Palestine Hunger Strike Continues

PCHR Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

Press Release 122/2004 - 18 August 2004

Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails continue with hunger strike
demanding improved conditions.

PCHR expresses its deep concern at the continued actions of the Israeli
Occupation Authorities towards the legitimate demands of the Palestinian
prisoners in Israeli prisons.  The prisoners have now been on hunger strike
for four days.. Today thousands more Palestinian and Arab detainees have
joined this strike.  The strike began in four Israeli prisons on the 15 th
of August in an attempt to exert pressure on the Israeli authority to
improve the conditions of confinement.

The detainees announced that their intention was to refrain from consuming
all solid food but that they would continue to drink liquids.  The Israeli
Minister of the Interior declared they would confront the strike and stated
that "they can strike for one day, one month or even until they die but we
will not concede to their demands."

The Israeli prison service started to impose harsh measures on the prisoners
from the moment the detainees declared their intention to strike:

-  they transferred 120 of the Prison leaders from Nafha Prison, in the
Negev desert, placing them in isolation cells in other prisons.  They
replaced them with common law Israeli prisoners;

- They transferred dozens of leaders from general sections in the central
prisons into solitary confinement;

- They have prohibited all visits by families and lawyers to the prisoners
since the 15th of August, for an indefinite period;

- They have confiscated all liquids except for water, including cigarettes
and even salt, from the cells of the hunger strikers.

The prisoners deal are confined under extraordinarily difficult conditions
during their internment.  A systematic policy of torture and other cruel and
inhuman treatment is applied by the occupation authorities.  The conditions
are violations of universally accepted human rights principles, particularly
the Declaration against torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or degrading
treatment and the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners

Prisoners believed that a hunger strike was the only option remaining to
them, having exhausted all other means of dialogue and negotiation regarding
the deteriorating conditions of imprisonment.

The Israeli Prison Service has engaged in a long term programme of imposing
tight restrictions on the prisoners, depriving them of basic rights and of
rights
  achieved during previous hunger strikes.

All of the demands made by the hunger strikers are basic humanitarian
demands relevant to their daily life and conditions of confinement.:

- an end to prohibitions of and restrictions on family visits, particularly
to allow contact visits with children and other family members which is
prevented by the presence of a glass screen between the prisoner and
visitor;

- an end to frequent spontaneous raids and searches of prison cells which
can occur at any time;

- an end to the policy of solitary confinement;

- an increase in the quantity and nutritional quality of food served in the
prison meals;

- allowing them to receive stationary, clothes, books and other supplies
from family members;

- as prisoners clean their own confinement areas they request that the
Prison authoeirites supply them with enough cleaning materials, including
detergent and equipment, to permit acceptable levels of hygiene and
sanitation;

- stopping the humiliating searches for visitors;

- an end to the continuous transfer between prisons which imposes
instability on their lives and on their families lives;

- allowing them to make periodic contact with their families through phone
calls, which can be made in line with Israeli security regulations,
particularly during times when family visits are prohibited

- to allow them to participate in courses run by the Open university and
complete or enhance their education;

- to improve the medical care facilities in accordance with international
standards and to introduce periodic health check-ups;

- to stop the policy of collective punishment and the policy of imposing
fines on prisoners (these fines are implemented by limiting prisoners
spending money in the prison canteen and so limiting the food they eat)

- to improve the conditions of minors and women who have been arrested and
separating them from Israeli common law criminals and allowing the minors to
be taken care of by older Palestinian prisoners;

The decision by the Israeli authorities to deny the prisoners their basic
rights relates to its denial of the recognition of the prisoners as
prisoners of war.  They are classified as such according to the first Annex
Protocol to the Fourth Geneva Convention, article 44.1, which states that
"any combatant who falls into the power of an adverse party shall be subject
to prisoner of war status." Those prisoners who are detained by the Israeli
authorities even though they are not combatants are entitled to "be given
protections equivalent in all respects to those accorded to prisoners of war
by the Third Convention and by this protocol." (article 44.4)

PCHR, through its legal unit, represents a large number of detainees and is
following the circumstances of the prisoners as much as is possible given
the restrictions imposed by the Israeli authorities.  PCHR continues to
lobby and advocate for the implementation of internal human rights law and
humanitarian law and for the UN International Minimum Standards to be
applied to the prisoners.  In the context of the deteriorating conditions
PCHR requests that the international community, including the High
Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, and all relevant NGOs
immediately intervene to pressurize the Israeli occupation authorities to
comply with its international obligations towards the prisoners.

Public Document

**************************************

For more information please call PCHR office
in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 - 2825893
PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box
1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip.
E-mail: pchr at pchrgaza.org
Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org


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