Ramallah, Feb 24 (Prensa Latina) Palestinians were called to take to the streets on March 1 in support of the more than 4,500 compatriots who are detained in Israeli prisons, the Prisoners Club announced today.
The president of that organization, Qadura Fares, stated that the objective of the day of protests is to send a clear message to the Government of Tel Aviv to demand an end to punitive measures against inmates.
In parallel, many Palestinian prisoners will go on a 24-hour hunger strike.
Tension in prisons has escalated since September 2021, after the escape of six Palestinians from the northern Gilboa maximum security prison.
Although they were caught after a massive manhunt, Tel Aviv officials applied numerous punitive measures against the rest of the detainees such as visiting bans and the reduction of time in the yard, which led to clashes and strikes.
After weeks of clashes, agreements were reached between the parties, but the decision of the Israeli Prison Service to break them provoked a new wave of protests, which includes the refusal to stand up at the morning review, the return of meals and the refusal to go out into the yard.
As part of these actions, since January 1, some 500 detainees have maintained a boycott of the Israeli military courts, rejecting their imprisonment under the controversial policy of administrative detention.
Criticized by the UN and human rights groups, so-called administrative detention is used by Israel to arrest Palestinians for renewable intervals that typically range from three to six months on the basis of undisclosed evidence that even the defendant’s lawyer is prohibited from seeing.
Numerous inmates systematically go on indefinite hunger strikes to denounce their case and force the Israeli authorities to release them.
The issue of prisoners is very sensitive in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, since according to official sources, 40 percent of the men living in the occupied territories were detained by Tel Aviv troops at some point in their lives.
jf/rob
