Ref: 42/2013
Date: 17 April 2013
Time: 12:00 GMT
Today, 17 April 2013, marks the Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, an international day of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israel, observed since 1979. This day commemorates the first ever release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons on 17 April 1974 under the terms of a prisoners exchange deal between the authorities.
As we mark the Palestinian Prisoners’ Day this year, many Palestinians continue to suffer in Israeli jails and their situation has only deteriorated over time. Israel’s persistent violation of prisoners’ rights, during the period April 2012 to April 2013, resulted in the deaths of 2 prisoners and the deportation of another to the Gaza Strip.
Israel continued with its policy of forcible transfers and deportation of prisoners, which was demonstrated through the case of Ayman al-Shawarna, a former prisoner from Dura, Hebron, in the West Bank. Ayman was released in March 2013 on the conditions that he would end his 261 days long hunger strike and be forcibly transferred to the Gaza Strip.
Moreover, in the past few months, the Israeli prison administration authorities manifested their policies of medical negligence and torture against Palestinian prisoners. On 2 April 2013, Maysara Abu Hamadiya, another Palestinian prisoner from Hebron, died in the Soroka hospital in Be’ersheba, Israel, because he was denied the necessary health care services despite having been diagnosed with laryngeal cancer. According to Abu Hamdiya’s lawyer, Jawad Paulis, his hands and feet were bound even at the hospital and the Israeli guards refused to remove the restraints during the visit.
Few days before Abu Hamdiya’s death, on 23 February 2013, Arafat Shalish Jaradat, 30, also from Hebron, passed away in Megiddo prison in Israel. The results of his autopsy conducted by Saber al-‘Aloul, a Palestinian doctor, with the assistance of 2 Israeli doctors revealed that Jaradat had sustained many injuries shortly before his death. The autopsy report concluded that all the injuries resulted from torture practices.
The Israeli forces continued to restrict the Palestinian prisoners’ right to family visits by obstructing of the visit programs and by imposing constrains on these programs. Further, during visits, the Israeli forces imposed measures including stringent searches of visitors. They also hindered any physical contact between the prisoner and his family by placing glass boards between them. In particular, the families of prisoners from the Gaza Strip suffer from the Israel’s persistent denial of their right to visit their imprisoned family members.
Although Israeli resumed the visit programs for families from Gaza in July 2011, after having suspended it for 5 years, many restraints have been imposed on this program. These restrictions do not permit the prisoners’ children and siblings from visiting them. Moreover, the visits under the program are irregular and not scheduled properly.
These violations form part of a systematic policy adopted by Israeli forces against Palestinian prisoners. This policy includes subjecting the prisoners to cruel, inhumane and degrading conditions through practices of solitary confinement and deprivation of family visits. The Israeli authorities also prohibit Palestinian prisoners from receiving academic education, in accordance with a decision issued by the Israeli Prison Service on 20 July 2011.
According to the figures and statistics available to Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), the number of arrests have significantly increased, as Israeli forces arrested 3848 Palestinians in 2012, an average of 11 arrests a day, which is an increase of 26% as compared to 2011. Since the beginning of 2013, Israeli forces have arrested 1070 civilians, which is an increase of 8.4% than the rate during the same time last year.
According to the available data on the Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails and detention facilities, there are 235 children, 14 women, 14 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, two former ministers and 185 Palestinians under administrative detention.
On the Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, PCHR draws attention to the escalated violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights and the deterioration of their conditions because of Israel’s insistence in adopting a series of measures, which violate the principles of international human rights law and international humanitarian law. PCHR also draws attention to the international silence regarding these violations.
Since its establishment, PCHR has systematically and continually followed up the cases of thousands of prisoners in Israeli jails. PCHR has provided legal aid to prisoners and their families, and has worked continuously to expose the Israeli violations carried out against them. In this context:
