Ref: 48/2014
Date: 08 May 2014
Time: 10:15 GMT
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is concerned over the lives of administrative detainees, who started a hunger strike 2 weeks ago, and holds Israel fully responsible for their lives. PCHR calls also upon the international community to exercise pressure over the Israeli occupation to immediately release these detainees and stop the policy of administrative detention against Palestinians.
On 24 April 2014, administrative detainees in Israeli jails of Megiddo, Negev and Ofer started an open hunger strike calling for putting an end to administrative detention against Palestinians. In the meantime two administrative detainees has been on hunger strike: Ayman Tubaish has been on a hunger strike in al-Ramlah Hospital for 67 days; and ‘Adnan Shanayta has been on a hunger strike in Tel Hashomer Hospital for 45 days. The Israeli prison service refused to listen to the detainees’ demands, but imposed some punitive measures against them, including not allowing them to change their clothes, daily arbitrary searches, handcuffing them for long hours, transferring some administrative detainees and putting them in solitary confinement, and beating them.
According to human rights sources, 95 administrative detainees who started the hunger strike had requested on the 14th day of the strike the prisoner service to bring them milk and salt to avoid intestine rotting due to their ongoing hunger strike.
It should be noted that according to an agreement with the prisoners, who had a hunger strike in May 2012, Israeli forces undertook to, inter alia, end the administrative detention on condition that detainees end their 28-day strike. PCHR welcomed the agreement then and hoped that Israeli authorities would be committed to the agreement; however, Israeli forces have continued to apply administrative detention in the past period.
It is worth saying that about 200 Palestinian administrative detainees, including 9 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), are detained in Israeli detention facilities in violation of the right to a fair trial, including the right to receive an appropriate defense and to be informed of the charges against them. Administrative detention is applied by an administrative order only, without referring to a court, thus violating the standards of impartial judicial procedures, including fair trial. Moreover, Israeli forces renew their detention periods leaving many administrative detainees in jail for years.
In view of the above:
