Press Release
Prisoners Released
Date: 17 October 1999
Ref: 104/99
On Friday morning 15 October 1999, the Israeli military forces released 151 Palestinian and Arab detainees, within the context of the Sharm El Sheikh Memorandum signed between the PLO and the Israeli government. About 83 detainees arrived in Gaza Strip and 68 others arrived in the West Bank. Amongst these detainees are 37 Arab detainees who spent many years in the Israeli prisons. These detainees may finally return to their home countries in case they wish.
Israel released the first group of 199 detainees under Sharm El Sheikh on 9 September 1999. Moreover, under Sharm El Sheikh it was agreed that Israel should release another group of detainees before the beginning of Ramadan. The number of detainees to be released at that time was not determined in the Memorandum.
The Sharm El Sheikh Memorandum provided that Israel would release Palestinian and Arab political detainees who carried out actions before 13 September 1993, and who were arrested before 4 May 1994. Nothing in the Memorandum provided for the restrictions imposed by the Israeli government to exclude the release of detainees from Lebanon, Syria, Jerusalem and from inside the Green Line.
The detainees were released only after they signed commitment not to practice violence or take part in terrorist actions, and under which they agreed that the rest part of their sentences would remain as a deferred sentence for a period of three years.
PCHR welcomes the release of the Palestinian and Arab detainees but reaffirms its rejection of the discriminatory policy pursued by the Israeli government in this regard. PCHR considers the exclusion of detainees from Jerusalem as dangerous as it is aimed at separating Jerusalem from the rest of the Palestinian Occupation Territories.
Moreover PCHR considers the Palestinian detainees who reside in Israel and those of Hamas and Islamic Jihad as an integral part of the detainees who were arrested due to their practice of their legal right to resist the Israeli occupation. PCHR asserts that those detainees must be released without exception as a means to built mutual trust between the two sides.
