Irish activist begins hunger strike in Palestine

international | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Thursday September 02, 2004 01:37 by Donal - Galway Grassroots

According to the Israeli Prison Service, more than 2,900 Palestinian prisoners have joined the open-ended hunger strike that began on 15 August. The Palestinian Authority quotes a slightly higher figure.

A number of international activists currently in Palestine are taking part in solidarity actions. On Monday 30th of August all ISM activists in the West Bank fasted for the day. Every day for the past two weeks we have visited the solidarity tents which have been set up in every town. Every day there have been demonstrations in towns and villages all over the West Bank. We have also attended demonstrations at prisons inside Israel.

In Tulkarem, an Italian activist has been on hunger strike for two days and today, I will join the strike. I will spend 24 hours a day at the solidarity tent, meeting with the families of prisoners and hearing their stories.

The prisoners have submitted a list of demands, which include improved health and sanitary conditions, increased family visitation rights, an end to strip searches and to "arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings", among other things. They have said they will live only on fluids until their demands are met.

According to the International Committee of the Red Cross more than 8,000 prisoners are currently detained by Israel on security grounds. Of these, more than 90 are women and 360 are children, according to the UN Children's Fund

Four hundred and fifty prisoners are being held without charge under Military Order 1500, a relic of British rule in Palestine which allows Israeli authorities to detain an individual, adult or minor, for up to six months without bringing charges against him/her.

This time limit is seldom upheld, however, with detention being extrapolated into several years.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinian prisoners are political captives who have been arbitrarily imprisoned or detained under the broad banner of "security", according to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner's Society, about 800 prisoners are in need of medical treatment and 30 have been in solitary confinement for over two years. More than 2000 prisoners have been unable to visit their families under the pretext of "security", and those who can are not allowed to make any physical contact with them.

Even letters and books have been banned, making it impossible for prisoners who wish to continue with their education to do so from inside their cells.

In Israel, it is legally permissible to intern 20 inmates in a cell no larger than 5m long, 4m wide (20 square metre) and 3m high, including an open lavatory. The minimum standard in US and European prisons is 10.5 sqm for each detainee. Prisoners may be confined indefinitely to such cells for 23 hours a day.

In New York last week, the Bureau of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People said prisoners were routinely subjected to “inhumane conditions of incarceration, including arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings, humiliating strip searches, solitary confinement for excessive periods of time, and severe restrictions on family visits.” It voiced particular distress at reports of continued use of torture and other forms of ill-treatment of the detainees.

A recent report by the Israeli Public Committee Against Torture found a sharp rise in the "torture, ill treatment, humiliation and incarceration in inhuman conditions" of Palestinian detainees during the last year.

In response to the strike, the Israeli Prison Service imposed even further restrictions, removing radios and television sets from jail cells and cancelling all family visits.

Israeli Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi has said the prisoners can "starve to death" for all he cares.

"The prisoners can strike for a day, a month, even starve to death, as far as I am concerned. We will ward off this strike and it will be as if it never happened," he said on Friday, August 13.

As Mahmud Ziadi, representative of the Families of Palestinian Political Prisoners put it "all they are asking is for their children and wives to be able to visit them; they are asking for sun and medicine. Instead the Prison Service issues racist declarations against them."

The families of the Palestinian political prisoners ask members of the international community to join in solidarity by organizing an International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners on September 4, 2004.