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Irish activist begins hunger strike in Palestine
 international |
rights, freedoms and repression |
news report
 Thursday September 02, 2004 01:37 by Donal - Galway Grassroots
According to the Israeli Prison Service, more than 2,900 Palestinian prisoners have joined the open-ended hunger strike that began on 15 August. The Palestinian Authority quotes a slightly higher figure. A number of international activists currently in Palestine are taking part in solidarity actions. On Monday 30th of August all ISM activists in the West Bank fasted for the day. Every day for the past two weeks we have visited the solidarity tents which have been set up in every town. Every day there have been demonstrations in towns and villages all over the West Bank. We have also attended demonstrations at prisons inside Israel.
In Tulkarem, an Italian activist has been on hunger strike for two days and today, I will join the strike. I will spend 24 hours a day at the solidarity tent, meeting with the families of prisoners and hearing their stories.
The prisoners have submitted a list of demands, which include improved health and sanitary conditions, increased family visitation rights, an end to strip searches and to "arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings", among other things. They have said they will live only on fluids until their demands are met.
According to the International Committee of the Red Cross more than 8,000 prisoners are currently detained by Israel on security grounds. Of these, more than 90 are women and 360 are children, according to the UN Children's Fund
Four hundred and fifty prisoners are being held without charge under Military Order 1500, a relic of British rule in Palestine which allows Israeli authorities to detain an individual, adult or minor, for up to six months without bringing charges against him/her.
This time limit is seldom upheld, however, with detention being extrapolated into several years.
The overwhelming majority of Palestinian prisoners are political captives who have been arbitrarily imprisoned or detained under the broad banner of "security", according to the Israeli human rights group B'tselem.
According to the Palestinian Prisoner's Society, about 800 prisoners are in need of medical treatment and 30 have been in solitary confinement for over two years. More than 2000 prisoners have been unable to visit their families under the pretext of "security", and those who can are not allowed to make any physical contact with them.
Even letters and books have been banned, making it impossible for prisoners who wish to continue with their education to do so from inside their cells.
In Israel, it is legally permissible to intern 20 inmates in a cell no larger than 5m long, 4m wide (20 square metre) and 3m high, including an open lavatory. The minimum standard in US and European prisons is 10.5 sqm for each detainee. Prisoners may be confined indefinitely to such cells for 23 hours a day.
In New York last week, the Bureau of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People said prisoners were routinely subjected to “inhumane conditions of incarceration, including arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings, humiliating strip searches, solitary confinement for excessive periods of time, and severe restrictions on family visits.” It voiced particular distress at reports of continued use of torture and other forms of ill-treatment of the detainees.
A recent report by the Israeli Public Committee Against Torture found a sharp rise in the "torture, ill treatment, humiliation and incarceration in inhuman conditions" of Palestinian detainees during the last year.
In response to the strike, the Israeli Prison Service imposed even further restrictions, removing radios and television sets from jail cells and cancelling all family visits.
Israeli Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi has said the prisoners can "starve to death" for all he cares.
"The prisoners can strike for a day, a month, even starve to death, as far as I am concerned. We will ward off this strike and it will be as if it never happened," he said on Friday, August 13.
As Mahmud Ziadi, representative of the Families of Palestinian Political Prisoners put it "all they are asking is for their children and wives to be able to visit them; they are asking for sun and medicine. Instead the Prison Service issues racist declarations against them."
The families of the Palestinian political prisoners ask members of the international community to join in solidarity by organizing an International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners on September 4, 2004.
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Comments (20 of 20)
Jump To Comment: 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1Yeah Seph, right on.
Comments like yours carry little weight until you've shown you have the cojones to go on a hunger strike (without prior knowledge of how long it will last), or to venture into an environment like Palestine.
Until then....yaawwwwwwnnn
Yawn. Another blatant attention seeking stunt. Hope he enjoys the sunshine anyway.
Just a note to say keep up the good work donal. Without heads like yourself doing this type of work it'd surely be even worse for the Palestinian people.
Though i am concerned with your obvious lack of morals in associating with 16 year terrorist girls. Do you not realise that they are all evil bloodthirsty dark-skinned demons?
Approaching a checkpoint, how dare she !?! I'm glad there are some sensible people around here who side with child-shooters instantly.
Looking forward to having you back with some of that good sense of ruckus that has surely been instilled in ya by now.
insha allah
n
She's sixteen now. which means she was 14/15 when the incident happened over a year ago.
She approached the checkpoint because the soldiers were shouting at her in Hebrew. She couldn't understand them. She approached them, they shot her, then blocked an ambulance from reaching her for over half an hour.
How is it clear that checkpoints shouldn't be approached? The entire purpose of checkpoints is that people have to pass through them, you idiot.
Anyway, that was only one example. how about the nine month old baby whose been in prison since he was born. His mother's crime? being the sister of someone involved in resistance.
I just saw the army drive through here in APCs shooting at children. Maybe those children were Hamas leaders, but somehow i doubt it.
The israelis have no authority here. They are a foreign army engaged in numerous violations of international law.
They employ the unlawful use of violence to spread fear among the population in order to advance their political/ideological cause. That is the definition of terrorism.
You obviously don't have a clue what you're talking about
Na, Noel, stupidity is supporting British occupation and Russian empires and Zionist Nazism and then complaining when the oppressed people become murderers themselves. Anyone who supports domination of a people but claims to be outraged by the slaughter we witness (although never outraged by state slaughter. Feck, if the Jews had have rose on their own against the Nazis and without the rest of the world being at war with Germany at the time, half you sheep would have sided with Hitler) as a direct consequence of this murderous domination is a deep down liar. The human disgrace has been around long enough and has done enough to see that murderous bullies breed murderous victims, so anyone who supports state terror must know, way, way down inside, that terrorism, rebellion, legitimate armed resistance, call it what you will as the end result is all the same, is just simply gonna happen. It's a blood lust. People love it. Anyone who supports Russia and its war in Checyhna, which by some accounts has killed about a quarter of the population and displaced half, loves to see scenes like today. Then they like to pretend that they're the goodies and are shocked by violence (again, except when its state violence like the Russian razing of Grozny which snuffed out 60,000 lives) and call for even more oppression and occupation so that more and more scenes like today can be seen stretching on into infinity.
Racism?
Palestinian terrorists murder innocent people. Fact.
Not all Palestinians. Just the terrorists amongst them.
Is it racist to state this?
Hypocrisy?
That one has escaped me? Where's the hypocrisy in linking one group of Islamist child killing terrorists with another?
When you write something that unambiguously reveals you to be a fascist, I'll call you one. So far you've only openly declared your racism and hypocrisy, so you'll have to be content with that for the moment.
The terrorist is in inverted comments from the title of the post above my last one. "The only good terrorist is a hungry..." I put it in inverted commas as you have no evidence that proves the hunger strikers are indeed terrorists - just your racist hatred. Your not suggesting that the Palestinian prisoners are practicins some sort of quantum bi-location and simulatenously occupying a school in Chechnya, are you? Oh, sorry I forgot, everybody that you hate is responsible for everything that anybody you hate does .
Badman,
Is that it? Racist? Hypocrite?
I thought Fascist would be more in keeping with your witless post.
And why is terrorist in inverted commas?
These murderers have just killed innocent children. Killed them. Deliberately.
Where's the ambiguity which your ridiculous inverted commas imply?
The two above comments reveal a lot about the mindsent of the posters.
These people seem to think that murder of 16 year old girls is justified for the crime of approaching a checkpoint. They also apply racist collective guilt to an entire people, despite the fact that they know full well that the vast majority of prisoners have not been convicted of anything and they have no evidence to suspect them of terrorism - just their racism and hatred.
It gets better though. After telling us all of their support for murdering of children, they get up on their high horses about 'terrorists'
racist, hate-filled hypocrites. It's there in black and white. I don't think that such deplorable people are doing their 'cause' too much good though.
Nordie,
Your defence of the IRA hunger strikers shows consistency as well as stupidity. The IRA murdered innocent men, women and children. The Palestinian terrorists murdered innocent men, women and children.
Who's next on your hero list, Chechen Terrorists?
Maybe this 16 year old girl should have not try to approach the checkpoint. Think about it for a minute from Israeli soldiers view. You can never know who is carrying bomb and who is not. You cant take any risk because it is your own life on the line, i too would shoot whenever someone does not respect my authority when i say 'do not approach this checkpoint'.
16 year old girl should understand that no means no. If it is forbidden to approach the checkpoint and you do it anyway, then it is your own fault if you are being shot at.
I am happy that your hunger strike is over. What now? To McDonalds?
Well after a few hours at the solidarity tent i received word that the prisoners had ended their hunger strike after 19 days. My Arabic is pretty poor but from what i could make out the rumour here is that 80% of the prisoners' demands have been met, a massive victory if that's true.
Reports on the web vary, some claim no negotiations have taken place, others that massive concessions have been made by the prison authorities.
(Although what i personally suspect happened is that the prisoners read "shalom"s excellent critique of their actions and saw the light. In fact i'm on my way to join the IDF right now and kill some terrorist scum, like the sixteen year old girl i just met who was shot with three dum-dum bullets and imprisoned for a year for daring to approach a checkpoint. What scum. Thank you shalom, you've shown me the error of my ways)
Whatever the case the hunger strike is over for now. So i guess i set some kind of record for shortest ever hunger strike.
ah well, its only really the fault of cretins like your good self and their pig-person desires to occupy and dominate that wars are going on in the first place. its only really the fault of pig-people and their eternal stupidity of mind that start these things and keep them going that leads to innocent children getting blown up on buses and took hostage. its just is. no excuses, but it just is. all the roots of these evil deeds steem from the pig-people and their hog minds. don't expect you to see that but, because I know in your hog brain the Palestinians are only doing suicide bombs because they're comic book baddies and they hate freedom and peace. alright, I know. you're right. I'm wrong. sorry. right wingers rule the world and they're the smartest and thats why the world is so peaceful. good man. keep it going lads, we're getting to the end. hopefully only a generation or so. very smart, those pig people. very smart. their grunts will soon drown the world in perfect harmony. feck it, it was shite anyway.
another intelligent left wing pig I see, nordie. go and ask relatives of those murdered Israeli children how they feel about your meaningless hunger strike that will only support more terrorism against Israeli civilians. How do you people live with yourselves knowing palestinian terror groups will only use you as their propaganda tool?
Hey shalom! You really sound like you know what your talking about, like real intelligent and all. Obviously you know more than someone who's been to Palestine or is in Palestine. Very convincing well thought out arguments.(sarcasm)
another intelligent right wing pig I see, shalom. go and ask maggie t about letting political prisoners die on hunger strike and how it defeats the 'baddies'. you're just right.
in a filler article of last week's edition referred to the problems both Sharon and Arafat are having with their own sides, and made brief mention of this hunger strike, and the intention of Isreali prison guards to "fire up tasty lamb chop barbeques in the prison yard".
[ I'd really appreciate if the people at TIME europe would stop sending me their magazine now. I've had six issues (freebies) which have been quite enough to see that the US reader is victim to the most horrible chauvinist prejudice].
Let them be forgotten. These prisoners inside Israeli prisons are terrorists. They are locked up because they were plotting to kill Israeli civilians, some of them already committed brutal murders against innocent people. Remember suicide attacks against Israel school buses etc? I have no solidarity for these lowlife animals. No one should have. They should be hanged.
I have the feeling their witness may be for the rest of us. They were forgotten.
Whats the point? I couldn't care less if you are hungry. Nobody cares. Like Israeli Public Security Minister said the prisoners can "starve to death" for all he cares. Less prisoners for them to feed and the israelis dont even have to kill them because these stupid palestinian are doing mass suicide. Its like as stupid as 1944 jews would have bought their own train tickets to Auschwitz and turn the gas on themselves.