PRESS RELEASE

Released @ 11:00 hours GMT, 5^th October 1998

PCHR Appeals to the International Community to Put Pressure on Israel to Release Prisoner Yasser El- Muazzen.

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is deeply concerned about the ongoing imprisonment of 25 year old Yasser El-Muazzen, resident of Al-Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria. He was arrested in South Lebanon in 1989 by the Israeli occupation forces and was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

A few years ago, El-Muazzen was suffering from severe pains and was checked by a doctor and given medication for blood pressure. On the 2^nd August 1998, he was transferred to Barzeli hospital in Israel, after his condition deteriorated to the extent that his life was in danger. He was diagnosed as having malfunctioning kidneys and was given three times weekly blood transfusions. In spite of this treatment, the prisoner’s condition has not improved, as he is in urgent need of a kidney transplant. Despite the fact that many of his fellow prisoners and members of his family are willing to be donors, the Israeli prison administration is refusing to allow him to have this vital surgery or to release him. He is now staying at El-Ramleh prison hospital on a permanent basis, due to his life-threatening condition. In addition to this, he is completely disconnected from his family and unable to receive visits from them.

Keeping El-Muazzen in prison without allowing him vital kidney treatment is, in effect, sentencing him to death. Therefore, PCHR demands that the Israeli government immediately allows this life-saving surgery to be carried out and that they release him from prison. Moreover, PCHR is deeply concerned about the lack of health treatment given to Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons. This negligence has, in the past, resulted in the deaths of many Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

PCHR appeals to the international community and to international human rights organisations to pressurize the Israeli government to allow El-Muazzen’s surgery to be carried out and to ensure that he is released immediately.