PRESS RELEASE

Released @ 12:00 hours GMT 24^th March 1998

Mr. Kofi Annan, the first-ever Secretary General of The United Nations to visit the Gaza Strip, was yesterday presented with 2 letters from the families of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails. One of the letters written by family members explained how the family lives of the 3,500 detainees is being destroyed by this illegal imprisonment. The other was written by one of the prisoners on behalf of his fellow-inmates. Both letters asked the Secretary General to use every possible diplomatic means to urge Israel to release those detained. Not only is their detention a blatant contravention of the 4^th Geneva Convention of 1949, the conditions in which they are held deteriorates on a daily basis.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights supports this call, and considers it an urgent humanitarian mission.

to follow: copies of both letters

Mr Kofi Annan

Secretary General

United Nations

 

We, the families of Palestinian prisoners are grateful for the chance to welcome your honourable presence among us.

We truly welcome you and appreciate the first visit of a Secretary General to Palestine. We have been awaiting such a visit for a long time.

We express our highest appreciation for the role the United Nations plays in our country. Its aims and actions we respect.

As you have succeeded in your historic mission to Iraq, we wish you every success to the Middle East in general, and in the releasing of our political prisoners in Israeli jails in particular. To date more than 3,500 Palestinian and Arab political prisoners are held within Israeli prisons.

It is more than 4 years since the signing of The Declaration of Principles between the PLO and the Israeli government in September 1993. It was signed to bring peace to our countries. Alas, to our deepest regret such a peace has been unable to solve the following problems that remain with us:

1. Children crying deprived of their father’s love and affection;
2. Parents deprived from visiting their sons in prison. Many of whom have died before getting the chance to see their sons in Israeli jails.
3. Marriages having to endure the strain of enforced separations.
4. For those lucky enough to be allowed the occasional visit, they must endure a tortuous visit of up to 18 hours, including walking on foot for over 1 kilometre, and the undergoing of rigorous security checks by Israeli soldiers at Erez crossing-point. All this for a mere 30 minutes of visiting time.

Can you imagine Mr. Secretary General, all this suffering that we have to endure despite the existence of a peace agreement?

Mr. Secretary General, we consider you the ‘father’ of all nations. Through you we hope the worldwide international community will hear our plight. For our sons to be held in appalling conditions within Israel is a contravention of the Geneva Convention. Our sons represent the conscience of our nation, and without their freedom a real peace can never be achieved. We therefore beg you to begin the process of using all possible diplomatic means to exert pressure on the Israeli government, to free our sons, our fathers, our husbands and our brothers, and through this action to show that they like us, .are a nation truly committed to peace.

We thank you Mr. Secretary General, from the bottom of our hearts, and also wish to afford ourselves of the opportunity to present you with a letter written by one of these prisoners on behalf of them all.

 

On behalf of The Families of Palestinian Prisoners

 

His Excellency Mr. Kofi Annan

Secretary-General

United Nations Organisation

New York

 

5 February, 1998

 

Dear Sir,

We, the Palestinian and other Arab political prisoners languishing in Israeli jails and detention centres, warmly welcome your first visit to our country, and express our deepest respect and appreciation for the UN’s unflagging and highly-valuable support. We still believe the UN has an increasingly essential role on the global stage.

We see in the UN and its component professional organisations and relief agencies a central body responsible for ensuring that signatories to agreements carry out their obligations. As well, we see the UN as endeavouring to shed rays of light on the dark, rotten corners of this earth. Corners where human beings are humiliated, either by unjust detention, severe conditions in prisons, including the illegal use of torture, or by having their human rights suppressed or eliminated.

After the signing of the Declaration of Principles (D.o.P.) between the P.L.O. and the Israeli government in Washington in September, 1993, Israel transferred more than 2,000 Palestinian prisoners from jails in the Occupied Territories to prisons inside Israel. This is a blatant contravention of international law. The total number held in Israel is now more than 3,500 prisoners, including detainees held under ‘administrative’ orders..

Families have repeatedly been prevented from visiting their relatives in prisons and detention centres, for the following reasons:

1. The Israelis impose frequent closures on Palestinian Authority areas on the pretext of security. During these periods families of prisoners are obviously unable to leave PNA areas.

1. Families must go through excessively difficult procedures to visit their loved ones: only three members of the family (including children) are eligible for exit permits, through a complicated process involving the help of the International Committee of the Red Cross (I.C.R.C.). In Gaza, for example, families must disembark from the buses they are travelling on, and walk two kilometres from the Palestinian side of the Erez checkpoint to the Israeli side, where they undergo rigorous physical security checks by Israeli soldiers. Only then can they get back on the buses, which have also undergone a thorough inspection. Although the actual travelling time from Gaza to Nafha Jail (the furthest one) is around two hours, because of the stringent security procedure at Erez, the whole trip can take up to 18 hours!

1. Lawyers’ visits from PNA areas are restricted, and lawyers are prevented from contacting their clients, therefore depriving the prisoners of their basic procedural human right to legal counsel. In addition, almost 500 lawyers from Gaza have totally been denied access to their clients in prison; this restriction has been in effect for the last 30 months!

Additionally, inside Israeli prisons, conditions to deteriorate. For example:

1. There is a dangerously low standard of medical treatment and supplies for prisoners. Many complaints have been lodged with the I.C.R.C. and other appropriate bodies. It is common for there to be a long delay for prisoners who need to undergo surgery. There is a shortage of qualified medical staff and of well-equipped facilities for clinical services. There is often a shortage of medication and other essentials for treatment. Because of these delays and shortages, many prisoners have died before the prison nurse or doctor could reach them and check their medical condition.

1. The cells and common areas are very small, per prisoner, and therefore very crowded. The cells are about 2.5 square metres, including the bathroom, and the open spaces (for walking and sports) only about 1.5 square metres. There is no dining room, no reading room, no place to pray, no gymnasium and no handicrafts area. This is a severe violation of the Geneva Convention and of basic international humanitarian law.

1. Prisoners are not allowed to shake hands with their parents or relatives or hug their babies and children during family visits. The prisoner sits on one side of a metal grille and the family must sit on the other.

1. Prisoners may not continue their studies or start a new course of study (through correspondence) at a local Palestinian university or at a university abroad. The only allowed institution is the Israeli Open University. The reasons the Israelis give to exclude other universities are highly dubious. Even if prisoners would study at the Israeli university, there are no facilities in the jails, such as reading rooms or video machines, to assist them icompleting their course requirements.

1. At the advent of the 21st century, Palestinian prisoners are still not allowed to speak to their children and families on the telephone. This privilege is granted freely to Jewish/Israeli prisoners, even common criminals.

Many other problems must also be overcome.

Mr. Secretary General, we are convinced that a just and durable peace is the highest goal of all nations. Also, we deeply believe that the struggle for constructive peace is much more difficult to attain than the policy of destructive war.

Therefore, we believe that a just peace should be anchored in the firm bedrock of human rights and international humanitarian law. Consequently, all peace agreements and treaties, either regional or international, between countries and between peoples, should be written in accordance with these unalterable principles. Furthermore, laws drafted by the various parties should be implemented honestly and with humanitarian considerations.

We deeply regret that the Palestinian-Israeli accords – D.o.P., Cairo and Taba – have failed to secure the release of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners, who were imprisoned because of their participation in the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation. The accords have enabled the Israeli government to continue its unjust treatment of Palestinian prisoners; Israel has used the prisoners as hostages, to politically coerce the Palestinian Authority.

Israel has seized more than 300 Palestinians and put them under administrative detention without due process. Some of them have spent more than five years in prison. Other prisoners, from Lebanon, have been re-arrested by Israeli authorities after having served their full sentence. Prisoners from other Arab countries are not allowed regular visits from their families, and some are categorically forbidden to see their families, despite the fact that the I.C.R.C. has undertaken intense efforts to arrange such visits.

Therefore, Mr. Secretary-General, we send you our urgent request, and through you, we call on all nations, governments and international legal and human rights organisations to undertake an earnest effort to exert every possible pressure and influence on Israel to end the illegal imprisonment and inhumane treatment of the more than 3,500 Palestinian and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. We are not criminals. We acted in order to exercise our right to self-determination, a principle entrenched in international law.

Such an effort by the international community will firstly, have a positive influence on the prisoners and their families, and on our people as a whole. Secondly, this will enhance the credibility of the peace process and increase confidence between Palestinians and Israelis. Thirdly, and on principle, the release of prisoners will give them a chance to exercise their duties and rights within their free society and allow them to participate in rebuilding their country after the nearly complete destruction of infrastructure brought about by the prolonged Israeli occupation. This is an incontrovertible right.

Sir, soldiers look forward to peace. But no one looks forward to peace more than a soldier in captivity. Peace must widen the sail of hope for prisoners, not see their boat shipwrecked.

Thank you Mr. Secretary-General.

On behalf of Palestinian and other Arab prisoners in Israeli jails and detention centres, I remain sincerely yours.

 

Jaber M. Wishah

Nafha Jail – Mezpe Ramon

P.O. Box 240

Code: 80600