Palestine: Number of Hunger-Striking Detainees Could Reach 3,000

Posted on April 24, 2012 by denverabc

From the International Middle East Media Center

The number of hunger-striking Palestinian political prisoners, held by Israel in various prisons, detention camps and interrogation facilities around the country, will likely reach 3000 as waves of detainees intend to join the strike, demanding their internationally-guaranteed rights.

Dozens of detainees are currently on hunger-strike that officially started last Tuesday; the strike, described as “the battle of empty bowels”, aims at ending Israel’s illegal administrative detention polices, halting all violations against the detainees and their families, and improving the living conditions of the detainees.

Head of the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), Qaddoura Fares, told the Maan News Agency that the first group of detainees, held under administrative detention without charges, have reached the “no return point” as they have been on hunger-strike since 56 days, and insist on not breaking their strike until they are released.
(more…)

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23 Palestinian Detainees Holding Hunger-Strike

Posted on March 20, 2012 by denverabc

From IMEMC

The Ad-Dameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association reported, Monday, that there are 23 detainees who are currently on hunger-strike protesting the illegal policies of Administrative Detention used by Israel to keep hundreds of detainees behind bars without charges.

“The time has come to end this illegal policy, to stop the so-called secret files that keep the detainees imprisoned without charges under the pretext of posing danger to the state”, detainee Mohammad Abu Arab, 23, from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, said while at the Ofer Military Court on Monday.

Abu Arab, spokesperson of the Committee for Administrative Detainees in Majiddo prison, said that 23 detainees has been hunger-strike since several days now, adding that the striking detainees are not only those who are held under administrative detention orders.

Abu Arab has been on hunger-strike since 11 days now. One of the striking detainees is elected legislator Ahmad Hajj Ali.

He told his lawyer that the detainees started returning meals as the first step before
declaring an open-ended hunger-strike on April, 1, 2012, demanding an end to the illegal Israeli administrative detention policies.
(more…)

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Palestinian detainee ends hunger strike

Posted on February 21, 2012 by denverabc

From Al Jazeera

Israel agrees to free Khader Adnan on April 17 as part of a deal to end his 66-day fast over his illegal detention.

A Palestinian detained by Israel, Khader Adnan, has agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike as part of a deal under which he will be released without charge, sources tell Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El-Shamayleh, reporting from Adnan’s hometown of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, quoted officials as saying on Tuesday that “Adnan has informed his lawyers that he has suspended his hunger strike and agreed to the offer to serve his sentence until April 17″.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Supreme Court earlier told Al Jazeera that based on the deal reached between Adnan’s lawyers and the Israeli justice ministry, he would end his fast in return for the court’s decision to “erase” his file and release him on April 17, ending his ”administrative detention”.

Israel’s supreme court had been expected to hear an urgent appeal by Adnan’s lawyer later on Tuesday, but the hearing was cancelled after news of the deal became public.

“This man had no charges until now, no interrogation came up with any conclusions, no evidence against him. This is the truth, this is the reality,” Jawad Bulus, one of Adnan’s lawyers, told Al Jazeera.

“After three weeks of severe interrogation they shifted him as administrative detainee, where no charges could be faced. The only phrase that came out of them is that this man is a prominent activist in the Islamic Jihad of Palestine, which can be said against anybody in the world.”

Read the rest here.

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Hundreds in Israeli jails join hunger strike

Posted on February 13, 2012 by denverabc

From Al Jazeera

Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have joined a fellow inmate on a hunger strike, after human rights groups reported the original protester’s life was in danger.

Khader Adnan, widely believed to be a leader of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, has been refusing food since he was detained on December 17, without trial or charge.

Jamil Khatib, Adnan’s lawyer, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that an appeal against his detention will likely be decided by an Israeli military court on Monday.

On Thursday, Adnan appealed his detention without charge before an Israeli military judge sitting in a special session in hospital.

His hunger strike, longer than any Palestinian prisoner before him, according to Palestinian officials, is in protest over what he calls his unjust detention and mistreatment by Israeli authorities.

Human Rights Watch on Saturday called on Israel to “immediately charge or release” him.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that Israel should “immediately end its unlawful administrative detention” of Khader Adnan and “charge or release him”.

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Separated as prisoners, reunited in Gaza on release

Posted on December 15, 2011 by denverabc
14 December 2011

On 19 December, the second and last group of Palestinian prisoners to be exchanged for a captured Israeli soldier is expected to be released. The 550 men slated for release will at long last taste freedom after years — for some, decades — behind bars. Their stories will likely be similar to the 447 freed in October.

While imprisoned Israeli authorities did virtually everything to obliterate the detainees’ moorings to reality and their connections to their culture, families and fellow prisoners — from prohibiting visits for months at a time, to forcing repeated moves to disrupt any new-found friendships, to imposing solitary confinement, sometimes for years at a time. Some prisoners crack. One freed prisoner I met during my recent trip to Gaza had been isolated for 15 years; he seemed unable to sustain a conversation with anyone else, instead muttering softly to himself virtually nonstop.

But what also stands out despite these unimaginable hardships is prisoners’ tenacity in finding small, yet powerful ways to resist and hold on to their sense of identity and purpose. This is the story of Samer Abu Seir and Loai Odeh — two men who met in prison and have remained friends ever since — but they speak for so many others. (more…)

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Ahmad Sa’adat in Hospital, continuing Strike

Posted on October 21, 2011 by denverabc

From  FreeAhmadSaadat.org: Ahmad Sa’adat, imprisoned Palestinian national leader, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, remained on hunger strike on October 19, 2011 even as he was hospitalized, and sent congratulations to the prisoners liberated as part of the prisoner swap agreement. Due to the hunger strikers’ tenacity and resilience, the prisoners’ leadership inside the prisons has achieved a victory in its hunger strike including an end to the use of isolation and solitary confinement; Sa’adat’s strike is continuing in order to ensure that victory is fully implemented.

Sa’adat was moved to Ramleh prison hospital after 20 days of hunger strike, on October 16. He has now been on hunger strike for 23 days, has lost well over 10 kilos (22 pounds), and has been experiencing serious health problems, including fainting and vomiting yellow bile, after Israeli Prison Administration officials refused to allow him salt, which, along with water, were the only items he would consume during his hunger strike.

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Prisoner Hunger Strike Updates

Posted on October 13, 2011 by denverabc

California Prisoner Hunger Strike

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Blog: With the hunger strike reaching its third week, the medical conditions of hunger strikers are getting worse by the day. We need to work together to effectively pressure CA Governor Jerry Brown to intervene in the CDCR’s handling of the strike. It’s up to us to make sure the prisoners’ five core demands are implemented immediately and in good faith.

Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity is calling for a massive flood of phone calls to Governor Jerry Brown. Help us make 160,000 phone calls to Governor Jerry Brown by Wednesday October 19th!

Palestinian Prisoner Hunger Strike

Free Ahamd Sa’adat: Palestinian prisoners have entered their third week of hunger strike. After two weeks of hunger strike, physical symptoms become increasingly severe and prisoners’ lives and health are increasingly at risk. As prisoners have put their lives and bodies on the line to defend the rights of themselves and their people, international support and solidarity is continually escalating and much-needed.

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Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike

Posted on September 30, 2011 by denverabc

Developments on Palestinian Prisoners’ Hunger Strike – Action Needed

Solidarity with Palestinian prisoners is more urgent than ever. Since the announcement ofPalestinian prisoners’ hunger strike against the isolation of Ahmad Sa’adat and all other prisoners held in solitary confinement, and against torture and humiliation for prisoners and their families and visitors, Israeli prison officials have stepped up their threats against Palestinian prisoners participating in the hunger strike.

The strike begins today, Tuesday, September 27. The Israeli Minister of Internal Security, at a meeting in Ramon and Naqab Prisons, has threatened to escalate repression against prisoners, threatening to move all prisoners participating in the hunger strike into isolation and solitary confinement, and to forcibly transfer those prisoners to other prisons in the occupation prison system. Prisoners are frequently transferred by occupation forces in an attempt to break up social bonds and disrupt organizing against prison repression. (more…)

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“Irvine 11″ Jury Finds All 10 Students Guilty

Posted on September 24, 2011 by denverabc

From the Los Angeles Times

After more than two days of deliberation, an Orange County jury on Friday found 10 Muslim students guilty of two misdemeanors to conspire and then disrupt a February 2010 speech at UC Irvine last year by the Israeli ambassador to the United States.

There was crying as the verdict was read in Superior Court Judge Peter J. Wilson’s courtroom. The students showed no visible emotion, although they hugged each afterward. Some also stormed out.

In a case that garnered national attention over free-speech rights, the trial centered on conflicting views of who was being censored. Prosecutors argued that Ambassador Michael Oren was “shut down” when his speech was interrupted by students who took turns shouting preplanned phrases in a crowded UC Irvine ballroom.

Read the rest here.

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US Dept of Treasury Freezes Palestinian Solidarity Activist’s Bank Accounts

Posted on May 10, 2011 by denverabc

By Kevin Gosztola

Here is the press release just out from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression. It indicates that this is actually much more sinister than was thought initially. The Department of Treasury is actually behind the freezing of funds.

On Friday, May 6, the U.S. government froze the bank accounts of Hatem Abudayyeh and his wife, Naima. It appears that this is being done by the Department of Treasury (Office of Foreign Assets Control).

Hatem Abudayyeh is one of 23 activists from Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Chicago, and his home was raided by the FBI in September of last year. Neither Hatem Abudayyeh nor Naima Abudayyeh have been charged with any crime. One of the bank accounts frozen was exclusively in Naima Abudayyeh’s name.

Joe Iosbaker of the National Committee to Stop FBI Repression said, “We are appalled at the government’s attempt to restrict the family’s access to its finances. Not only does the government’s action seriously disrupt the lives of the Abudayyehs and their five-year-old daughter, but it represents an attack on Chicago’s Arab community and activist community and the fundamental rights of Americans to freedom of speech.”

Joe added, “Apparently OFAC can block your assets pending an investigation on charges of “material support for a foreign terrorist organization” without a hearing. It’s a bit like a chapter out of George Orwell, they don’t need any evidence to freeze your assets and thus far they won’t even acknowledge that they are the source of the freeze. In the case of these activists, assets means money for food and rent.”

Read the rest here.

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