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Jerusalem, December 04, 1999
8 signatories still in prison –
detention of three extended with another 15 days
On Wednesday December 1st,
representatives from the Palestinian Human Rights Council (PHRC)
visited three of the detainees held at the General
Intelligence Detention Center in Jericho: Dr. Abdel Sattar
Qasem, Dr. Adel Samara and the researcher Ahmad Qatamesh.
The detainees were arrested for signing a leaflet ,
distributed last weeks, calling for an end to corruption and
mismanagement by the Palestinian Authority.
They told the
representatives that they were treated well under the
circumstances.
They stated that they were
being investigated on the signing of the ‘Petition-20’. They
were asked why they had signed it and where the petition
originated.
The same day, the new
Attorney General of the State Security Court, attorney
Khaled al-Qidra extended the detention of these three
detainees for 15 days.
In a meeting between the
representatives of the Palestinian Human Rights Council and
Mr. al-Qidra, he told the representatives that he extended
the detention because he wanted to present them for the
state security court, officially charged with “incitement”.
Al-Qidra added that the
detention was not at all related to the freedom of speech.
The representatives of the Human Rights Council demanded
from al-Qidra the immediate and unconditional release of the
eight detainees who signed the petition.
The Human Rights Council
demand the immediate and unconditionally release of all the
eight detainees. We do not recognise any attempt to charge
the detainees with incitement, based on their fully legal
statement that was made public on December 27 1999.
We also call for the
international donor community to put financial pressure on
Arafat’s regime in order to release these prisoners and to
make the implementation of human rights standards and
principles possible in the Palestinian autonomous areas.
The Palestinian Human
Rights Council:
Mandela Institute
Defense of Children
International/ Palestine section (DCI)
The Palestinian Human Rights
Monitoring Group (PHRMG)
The Palestinian Independent
Commission for Citizens Rights (PICCR)
Palestinian Human Rights
Information Center (PHRIC)
Association for
International Solidarity
Al-Haq
Jerusalem Center for Women
The Citizens Rights Center
Adameer Prisoners’ support
Association
Muwaten
Jerusalem Legal Aid Center
Center for Defense of
Freedom
Democracy and Workers’
Rights Center (DWRC)
Womens Center for Social and
Legal councelling
For more information, contact the
PHRMG office: Tel: 972 2 6262463, Fax: 972 2 6262378,
E-mail:
admin@phrmg.org
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