Another Palestinian political prisoner near death as the ‘battle of the stomachs’ rages

by on June 21, 2012 6
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Posters in support of Akram Rikhawi

Where is the mass Palestinian non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation? That’s what those so-smug liberal journalists like Friedman and Kristof ask. However, when it comes they do not see it, if they do see it, they do not write about it.  Maybe it is not exactly the protest they envisioned.

Akram Rikhawi, who has been on a hunger-strike for 71 days, is in imminent danger of death.  Rikhawi is requesting that the Israeli Prison Service release him on humanitarian grounds due to declining health.  Rikhawi, who has long suffered from asthma and diabetes, has been in an Israeli prison since 2004. The Palestinian prisoner rights organization, Addameer, is demanding that Rikhawi be immediately admitted to a civilian hospital so that he may receive the appropriate care.

According to a June 20th posting on the Addameer web site:

Addameer and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel) reiterate their grave concern for Akram Rikhawi, who continues to face an imminent threat to his life on his 70th day of hunger strike today. Addameer lawyer Mona Neddaf was able to visit him yesterday in Ramleh prison medical clinic, though independent doctors from PHR-Israel are still being denied regular access to him since last visiting on 6 June.

Ms. Neddaf noted following her visit that Akram is extremely tired and weak and now weighs only 49 kilos. Furthermore, since 16 June he is refusing any vitamins and fluids through an IV. Though he is sustaining himself on water alone, Ms. Neddaf was troubled to observe that even drinking water is now very difficult for him and he is only able to consume approximately one liter per day.

Akram has not received a visit from an independent doctor since 6 June, as Israeli authorities continually deny requests by PHR-Israel. Fifteen days have now passed since the PHR-Israel doctor determined that Akram is at immediate risk of death, due to the combination of his protracted hunger strike and his prior chronic conditions, including diabetes and asthma. On 14 June, the Israeli District Court rejected an appeal filed by PHR-Israel to transfer Akram to a civilian hospital, despite his deteriorating health. Akram emphasized to Ms. Neddaf his wishes to be immediately transferred to a civilian hospital for proper care.

Rikhawi shares a cell with Sameer al-Barq, who has been on a hunger strike for 32 days.  Al-Barq is an administrative detainee who is subject to indefinite incarceration without any charges brought against him.

In addition to Addameer’s demand for the hospitalization of Rikhawi, the organization wants the authorities to permit independent physicians to examine both prisoners and to allow their families visitation rights.

Rikhawi and al-Barq have not received the world-wide publicity generated by the case of Gazan footballer, Mahmoud Sarsak, who has reportedly won a July 10th prison release after a fast of more than 90 days.  Palestinian and international activists are hoping to generate the same level of publicity for other prisoners who are continuing their hunger strikes.

Although a month-long general hunger strike of as many as 2000 prisoners ended in an agreement with the Israeli authorities in May, dozens of prisoners continue to protest by refusing to eat. The current hunger strikers include a group of 20 teenagers who are being held in Hasharon prison. The youngsters, who began their strike on June 12, are protesting the harsh conditions of their imprisonment

About Ira Glunts

Ira Glunts is a retired college librarian who lives in Madison, NY.
Posted in Israel/Palestine

{ 6 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. Annie Robbins says:
    June 21, 2012 at 4:57 pm

    it’s almost unfathomable the idea of being imprisoned indefinitely having no idea how long you might be there with no charges either. that is a mental torture all on it’s own. it says he has served 2/3 of his sentence. it doesn’t say why he is imprisoned.

    71 days.

    link to google.com

    • Fredblogs says:
      June 22, 2012 at 1:02 pm

      This guy wasn’t imprisoned indefinitely. He was convicted in 2004, sentenced to 9 years in prison. He’ll be out in a year if he doesn’t starve himself to death. The reason your source mentions 2/3 is that that is the time you have to serve before being eligible for parole in cases like his. I guess the Israeli equivalent of a parole board didn’t think he should get out early.

  2. DICKERSON3870 says:
    June 21, 2012 at 5:22 pm

    RE: “Where is the mass Palestinian non-violent resistance to the Israeli occupation? That’s what those so-smug liberal journalists like Friedman and Kristof ask. However, when it comes they do not see it, if they do see it, they do not write about it.” ~ Ira Gluntz

    WHY LIBERAL JOURNALISTS DO NOT SEE (OR AT LEAST WRITE ABOUT) PALESTINIAN NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE:
    “Why the U.S. Media Barely Covered Brutal Right-Wing Race Riots in Tel Aviv”, By Joshua Holland, AlterNet, 6/17/12

    (excerpts)Several weeks back, Israel was rocked by a night of right-wing race-riots targeting African refugees. . .
    . . . The story received very little coverage in the. . . States. . .
    . . .Recently, Middle East analyst MJ Rosenberg appeared on the AlterNet Radio Hour to discuss the Tel Aviv riots, the stand-off over Iran’s nuclear program and how the Israel lobby helps narrow the discourse around Israel in the United States. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the discussion (you can listen to the whole interview here.)
    [EXCERPTS]
    • JOSHUA HOLLAND: From your inside perspective on that organization [AIPAC], what did you see as far as their tendency to call out criticism that they think is illegitimate or beyond the pale?
    • MJ ROSENBERG: They [AIPAC] consider all criticism of Israel illegitimate. It’s all beyond the pale. I suppose their definition would be if by some miracle someone like Joseph Lieberman made a statement critical of Israel it would be legitimate. When I worked there in the ’80s, back before everyone had computers, they had a big war room where all they did was assemble every bit of data on members of Congress, on candidates, but also on writers, celebrities – anyone in the public eye.
    In those days they would just put them in these folders. They always had at hand all this negative information — what they considered negative information — to tar people as being anti-Israel or even anti-Semitic. That stuff would be given to reporters if something came up. They were either initiated on their own to give to reporters or some reporter called them because they had a treasure trove of information.
    They still operate that way. In those days they did it directly; now they have former staffers and people who are close to the organization in the blogging world and political world who do it for them. They do it so much. When you read that someone is anti-Israel they’re the ones putting it out there. They’ve got the data. . .

    • JOSHUA HOLLAND: . . .Speaking of our discourse, I want to talk about an issue that came up recently that’s gotten very little coverage in the United States. There were a series of violent race riots by right-wing Israelis against African immigrants in Tel Aviv. This was a big deal. I was looking at the US coverage and it was amazing at how little attention these riots received. . .
    • MJ ROSENBERG: . . .This is a common thing. When there are bad things going on inside Israel — the way they treat the Palestinians and in this case the way they’re treating these poor African refugees from loathsome regimes who wind up in Israel — these stories are … I don’t want to say suppressed in the United States, but it’s striking how much coverage they get in Israel itself and how a paper like the New York Times is too scared to touch it.
    I have to say they’re afraid to touch it. The reason is when an American outlet talks about Israel in any way that’s negative, or reports on anything negative about Israel, they will be inundated with complaints from powerful people who will tell them, “why are you picking on Israel?” They always say, “why is it that China is doing all these things and you’re not writing about that?” Of course, they do. You even see it in the blogosphere too, the intimidation. If you aren’t utterly secure in your position in the media then you don’t mess with Israel. More to the point, you don’t mess with the people here who are Israel’s enforcers. . .

    ENTIRE (LIGHTLY EDITED) TRANSCRIPT – link to alternet.org

    • DICKERSON3870 says:
      June 21, 2012 at 6:33 pm

      P.S. ANOTHER REASON WHY LIBERAL JOURNALISTS DO NOT SEE (OR AT LEAST WRITE ABOUT) PALESTINIAN NON-VIOLENT RESISTANCE: Today’s “mainstream media” in the U.S. are more in the infotainment business than they are in the the hard news business, because that is what maximizes profits (or possibly in the case of today’s newspapers, at least minimizes losses).

      SEE: “Katharine Weymouth Steps in It Again”, By Jack Shafer, Slate, 09/15/09
      A ‘Washington Post’ piece gets spiked after its publisher expresses a preference for happier stories.

      (excerpts). . . Earlier this summer, Weymouth got in Dutch when a Post plan to sell off-the-record access to reporters and government officials at “salons” at Weymouth’s home was made public by ‘Politico’. Weymouth and Post Executive Editor Marcus Brauchli quickly canceled the events after much confusion over whether the paper had put its soul up for sale or whether miscommunication on the part of the management team was to blame.
      In the latest Weymouth miscue, she appears to have told freelancer Matt Mendelsohn, a friend of hers, that advertisers desired “happier stories, not ‘depressing’ ones” like the one he had been working on about a young woman whose arms and legs were amputated. His piece was ultimately killed by the Post’s Sunday magazine. The editor who killed it, Sydney Trent, told the Post‘s Howard Kurtz that the spike had been delivered “because it was clear the newspaper wanted to move in a different direction. That handwriting was very clearly on the wall.”
      Mendelsohn doesn’t blame Weymouth directly. . .
      . . . The controversy has both Weymouth and Brauchli standing on their chairs insisting that the church-state boundary at the paper was never, ever breached.
      Brauchli tells the Post, “We are not driven by what one of our business-side colleagues, or even our publisher, thinks about a piece. We follow a journalistic compass.” From Weymouth: “I would never interfere in an editorial decision and I had no intention of interfering.”
      Can you believe for a moment that Katharine Weymouth’s ideas don’t drive what the Post prints? Or, to put a finer point on it, that her ideas shouldn’t drive what the Post prints? Weymouth is the one in charge. . .

      ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to slate.com

      • DICKERSON3870 says:
        June 21, 2012 at 7:01 pm

        RE: “Today’s ‘mainstream media’ in the U.S. are
        more in the infotainment business than they are in the the hard news business, because that is what maximizes profits (or possibly in the case of today’s newspapers, at least minimizes losses).” – me (above)

        FOR INSTANCE, SEE: “The Washington Post’s dependence on the government it covers”, By Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, 4/10/11
        How can media corporations be adversarial to the same political officials on whom their profits rely?

        The ‘Washington Post’ this morning published a lengthy article detailing the fortune — and now the trouble — generated for its parent company, The Washington Post Co., as a result of its acquisition of Kaplan Higher Ed. While ‘The Post’ continues to lose money, Kaplan — particularly its sprawling network of for-profit “universities” which the company began building in 2000 — generates huge profits for the company, profits on which the Post Co. depends almost completely for its sustainability.
        Indeed, the newspaper has become little more than a side vanity project for the Post Co. and the Graham family which continues to dominate it; it is now, at its core, in the business of profiting off of lower-income students who pay for diplomas, often obtained via online classes. “The fate of The Post Co. has become inextricably linked with that of Kaplan, where revenue climbed to $2.9 billion in 2010, 61 percent of The Post Co.’s total,” the article detailed; “the company is more dependent than ever on a single business,’ [CEO Donald] Graham wrote in last year’s annual report, adding that the newspaper had never accounted for as large a share of overall company revenue as Kaplan does today.”
        The article is largely devoted to recounting the corruption and abuses which pervade the for-profit education industry in general and Kaplan in particular (saddling poor people with debt in exchange for nothing of real value). But what I found most notable is how dependent is this industry — including The Washington Post Co. — on staying in the good graces of the Federal Government. Because these schools target low-income students, the vast majority of their income is derived from federal loans. . .

        ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to salon.com