(Photo: Sharif Solaiman/Addameer)
Khader Adnan is on the 53rd day of hunger strike. Passing his 42nd day, the Palestinian political prisoner entered the fatal high-risk stage of starvation, where he is risking cardiac arrest and the inevitable shutting-down of major organs. The Palestine News Network reports what awaits Adnan:
[A]fter the 42nd day of a hunger strike, it is expected that individuals will begin to lose their hearing and vision, and suffer bleeding in the gums, intestines, and esophagus. The body will gradually stop functioning. After the 45th day, there is a high risk of death due to vascular system collapse and/or cardiac arrest.
Responding to the political prisoner’s dire health condition, advocates are desperately calling for the termination of the graduate student's detention. In the past 48 hours Samidoun, the Palestinian political prisoners solidarity network petitioned, pressured, and demanded support for Adnan from Israeli embassies and U.S. officials. And though the pressure has not yielded life-saving intervention--life-saving--the narrative of Adnan’s imprisonment without charge or trial is circulating. Prisoner advocacy organization Addameer chronicled the detention:
Each day, Khader was subjected to two three-hour interrogation sessions. Throughout the interrogation sessions, his hands were tied behind his back on a chair with a crooked back, causing extreme pain to his back. Khader notes that the interrogators would leave him sitting alone in the room for half an hour or more. Khader also suffered from additional ill-treatment. During the second week of interrogation, one interrogator pulled his beard so hard that it caused his hair to rip off. The same interrogator also took dirt from the bottom of his shoe and rubbed it on Khader’s mustache as a means of humiliation.
On Friday evening 30 December 2011, Khader was transferred to Ramleh prison hospital because of his deteriorating health from his hunger strike. He was placed in isolation in the hospital, where he was subject to cold conditions and cockroaches throughout his cell. He has refused any medical examinations since 25 December, which was one week after he stopped eating and speaking. The prison director came to speak to Khader in order to intimidate him further and soldiers closed the upper part of his cell’s door to block any air circulation, commenting that they would “break him” eventually.
To date, no one in a position of agency to release Adnan has made a public statement, other than confirming his internment. On January 8, a judge issued a fourth-month extension of administration detention. Like others held in this legal limbo, Adnan's incarceration is predicated upon secret evidence that the prison advocacy Adameer explains, is "collected by Israeli authorities and available to the military judge but not to the detainee or his lawyer."
Bobby Sands. (Photo: PA/PA Wire)
A fate like Bobby Sands?
It appears that there is now no way out for Adnan. His hunger strike now is just 13 days short of the duration of Irish republican Bobby Sands's strike. Protesting inhumane treatment and the de-politicizing of his prisoner designation, Sands along with a hundred others engaged in a hunger strike for 66 days. The strike was called off after 10 died, and support never arrived from the imprisoning politicians. Even at the end of the Irish political prisoners' lives, Margaret Thatcher, who held the key to the republicans’ cell, was cold. A day after Sands' death the then British prime minister announced, "terrorism is a crime and always will be a crime."
Conversely, Israeli politicians remain silent on Adnan's case, the longest running one-man hunger strike. Aside from remarks by the prison service on a possible force-feeding, it is as if Adnan does not exist. But, he does exist.
British officials did not intervene to save Sands, a likely path for the quiet Israelis. But, in 1981 civil society’s screams for the Irish national hero broke glass. Following Sands' death, direct actions took place across the world, including U.S. port workers refusing to unload British good in a 24-hour boycott.
If Adnan is let to perish, may his passing also break the glass.
Samidoun: TAKE ACTION NOW!
1. Call and demand the release of Khader Adnan, who has not been charged with any crime but instead is being held under Administrative Detention. Call the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC (1.202.364.5500) OR your local Embassy (for a list, click here).
Call the office of Jeffrey Feltman, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs (1.202.647.7209)
Demand that Jeffrey Feltman bring this issue urgently to his counterparts in Israel and raise the question of Khader Adnan’s administrative detention.
2. Organize a protest outside your local Israeli Embassy (for a list, click here).
Post your local actions to the Khader Adnan facebook page
Tweet Now: Take Action Now for #KhaderAdnan http://samidoun.ca/?p=133 #Palestine #Israel
3. Other Actions
* To contact the authorities within Israel, see Addameer’s appeal.
* Other ideas for actions and a letter-writing template can be found on this action alert from Samidoun (The Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network).
* See Amnesty International’s report and appeal to action.
You know what’s the sad thing? The Israelis who are responsible for holding him in prison camp conditions are probably celebrating his impending death. I appreciate that he’s taking a stand against the injustice at the hands of a cruel society that will never treat him as a human being with human rights, but in eliciting sympathy for a non-Jew from the greater Israeli society, you might as well be trying to squeeze blood from a heart made of stone.
RE: “It appears that there is now no way out for Adnan. His hunger strike
now is just 13 days short of the duration of Irish republican Bobby Sands’s strike.” ~ Deger
ON THE NATURE OF BEING A “CONSCIOUS PARIAH”*:
“Hunger”, 2008, NR, 96 minutes
Acclaimed visual artist Steve McQueen makes his feature film debut with this gripping drama (and Independent Spirit Award Best Foreign Film contender) that depicts the events surrounding a hunger strike staged by a group of IRA prisoners during their 1981 incarceration in Britain’s Prison Maze. Led by IRA volunteer-poet Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), the strikers waged their six-week-long protest in an attempt to be acknowledged as political prisoners and to improve the prison’s conditions.
Netflix Availability: Streaming, DVD and Blu-ray
NETFLIX LISTING – link to movies.netflix.com
HUNGER Trailer (2008) – The Criterion Collection (VIDEO, 01:53) – link to youtube.com
P.S. IMPORTANT NOTE: Do not watch this film anywhere near mealtime. To say the least, it does not “whet the appetite”. At least, not for food! Also, a ‘barf bag’ might be advisable when viewing this film.
* A RELATED FACEBOOK GROUP
Name – Hannah Arendt: Integrity Personified
Category - Common Interest, Beliefs & Causes
Description - A group for individuals who greatly respect the legendary Hannah Arendt, and who admire the immense integrity her life epitomized. Oh, come, all ye “conscious pariahs”, Joyful and triumphant! Oh, come ye, oh, come ye…
LINK – link to facebook.com
SAMPLE
PLEASE SEND APPEALS TO:
Military Judge Advocate General
Brigadier General Danny Efroni
6 David Elazar Street
Hakirya, Tel Aviv,
Israel
Fax: +972 3 569 4526
Email: avimn@idf.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Judge Advocate
General
Commander of the IDF – West Bank
Major-General Avi Mizrahi
GOC Central Command
Military Post 01149
Battalion 877
Israel Defense Forces,
Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 5724
Email: avimn@idf.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Major-General AviMizrahi
And copies to:
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence
Ehud Barak
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909,
Israel
Fax: +972 3 69 16940 / 62757
Email: ehudb@knesset.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Minister
Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.
WASHINGTON (Embassy)
3514 INTERNATIONAL DR. N.W.
WASHINGTON D.C. 20008
Email: INFO@WASHINGTON.MFA.GOV.IL
Israeli Mission to the United Nations – New York
NEW YORK/U.N (Delegation)
800 SECOND AVENUE
NEW YORK U.N 10017
Email: INFO@NEWYORK.MFA.GOV.IL
I was wondering when someone would cover this story. I don’t care if his death breaks glass…I JUST WANT HIM TO LIVE TO SEE A FREE PALESTINE!!!!!!!!!
I hope hell holds a place for those allowing this to happen!
Feltman help this man? I won’t hold my breath. Obama watched the slaughter of children in Gaza as President-elect and deferred to Bush for comment!
This is a man who is willing to die for his beliefs. I must say that they are not beliefs that I would die for. But without doubt, the Zionist are quite happy to kill him for this. It is an amazing development. All of America, it is now our destiny to kill Palestinians that resist Israeli oppression. Really??
Paul Auster:
B’tselem:
Paul Auster reminds me of David Mamet . Tribal hysteric . All respect lost for them
Obama of the parish of hope and change signed some law that allows the US to detain citizens indefinitely without charge along the lines of the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians . It is the end of 900 years of Magna Carta .
“The army must release all the administrative detainees or prosecute them, in accordance with due process. ”
Due process doesn’t exist any longer in Israel for non Jews. It’s pre medieval.
Thank you for this alert
@Seafoid: it was actually George W. Bush that ended habeus corpus, though I believe you”re correct that Obama signed it into permanent law.
The whole world is trembling at plucky little Israel holds the nuclear sword of Damocles (sic) above our heads.