Ref: 82/2012

On Thursday afternoon, 27 September 2012, the
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded the activities of a
seminar organized on accountability for violations of the international law in
the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) by a session titled “Palestinian
Prisoners in the Israeli Jails.”

The session was presided by lawyer Raji
Sourani, Director of PCHR and a member of the Executive Committee of the
International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL).  He explained that the session’s title was set
upon the request of the IADL’s delegation in the context of their interest in
the prisoners’ issue.  The session
included a number of major presentations, the first of which was presented by
Fu’ad al-Razem, a former Palestinian prisoner who served 31 years in the
Israeli prisons.  Al-Razem said that the
Palestinian people struggles for their rights and freedom, and the Palestinian
struggle constitutes a form of legal resistance and cannot be classified as
terrorism.  He added that Palestinians
seek peace, but the Israeli occupation rejects it throughout its insistence to
hinder the political process that began years ago with the establishment of the
Palestinian Authority (PA).  Al-Razem
also addressed the conditions under which the Palestinian prisoners live inside
Israeli jails, explaining the stages of detention inside prisons:
interrogation, practices of all forms of torture and detention in cells where
the minimum standards of living are not available.

In her presentation, Hanaa Shalabi, a former Palestinian
prisoner who was transferred to the Gaza Strip, displayed her experience, as
she went on hunger strike inside the Israeli prison until she was released and
expelled to the Gaza Strip.  She
addressed some inhumane practices by the Israeli Prisons Service against the
Palestinian prisoners, including naked search, solitary confinement, renewable
administrative detention and torture.

Representing the Palestinian prisoners’
families, Um Ibrahim, the mother of a Palestinian prisoner, Ibrahim Baroud, talked
about her personal experience that has been lasting for years.  She explained how she was denied visits to
her son for 15 years under “security claims.”  She addressed the silence of the
international community towards the suffering of the Palestinian prisoners in
comparison to the reaction resulted from the capture of the Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit by the Palestinian resistance groups.  She stressed the continuing silence towards
the suffering of the Palestinian prisoners and their families, who have been
suffering from the threat of being denied family visitations although the
program of family visitations for Gaza prisoners was resumed after being halted
for 5 years.

Lawyer Evelyn Dur Mayer, an IADL member,
addressed in her presentation the various rights of prisoners guaranteed under
the international standards and human rights conventions.  Mayer elaborated that the international
standards governed the detention matters and imposed several restrictions on
the conditions of detention, prisoners’ treatment and prosecution in a manner
that guarantees their rights, the most prominent of which is the right to a
fair trial, the right to know the charges against him/her and the right to a
human treatment that maintains his/her dignity.

Lawyer Max Boqwana, an IADL’s Executive
Committee member, stressed the need for those staying out of prisons to be
inspired by all the pain, suffering, oppression and bloods to take their rights
back. Boqwana encouraged in his speech all the strugglers and fighters around
the world to combine their efforts to make their dream of equality and justice
come true.  He revealed that he believes
in the Palestinian cause as a just one and that he dreamed to see free
Palestine one day, living peacefully side by side with its neighbors. He also
hoped that Palestinian children live in a safe environment looking forward to a
promising future.

It should be noted that this seminar was
convened with the participation of IADL’s Executive Committee and in presence
of a number of academics, lawyers and representatives of human rights,
non-governmental and media organizations.