(c) Anne Paq/Activestills.org, Gaza city, 05.05.2012.
Around 60 Palestinians are on hunger strike in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, inside the solidarity tent in Gaza city, Gaza Strip, May 5, 2012. Thousands of Palestinians are on hunger strike in Israeli jails, and several are at risk of death. They are protesting detention without trial, restrictive visiting rights and limited access to educational materials. Two of them enter their 69th day of hunger-strike and are in imminent risk of death.
Last photo: Loaï Auda; a Palestinian on his fourth day of hunger-strike in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners, inside the solidarity tent in Gaza city, Gaza Strip, May 5, 2012. Loaï who is from Jerusalem was released in the last shalit deal after having spent 10 years in prison but was exiled to Gaza.
Photo 1: Graffiti: we salute our brave prisoners
see also article by Richard Falk on Foreign Policy:
The Massive Palestinian Hunger Strike: Traveling below the Western Radar
by Richard FalkMay 3, 2012
Can
anyone doubt that if there were more than 1,300 hunger strikers in any
country in the world other than Palestine, the media in the West would
be obsessed with the story? It would be featured day after day, and
reported on from all angles, including the severe medical risks
associated with such a lengthy refusal to take food. At this time, two
Palestinians who were the first to start this current wave of
resistance, Thaer Halaheh and Bilal Diab, entering their 64th day
without food, are reported by the prisoner protection association,
Addameer, and the NGO, Physician for Human Rights-Israel, to be in
critical condition with their lives hanging in the balance. Despite
this dramatic state of affairs there is scant attention in Europe, and
literally none in North America.
In
contrast, consider the attention that the Western media has devoted to a
lone blind Chinese human rights lawyer, Chen Guangcheng, who managed to
escape from house arrest in Beijing a few days ago and find a safe
haven at the U.S. Embassy. This is an important international incident,
to be sure, but is it truly so much more significant than the
Palestinian story as to explain the total neglect of the extraordinary
exploits of these thousands of Palestinians who are sacrificing their
bodies, quite possibly their lives, to nonviolently protest severe
mistreatment in the Israeli prison system? Except among their
countrymen, and to some extent the region, these many thousand
Palestinian prisoners have been languishing within an opaque black box
ever since 1967, are denied protection, exist without rights, and cope
as best they can without even the acknowledgement of their plight.
There
is another comparison to be made. Recall the outpouring of concern and
sympathy throughout the West for Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who
was captured on the Gaza border and held captive by Palestinians for
five years. A powerful global campaign for his release on humanitarian
ground was organized, and received constant reinforcement in the media.
World leaders pleaded for his release, and Israeli commanding officers
even told IDF fighting forces during the massive attacks on Gaza at the
end of 2008, which killed more than 1,450 Palestinians, that their real
mission was to free Shalit, or at least hold accountable the entire
civilian population of Gaza. When Shalit was finally released in a
prisoner exchange a few months ago, there was a brief celebration that
abruptly ended when, much to the disappointment of the Israeli
establishment, Shalit reported good treatment during captivity. Shalit’s
father went further, saying if he was a Palestinian he would have tried
to capture Israeli soldiers. Not surprisingly, Shalit, instead of being
revered as an Israeli hero, has quietly disappeared from public view.
This
current wave of hunger strikes started on April 17th, Palestinian
Prisoners’ Day, and was directly inspired by the recently completed long
and heroic hunger strikes of Khader Adnan (66 days) and Hana Shalabi
(43 days) both of whom protested against the combination of
administrative detention and abusive arrest and interrogation
procedures. It should be understood that administrative detention is
validated by secret evidence and allows Israel to imprison Palestinians
for six months at a time without bringing any criminal charges, with
terms renewable as they expire. Hana Shalabi was among those released in
the prisoner exchange, but then barely recovering from her prior
detention period, was rearrested in a night arrest raid, and sentenced
once again to a term of confinement for four months. Or consider the
experience of Thaer Halahla, eight times subject to administrative
detention for a total of six and a half years.
Both
Mr. Adnan and Ms. Shalabi were released by deals negotiated at a time
when their physical survival seemed in doubt, making death seem
imminent. Israel apparently did not want to risk a third intifada
resulting as a reaction to such martyrdom. At the same time Israel, as
usual, did not want to seem to be retreating, or draw into question its
reliance on administrative detention and imprisonment. Israel has
refused, until the present, to examine the grievances that gave rise to
these hunger strikes. In Hana Shalabi’s case her release was coupled
with a punitive deportation order, which cruelly confines her to Gaza
for the next three years, away from her family and the familiar
surroundings of her home village of Burqin near Jenin in the West Bank.
There are some indications that Ms. Shalabi was not fully informed about
the deportation feature of her release, and was manipulated by prison
authorities and the lawyer representing her interests. The current
hunger strikers have been offered similar conditional releases, but have
so far steadfastly refused to resume eating if it led to deportation or
exile. At this time it is unclear how Israel will respond. There is a
fierce struggle of wills between the strikers and the prison
authorities, between those with hard power of domination and those with
the soft power of moral and spiritual courage. The torment of these
striking prisoners is not only a consequence of their refusal to accept
food until certain conditions are met. Israeli prison guards and
authorities are intensifying the torments of hunger. There are numerous
reports that the strikers are being subjected to belittling harassment
and a variety of punishments, including solitary confinement,
confiscation of personal belongings, denial of family visits, denial of
examination by humanitarian NGOs, and a hardhearted refusals to transfer
to medically threatened strikers to civilian hospitals where they could
receive the kinds of medical treatment their critical conditions
require.
The Israeli response to the
hunger strikes is shocking, but hardly surprising, within the wider
setting of the occupation. Instead of heeding the moral appeal implicit
in such extreme forms of resistance, there are widespread reliable
reports of punitive responses by Israeli prison authorities. Hunger
strikers have been placed in solitary confinement, held in shackles
despite their weakened conditions, denied family visits, had personal
belongings confiscated, and subjected to harassing comments by guards
intended to demoralize. Israeli media has generally taken a cynical
attitude toward the strikes, suggesting that these hunger strikers are
publicity seeking, aiming to receive ‘a get out of jail free’ card, and
deserve no empathy even if their life is in jeopardy because they
voluntarily gave up food by their own free will, and hence Israeli
prison authorities have no responsibility for their fate. Some news
reports in Israel have speculated about whether if one or more hunger
strikers die in prison, it will spark an uprising among the
Palestinians, but this is less an expression of concern or a willingness
to look at the substantive issues than it is a source of worry about
future stability.
Broader issues are
also at stake. When in the past Palestinians resorted to violent forms
of resistance they were branded by the West as terrorists, their deeds
were covered to bring out sensationalist aspects, but when Palestinians
resort to nonviolent forms of resistance, whether hunger strikes or BDS
or an intifada, their actions fall mainly on deaf ears and blind eyes,
or worse, there is a concerted propaganda spin to depict the particular
tactic of nonviolent resistance as somehow illegitimate, either as a
cheap trick to gain sympathy or as a dirty trick to destroy the state of
Israel. All the while, Israel’s annexationist plans move ahead, with
settlements expanding, and now recently, with settler outposts, formerly
illegal even under Israeli law, being in the process of being
retroactively legalized. Such moves signal once and for all that the
Netanyahu leadership exhibits not an iota of good faith when it
continues to tell the world that it is dedicated to negotiating a peace
treaty with the Palestinians. It is a pity that the Palestinian
Authority has not yet had the diplomatic composure to call it quits when
it comes to heeding the calls of the Quartet for a resumption of direct
talks. It is long past time to crumble bridge to nowhere.
That
rock star of liberal pontificators, Thomas Friedman, has for years been
preaching nonviolence to the Palestinians, implying that Israel as a
democratic country with a strong moral sensitivity would yield in the
face of such a principled challenge. Yet when something as remarkable as
this massive expression of a Palestinian commitment to nonviolent
resistance in the form of this open-ended hunger strike, dubbed ‘the war
of empty stomachs’, takes place, Friedman along with his liberal
brothers is stony silent, and the news sections of the newspaper of the New York Times
are unable to find even an inch of space to report on these dramatic
protests against Israel’s use of administrative detention and abusive
treatment during arrest, interrogation, and imprisonment. Shame on you,
Mr. Friedman!
Robert Malley, another
influential liberal voice who had been a Middle East advisor to Bill
Clinton when he was president, while more constrained than Friedman,
suggests that any sustained display of Palestinian nonviolence if met
with Israeli violence would be an embarrassment for Washington. Malley
insists that if the Palestinians were to take to the streets in the
spirit of Tahrir Square, and Israelis responded violently, as the
Netanyahu government certainly, it “would put the United States in an …
acute dilemma about how to react to Israel’s reaction.” The dilemma
depicted by Malley derives from Obama’s constant encouragement of the
democratic aspirations of a people who he has repeatedly said deserve
their own state on the one side and the unconditional alignment with
Israel on the other. Only a confirmed liberal would call this a genuine
dilemma, since any informed and objective observer would know that the
U.S. Government would readily accept, as it has repeatedly done in the
past, an Israeli claim that force was needed to maintain public order.
In this manner, Palestinian nonviolence would be disregarded, and the
super-alliance of these two partners in crime once more reaffirmed.
Let
there be no mistake about the moral and spiritual background of the
challenge being mounted by these Palestinians. Undertaking an open ended
hunger strike is an inherently brave act that is fraught with risks and
uncertainties, and is only undertaken as an expression of extreme
frustration or acute deprivation. It is not an act undertaken lightly or
as a stunt. For anyone who has attempted to express protest in this
manner, and I have for short periods during my decade of opposition to
the Vietnam War, it is both scary and physically taxing even for a day
or so, but to maintain the discipline and strength of will to sustain
such a strike for weeks at a time requires a rare combination of courage
and resolve. Only specially endowed individuals can adopt such a
tactic. For a hunger strike to be done on such a scale of collective
action not only underscores the horrible ordeal of the Palestinians that
has been all but erased from the political consciousness of the West in
the hot aftermath of the Arab Spring.
The
world has long refused to take notice of Palestinian one-sided efforts
over the years to reach a peaceful outcome of their conflict with
Israel. It is helpful to recall that in 1988 the PLO officially accepted
Israel within 1967 borders, a huge territorial concession, leaving the
Palestinians with only 22% of historical Palestine on which to establish
an independent and sovereign state. In recent years, the main tactics
of Palestinian opposition to the occupation, including on the part of
Hamas, has been to turn away from violence, adhering to a diplomacy and a
practice that looked toward long-term peaceful coexistence between two
peoples. Israel has not taken note of either development, and has
instead continuous thrown sand in Palestinian eyes. The official Israeli
response to Palestinian moves toward political restrain and away from
violence have been to embark upon a program of feverish settlement
expansion, extensive targeted killing, reliance on excessive retaliatory
violence, as well as an intensifying oppressiveness that gave rise to
these hunger strikes. One dimension of this oppressiveness is the 50%
increase in the number of Palestinians held under administrative
detention during of the last year, along with an officially mandated
worsening of conditions throughout its prison system.
-----Français--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Environ 60 Palestiniens sont en grève de la faim en solidarité avec les prisonniers palestiniens, à la tente de solidarité pour les prisoniers dans la ville de Gaza, la bande de Gaza, le 5 mai 2012. Des milliers de Palestiniens sont en grève de la faim dans les prisons israéliennes, et plusieurs sont en danger de mort. Ils protestent leur détention sans procès, les restrictions aux droits de visite et l'accès limité au matériel éducatif. Deux d'entre eux entrent dans leur 69ème jour de grève de la faim et sont en danger imminent de mort.
Dernière photo: Loai Auda; un Palestinien à son quatrième jour de grève de la faim en solidarité avec les prisonniers palestiniens, à l'intérieur de la tente de solidarité dans la ville de Gaza, bande de Gaza, le 5 mai 2012. Loai qui est de Jérusalem a été libéré dans le dernier accord d'echange de prisonniers, après avoir passé 10 ans en prison, mais fut exilé à Gaza.
Photo 1: Graffiti: "nous saluons nos braves prisonniers"
Pour en savoir plus:
Près de 2000 prisonniers palestiniens en Israël en grève de la faim illimitée depuis le 17 avril
mercredi 2 mai 2012 - 07h:19
Addameer
traduction sur
info-palestine
Le 17 Avril 2012, les prisonniers palestiniens détenus dans les
prisons israéliennes ont lancé une grève de la faim de masse, exigeant
la fin de la détention administrative, de l’isolement et des autres
mesures punitives prises contre les prisonniers palestiniens, dont le
refus des visites familiales et de l’accès à l’enseignement
universitaire.
Environ 1200 prisonniers palestiniens de toutes les
organisations ont commencé une grève de la faim illimitée le 17 Avril,
la campagne prenant un nouvel élan au cours de cette dernière semaine
car d’autres prisonniers se joignent au mouvement tous les jours.
Addameer estime que le nombre actuel de détenus engagés dans une grève de la faim illimitée est d’environ
2000. Ce nombre inclut
les 19 prisonniers actuellement détenus en isolement
pour des « raisons de sécurité. » On a appris le 23 avril dernier, que
Ahmad Saadat, le Secrétaire général emprisonné du Front Populaire pour
la Libération de la Palestine (FPLP) et maintenu en isolement depuis
plus de trois ans, était en grève de la faim depuis le 17 avril et qu’il
avait en 6 jours déjà perdu 6 kg.
Comme lors des grèves de la faim dans le passé, le
Service pénitentiaire israélien (IPS) a intensifié les mauvais
traitements imposés aux prisonniers en grève de la faim pour tenter de
saper leur mouvement. Les mauvais traitements appliqués contre les
prisonniers grèvistes comprennent les attaques sur les cellules des
prisonniers, la confiscation des effets personnels, les transferts d’une
prison à l’autre, le placement en cellule d’isolement, des amendes et
le refus des visites familiales et des avocats. Les avocats d’Addameer
se sont vus refuser l’accès à tous les prisonniers en grève de la faim.
Quarante prisonniers qui ont commencé leur grève de la
faim aujourd’hui dans la prison d’Ofer ont été informés qu’ils seront
transférés à une autre section de la prison et ne seront pas autorisés à
apporter avec eux tous les effets personnels, sauf des vêtements. Dans
la prison d’Ashkelon, les 150 grévistes de la faim subissent des raids
quotidiens sur leurs cellules par les forces spéciales israéliennes. En
plus de tous les effets personnels confisqués, les IPS ont également
confisqué des compléments des prisonniers grévistes, comme le sel pour
leur eau.
Les prisonniers en grève dans la prison de Nafha ont
également eu leur sel confisqué, ce qui soulève de graves problèmes de
santé pour les prisonniers engagés dans la privation de nourriture.
Parmi les quelque 400 prisonniers en grève de la faim dans Nafha, au
moins 40 ont été transférés hors de leurs sections. Les grévistes dans
Nafha ont également été soumis à des amendes et l’électricité a été
coupée dans leurs cellules.
Le 23 avril, six prisonniers de plus ont rejoint le
mouvement dans la prison du Naqab et ils ont tous été immédiatement
placés en cellule d’isolement. Une femme prisonnière, Lina Jarbouni,
s’est également déclarée en grève de faim illimitée le 19 avril et elle a
été placée en isolement le même jour. Ces mesures mentionnées ci-dessus
ne sont que quelques exemples des sanctions appliquées partout, en
particulier l’utilisation des transferts et de l’isolement, auxquelles
sont actuellement confrontés les prisonniers participant au mouvement.
C’est clairement une tentative de l’IPS de les isoler du monde extérieur
et des autres prisonniers impliqués dans la campagne.
Dans le même temps, huit prisonniers, dont cinq
détenus administratifs,
restent dans de longues grèves de la faim lancées avant le 17 avril.
Sept de ces prisonniers ont été transférés au centre médical à la prison
de Ramleh.
Thaer Halahleh et Bilal Diab
sont à ce jour dans leur 57e grève de la faim. Bien que leur état de
santé se détériore rapidement, leurs recours contre leurs ordres de
détention administrative ont été rejetés par un juge militaire israélien
le 23 avril. Hier, 24 avril, le recours déposé par Hassan Safadi devant
la Haute Cour israélienne contre sa détention administrative a été
rejeté. Il en est à son 52ème jour de grève de la faim. Les détenus
administratifs
Omar Abou Shalal et Jaafar Azzedine sont respectivement dans leur 50e et 35e jours de grève de la faim.
Se trouvent également placés à présent au centre médical
de la prison centrale de Ramleh, Mohammad Taj, à son 39e grève de la
faim et qui demande à être traité comme un prisonnier de guerre, et
Mahmoud Sarsak, à son 34e jour de grève de la faim en signe de
protestation d’être emprisonné en vertu d’une loi israélienne sur « les
combattants sans droits ». Enfin, Abdullah Barghouti, détenu en
isolement à la prison de Rimon, en est à son 14e jour de grève de la
faim.
Addameer réitère sa grave préoccupation que ces
grévistes de la faim ne reçoivent pas les soins adéquats dans le centre
médical de l’IPS, puisque les médecins indépendants n’ont pas le droit
de réaliser des visites.
Malgré les mesures punitives prises contre les
prisonniers grévistes, le mouvement ne cesse de croître. Les six femmes
détenues dans Hasharon qui n’étaient pas encore en grève ont annoncé
qu’elles entameront une grève de la faim illimitée à partir du 1er mai.
D’autres prisonniers devraient également progressivement participer à la
campagne, dont 120 détenus de la prison d’Ofer qui vont commencer leur
mouvement le 29 Avril. Alors que la grève de la faim de masse prend un
élan supplémentaire, il deviendra d’autant plus crucial pour les
prisonniers en grève d’avoir un accès illimité à leurs avocats et à des
médecins indépendants.
À la lumière de ces développements, une relance de
l’action au niveau international est nécessaire pour attirer l’attention
sur les légitimes revendications des prisonniers palestiniens.
Addameer renouvelle donc son appel à tous les partis
politiques, institutions, organisations et groupes de solidarité
agissant dans le domaine des droits de l’homme dans les territoire
palestiniens occupés et à l’étranger, pour soutenir les prisonniers dans
leur campagne de grève de la faim.
