Palestinian Detainees in Israeli Prisons on Hunger Strike to Defend their Rights: Al Mezan Condemns the New Israeli Escalation against Palestinian Prisoners and Calls for their Immediate End

On Sunday 3 July 2011, about 6,000 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons and detention centers went on hunger strike for the third day.
  In May 2011, the detainees went on hunger strike for eight separate days.
The strike is a tool to defend their human rights and the achievements they had gained in past years of struggle against poor, humiliating detention conditions.
This strike is a protest against the frequent arbitrary raids, solitary confinement, and strip searches of prisoners.
Recently, on 30 June 2011, Israeli Special Forces broke into prison cells in two departments in Ashkelon prison and performed strip searches of the prisoners there.
The strike comes amidst a systematic and escalated campaign of collective punishment against the Palestinian detainees.
 At the end of last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Palestinian detainees with imposition of a series of new procedures which will deprive them of their most basic rights.
In his speech Netanyahu described the detainees as “killers”.
  Netanyahu’s statement comes in the context of Israeli attempts to deprive Palestinian detainees of their rights.
The Israeli government has drafted the so-called “Shalit law” bill, which imposes harsher conditions of detention on Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons.
The law deprives Palestinian detainees of their rights to family visits, education, and other humanitarian requirements.
Israeli authorities have also applied the “unlawful combatants” law to many detainees, which violates the most basic standards of the international justice.
  There are approximately 6,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees held in Israeli prisons and detention centers currently.
Of those, 245 are children, 37 are women, 180 are administrative detainees, and three are held as “unlawful combatants.
”The number of Palestinian parliamentarians detained by Israel has risen to 19.
  According to information gathered by the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Gazan detainees have been deprived of their right to family visitation since Monday 4 June 2007.
Israeli authorities also deprive thousands of detainees in the West Bank of family visitation rights either by preventing particular detainees from receiving family visits or by preventing particular family members from paying visits to their detained relatives.
  The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights condemns the systematic and continuous torture and cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment of Palestinians in Israeli detention.
It also condemns recent Israeli actions against Palestinian detainees and prisoners, including solitary confinement, strip searches, and deprivation of the right to family visits.
It further condemns the escalation in Israeli violations of their rights.
Al Mezan expresses its strong condemnation of the systematically inhumane treatment of Palestinian detainees carried out by Israel, which starts from the detention stage and continues through interrogation, unfair trial standards and in detention conditions.
Al Mezan calls on the international community to exert pressure on Israel to respect the applicable rules of international law and human rights standards, and especially the right not to be tortured or ill-treated, the right of detainees to periodic prison visits from relatives.
Israel must abide by the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners adopted in 1955 as well as other relevant international standards.
It also calls on the international community to take effective and urgent action to ensure the release of all Palestinian detainees.
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights reiterates its call for peace, democracy, and human rights supporters around the world to start a widespread campaign of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons, and to exert pressure on their governments to uphold their moral and legal obligations under international law and to end the systematic Israeli violations of Palestinian their rights.
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