[Ppnews] Palestinian Political Prisoners (Palestine Awareness Week)

[Political Prisoner News]

Palestinian Political Prisoners: The Prisoners of Freedom

Political imprisonment has been a major tactic of war against the
Palestinian people by the Zionists. Over 9400 Palestinians are
currently held as political prisoners in Zionist jails, including 435
children and 116 women. 20% of all Palestinians in the West Bank and
Gaza, and 40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank and Gaza, have spent
time in prison or detention. It robs families of fathers, mothers,
brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, of sources of economic, physical
and emotional sustenance, and it robs the entire community of some of
its most effective and principled leaders and organizers.

Since the expansion of the occupation in 1967, over 650,000
Palestinians have been detained by the zionist occupier. This amounts
to one of every five Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza facing
detention at some point during her or his life. In the past five years
alone, over 4000 Palestinian children have been arrested or detained.
The policies of illegal arrest and detention continues unabated, with
mass arrests erasing any decrease in the total number of prisoners
resulting from occasional and much over-hyped "goodwill gestures" by
Israel, such as when it released a few hundred prisoners in February
2005. In late September 2005 the zionist military abducted an
additional 500 - 700 Palestinians in the West Bank. The International
Middle East Media Center reported that the Ofer Israeli military court
transferred 200 of these detainees to administrative detention,
without trial, for periods ranging from four to six months.

As an illegal occupier, Israel creates and enforces illegitimate laws
which criminalize resistance to an immoral and illegal occupation.
Israel wishes to oppress with impunity. It has created a system of
military rule whereby a military commander issues military orders by
which Palestinians must comply, or face abduction. The arrests take
place, often in mass campaigns, by the invader on Palestinian soil.
Just as the occupation is a violation of human rights, so is the
arrest and detention of those struggling against that occupation.

In additional to the illegality of the detention itself, Israel
further violates human rights and international law with systematic
practices of torture. The world was horrified when it caught a minor
glimpse of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. This same style of torture, and
much worse, is practiced regularly against Palestinian political
prisoners. The Palestinian Prisoners' Society estimated in July 2003
that 90% of all Palestinian prisoners are subjected to torture. Nearly
200 prisoners died in detention as a result of torture or medical
negligence since 1967.

The widespread use of illegal detention by the colonial occupier has
lead to an outgrowth of prisoner support organizations. One such
organization is Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights
Association. The word "addameer," Arabic for "conscience," reflects
the work of this group which was formed in 1992. Addameer provides
psychological, legal and media support to prisoners, and support to
the families. Through its campaigns and documentation efforts, it
works to raise awareness of the situation of Palestinian political
prisoners.

Just as activists in the U.S. face oppression by all levels of
government when struggling for human rights, so do the activists of
Addameer (http://www.addameer.org/) and other political prisoner
support associations. Providing direct support to prisoners is made
difficult by an Israeli imposed ban on travel to 1948 Palestine.
Although it is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention detainees
abducted in territories occupied in 1967 to be transferred to areas
outside of those territories, 21 of Israel's 24 detention facilities
are in 1948 Palestine. Since Israel denies the right to most
Palestinians living in the West Bank or Gaza to travel outside of
these territories, political prisoners held in these 21 facilities are
widely denied access to their families and lawyers.

Addameer reports that the conditions of detention are appalling. The
Ketziot Military Detention Camp in the Negev desert is a revival of a
prison camp left over from the pre-1948 British mandate era. Rather
than housing detainees in modern facilities, the occupier provides
nothing but threadbare tents to protect prisoners from the weather
year round.

The detention centers are notorious for overcrowding. Hardly a pillar
of humane treatment of prisoners, even the U.S. has a minimum standard
of providing 10.5 square meters per detainee. Israeli Prison Ordinance
permits the holding of 20 detainees in a cell of 5 by 4 meters, and 3
meters high, with an open lavatory. This equates to 1 square meter
(about 3 feet by 3 feet) per abductee!

Palestinian political prisoners are systematically denied access to
proper medical treatment. In many instance the detainees are wounded
during their capture. In these instances and all other medical
situations, Palestinians are provided nothing but aspirin. They are
not provided a change of clothing and instead must wear their
blood-soiled clothing for months. Palestinians requiring surgery or
other hospital treatment are put off for months.

Palestinian political prisoners are subjected to the following forms
of torture: sleep deprivation, shackling in painful positions,
beatings, physical and psychological humiliation, strangulation,
exposure to extreme temperatures, plus many other documented methods.

The practice of administrative detention is used by Israel to hold
Palestinians indefinitely without ever bringing charges or holding a
trial. Israel has its own international-law-violating regulations
under which they permit themselves to hold Palestinians on secret
evidence, making it literally impossible for the detainee to exercise
the right of defense.

In the past, Palestinians have spent up to 8 years in administrative
detention, without charges or a trial ever being held against them.
The Palestine News Network reported on October 6, 2005 that Raslan
Talal Thouqan, 31, from the Balata Refugee Camp, recently had a
4-month administrative detention order renewed by the occupying power
for the 9th time in a row. Mr. Thouqn, father to a daughter who has
never seen his face but in photos, has been held without charge or
trial since November 4, 2002.

There are currently 600 Palestinian political prisoners held as
administrative detainees. A recent report by the International Middle
East Media Center indicates that Israel has offered "voluntary
deportation" to some detainees as a condition of release. After 57
years of displacement and occupation, Israel continues its efforts to
transfer all Palestinians out of Palestine.

The zionist occupier uses administrative detention and other forms of
political imprisonment as a means of making life unbearable for
Palestinians who defy occupation by continuing to live in Palestine.

Political imprisonment is often an attack upon political leaders and
organizers. From local political activists to major political leaders,
political imprisonment serves as a mechanism for attacking the
Palestinian national movement, in an attempt to deprive it of its
leaders and activists. Therefore, it is not surprising that
Palestinian prisoners themselves have become active organizers within
the prisons, forming political associations and uniting in hunger
strikes and other forms of protest against torture and brutality.
Palestinian political prisoners, within the Zionist jails, have
remained active, playing a leading role in the Palestinian national
movement.

In March 2006, the Zionist military attacked Jericho Prison, where
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Secretary Ahmad
Sa'adat, as well as five other Palestinian political prisoners, was
being held by the Palestinian Authority in an illegitimate deal that
violated Palestinian law, under U.S. and British guards. The Zionist
state attacked the prison and abducted Sa'adat and his fellow
prisoners, shortly after his U.S. and British guards walked away from
the prison, leaving it open to the Zionist assault.

Sa'adat's imprisonment, like that of other political leaders and
activists, is an attempt to destroy and attack the Palestinian
political and popular organizations and institutions, through
imprisoning - or assassinating - their leadership. Nevertheless,
Palestinian prisoners have remained active themselves, and their
entire families and communities mobilized, demanding freedom for these
prisoners, the prisoners of freedom - imprisoned for struggling for
freedom for Palestine.

In Palestine '48, activists in Palestinian political associations have
also been targeted for imprisonment. In recent years, leaders and
activists of the Islamic Movement and Abnaa el-Balad have been
imprisoned and held as political prisoners through the present day.
Palestinian communities in exile have also been subject to repression,
and often political imprisonment, in host countries; for example, in
Britain, Samar Alami and Jawad Botmeh have been imprisoned for nearly
10 years on false charges. In the United States, Palestinian
communities - as well as the broad Arab and Muslim communities - have
come under severe attack, targeted for investigations, immigration
raids, and politically-motivated charges of "material support" for
Palestinian political organizations labeled illegal by the U.S.
government. Sami al-Arian, the Los Angeles 8, Muhammed Salah, Sameeh
Hamoudeh, and many others have been jailed, deported, or face jail and
deportation because of their work as Palestinian activists in the
Palestinian community.

The struggle for the freedom of the prisoners is central to the
struggle for the liberation of Palestine. Within the prisons of the
Zionist regimes are held those who struggle for freedom for Palestine
and exercise their right of self-determination, to free their land.
Their imprisonment has been an ongoing assault on Palestinian life
outside the prisons as well, leaving deep scars on its survivors and
on their communities. The release of all Palestinian and Arab
prisoners from Zionist jails is a necessity.

Sa'adat, after his abduction, communicated in a letter to the
Palestinian people that expresses not only his aspirations, but those
of all political prisoners: "I salute the Palestinian people and their
struggle and have full confidence that this people will accomplish its
goals of liberation...our life, work and struggle continues. Wherever
I am, I will continue to fight."

Just as it denies Palestinian refugees their Right to Return home, the
colonial settler zionist entity denies Palestinians countless rights,
including the right to struggle against oppression, the right to
organize and the right to freedom. Palestinian political prisoners
have a right to justice. They are prisoners of freedom, and they must
be freed!

For more information on political prisoners:
http://www.newjerseysolidarity.org/resources/palestinianprisoners.html

The Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977
www.freedomarchives.org 
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