Al Mezan Concerned for Life of Sheikh Adnan as He Continues Hunger Strike; Condemns His Administrative Detention and Calls for Wider Solidarity Campaign with Palestinian Detainees in Israeli Prisons

Sheikh Khader Adnan, who has been held in Israeli prison since the morning of Saturday 17 December 2011, when Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) broke into his house in Jenin and detained him, is continuing his hunger strike.
  According to the information available to the Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, Sheikh Adnan has been on open-ended hunger strike since the time of his detention, in protest against the inhumane circumstances that Palestinian detainees suffer under administrative detention and incarceration in Israeli prisons.
  Al Mezan is concerned for Sheikh Adnan’s life, particularly in light of information indicating that the Israel Prison Service (IPS) is attempting to break his will through aggressive and inhumane procedures, in an effort to end his hunger strike.
  Al Mezan regards Adnan’s steadfastness as a means to disclose the flagrant human rights violations committed by the IPS against Palestinian detainees.
 It also exposes the way in which the justice system in Israel entrenches violations of international humanitarian law, human rights principles, and particularly principles of fair trial.
 These laws and principles protect detainees’ rights to use all methods to defend themselves.
 Under the Israeli justice system, Palestinians are arrested without charge (“administrative detention”); detainees and their lawyers do not even know the reasons for detentions.
  According to sources at the Ministry of Detainees in Gaza, there are currently about 290 administrative detainees, including the chairman of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) and a number of other PLC members.
  The facts demonstrate that the IOF continues in its grave violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), human rights, and the United Nations’ Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
 The IOF continues to arbitrarily detain Palestinians.
 There are approximately 5,000 Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons and detention centers.
  The IOF also continues to deprive Palestinian detainees of their rights to visitation by family and lawyers, and to education, including access to books and magazines, and prevents detainees from purchasing needed goods and receiving appropriate medical treatment.
  Prison authorities provide food of inadequate quality and quantity.
 The IOF is also known to place Palestinian detainees in solitary confinement for lengthy periods of time.
  It should be noted that hunger strikes are a tool to defend human rights and the achievements attained during previous years of struggle against poor and humiliating detention conditions.
  Al Mezan condemns the arrest of Sheik Khader Adnan and calls for his release, and emphasizes that it will continue in its efforts to defend Palestinian detainees and expose Israeli violations of their rights.
  Al Mezan reiterates its previous calls on the international community to intervene to end Israel’s systematic and grave abuses against Palestinian detainees.
  It also calls for peace, democracy, and human rights supporters around the world to intervene to expose Israeli violations of international law, particularly those inhering in its Unlawful Combatant Law and its practice of administrative detention.
  Al Mezan calls on these forces to exert pressure on their governments to uphold their moral obligations as well as their legal duties under international law, in order to end the systematic Israeli violations of Palestinian rights, and to provide for detainees’ needs, including health care and the right to family visitation.
 It also calls on the international community to take effective and urgent action to ensure the release of all Palestinian detainees.
  End