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Israel still holds 1000s of political prisoners, including 27 Palestinian members of Parliament

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Today IMEU held a phone conference with three experts on Palestinian prisoners: Sahar Francis, Director of Addameer: Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association; Ruchama Marton, founder of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel; and Bill van Esveld of Human Rights Watch. Some basic facts about the prisoners:

How many prisoners are under administrative detention?

FRANCIS: There are actually 308 administrative detainees in the Israeli prisons. Of course, 1000s of Palestinians have been subjected to it. During the Second intifada, more than 2500 were held under administrative detention. And administrative detention [facilitateds] torture because the prisoner never knows when he will be released or what he has to argue in order to be released….

National Public Radio just called administrative detention controversial. But is it illegal?

VAN ESVELD: The idea that you can lock up 100s of people at any given time– and over the years 100s and 1000s of people– without any due process rights, really turns human rights law on its head. The exception has become the rule in the Israeli case, and administrative detention has become the ‘go to solution’ [in case in which authorities] don’t have the evidence… It shouldn’t take prisoners and detainees putting their lives at risk to make Israel wake up to the idea that this whole regime of administrative detention runs afoul of human rights law.

What is the total number of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prison, and why are they there?

FRANCIS: There are 4700 prisoners, including 220 minors under 18, seven women, 308 administrative detainees, and 27 Palestinian M.P.s [members of Parliament].

Eight hundred of those prisoners are in for life [presumably for more serious offenses]. The majority of prisoners were arrested for political reasons. Being a member of [almost any] Palestinian party is illegal. Demonstrations against the wall or against settlements are illegal. From 1967 till now, 800,000 Palestinians have been arrested and imprisoned. Addameer estimates that about 40 percent of the Palestinian male population has been arrested at least once in their lives.

How does Israel justify these punishments?

VAN ESVELD: Israel’s official position is that it has no obligations to Palestinians in the occupied territories– no human rights obligations. The UN Human Rights Committee has consistently said that administrative detention is practiced in an unlawful way. Israel says that it is [carried out] for security [purposes] and it has no human rights obligations [to people under occupation].

What is the difference between this hunger strike and predecessors?

FRANCIS: It’s a very different atmosphere. [Because there are many] other campaigns in the occupied territories, with the support of international activists. This time the role of the prisoners is taken very seriously [internationally].

This strike has gotten global attention. What about coverage inside Israel of the hunger strikers?

MARTON: I was in a coffee shop. I asked the waiter who was really nice [what he thought about the hunger strikers] He said, ‘Is is still going on? What do they want?’ He didn’t know…. We don’t have the exposure that we hope to have. [Here are strikers going 77 days without food] risking their lives, and there are very small echoes of this in the Israeli media.

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MARTON: I was in a coffee shop. I asked the waiter who was really nice [what he thought about the hunger strikers] He said, ‘Is is still going on? What do they want?’ He didn’t know…. We don’t have the exposure that we hope to have. [Here are strikers going 77 days without food] risking their lives, and there are very small echoes of this in the Israeli media.

On Israeli attitudes to the hunger strikers and Palestinian prisoners in general, see Amira Hass: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/for-israel-punishing-palestinians-is-not-enough-1.427649

From Hass’ article:

In faraway, frozen Finland – otherwise known as the infirmary of Ramle Prison – the lives of four detainees who have been on a hunger strike for at least 60 days hang in the balance. Nearly 2,000 inmates in the Nafha, Ashkelon, Gilboa and other prisons around Israel have been on hunger strike for two weeks. The very fact of their decision to refuse food and their willingness to risk being punished by the authorities stands as a reminder of their humanity.

The Israel Prison Service does not have to make much of an effort to conceal this mass action from Israeli eyes. The great majority of Israelis label all incarcerated Palestinians as conscienceless murderers or common terrorists, at the least. They have little interest in acts of personal or collective courage on the part of Palestinian detainees that serve as reminders that they are human beings.

Administrative detainees have been held without trial for years under emergency regulations inspired by the British Mandate. It’s not important. Hundreds of prisoners from the Gaza Strip haven’t seen their families for six or more years. Why should anyone care?

…

Israelis are not satisfied with the various measures to worsen their prison conditions. When it comes to Palestinians, punishment is not enough. Prison must also be never-ending revenge that extends what Israel tries to do outside its walls as well: to break up the collective, to weaken the individual, to deter others from resistance to the foreign regime.

The hunger strike is, in effect, a protest against these goals. Not all of the Palestinian prisoners have joined it. In prison, as outside of it, Palestinian political and social cohesion has declined, and many of the inmates lack the cultural and social awareness of their predecessors. Nevertheless, the hunger strike underlines the fundamentally political nature of the collective of Palestinians incarcerated in Israel.

When Gilad Shalit was in captivity in Gaza, the cancelation of visits for Gazan prisoners in Israel was presented as “proportionate pressure.” After his release, Israelis don’t care that this sort of proportionality goes on, and that family visits were not restored. So what? Why should we care that Palestinians are kept in isolation for years on end and barred from seeing their families for three, five or 10 years? Any normal prison administration would welcome prisoners’ demand to go back to studying through the Open University. Studies reduce stress and tension levels in prison. But the name of the game here is submission.

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Van Esveld–Israels position is that it has no human rights obligations to Palestinians in Occupied Territory, the Geneva conventions 1949 and the Hague Regulations 1907 are both mandatory on Israel, it is incumbent on other signatories to those treaties to ensure the Palestinians have those rights and to take steps against Israel for such flagrant abuses of them. The European- Israel trade agreements have within them clauses on human rights which must be observed, if only they had the political will to enforce them, as one of Israels biggest export markets they could apply enormous pressure.

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in a way they hold the whole world hostage

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Mahmoud Sarsak, a member of Palestine’s national football team, was arrested in 2009 on the way to join the squad. He’s never been charged. He has been on a hunger strike for 58 days now and has refused to stop.

Also: Son OF Arab MK Held For Refusing Military Service
http://www.imemc.org/article/63490?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PalestineNews+%28Palestine+News%29

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By the way all: the IMEU internet radio interview that Phil links to at the top of the article is available as a podcast, including their entire archive of interviews:

IMEU | Blog Talk Radio Feed

Always a good listen.

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