Thursday 8 May 2014

Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners on hunger strike.


Nearly all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails involving aproximately 2,000 political prisoners  have gone on hunger strike today, in solidarity with  administrative detainess who have been on hunger strike for nearly 2 weeks.
Administration detention is an Israeli policy under which Palestinians are held without  trial or charge  for one to 6 months. This periond can be extended to up to 5 years by an Israeli military court.
The current  protests can  be traced  back to May 2012,  when an agreement was  reached between the Israel prison service and representatives of the prisoners, which  brought an end to a previous hunger strike. At the time Israel agreed to limit its use of administrative detention to only exceptional cicumstances, but since then  they have  reneged on this deal and has  continued  to use administrative  detention on a systematic basis which has left the detainess  with little option  than to launch  a fresh strike.
Incidentally this is a lot of people imprisoned unjustly,surely the Israeli government can't imprison the whole Palestinian population to silence them? To many people this sadly appears to be the case.
Amnesty International has long campaigned against Administration detention's use  which effectively sees  Palestinian prisoners  being starved of justice.
Yet again these practices contravene Israel's obligations under international human rights law and international human law.
Today I support the Palestinian prisoners hunger strike in opposition to inhumane prison conditions and Israel's practice of detaining Palestinians without charge. It is more than time that the use of Administrative detention is ended.


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