al-Khalil and took him in chain to a detention center in Kiryat Arba settlement.

Palestinian journalist Osama Shahin’s administrative detention extended for six months

29 June 2013

Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS) said on Wednesday, that the Israeli Supreme Court has rejected an appeal submitted by the journalist Osama Hussein Shahin, 31, for the second time without reasons.

The PPS confirmed that the court refused the prisoner’s appeal and approved its previous order to renew his administrative detention for more 6 additional months.

Shahin was arrested in October 2012 where he was administratively held for 6 months that were extended for 6 additional months.

Shahin was an activist in prisoners’ issue and the director of Palestine Center for Prisoners’ Studies. He spent 5 years in Israeli jails. He suffers many health problems most notably asthma.

The center considered Shahin’s arrest an Israeli systematic revenge against Palestinian human rights activists who seek to expose Israeli crimes.

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