PRESS RELEASE

August 18, 2004

 

 

The PHRMG is Concerned about the Palestinian Prisoners

 

 

On Sunday, August 15, 2004, the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails began an open-ended hunger strike in order to protest prison conditions.

The prisoners have submitted a list of demands, which include improved medical and sanitary conditions, increase of possibilities for family visitation, the removal of glass partitions separating them from visitors, access to public phones and an end to strip searches and to "arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings", among others.

 

The PHRMG gives all its support to the prisoners and for the international community to immediately interfere to put an end to the mistreatment of the Palestinian prisoners.

 

The Israeli authorities try to undermine the protest. Israel declared psychological war on hunger-striking Palestinians prisoners; it barbecued meat outside their cells to try to break their spirit. Such treatment and conditions violate not only international law but also the Israeli state rules intended to govern the administration of prisons. The PHRMG calls on the Government of Israel to cease these violations of law and to treat Palestinian prisoners as human beings entitled to basic human rights.

 

With the help of international recognition of these facts the prisoners seek only to alleviate these harsh conditions, their demands calling for the most basic necessities such as food, water and air and for a standard of treatment that meets humanitarian requirements.

 

With the voice of the prisoners and their parents, the PHRMG demands an end to collective and abusive punishment against the prisoners, an improvement of health facilities, an improvement of visitation rights and visitor facilities, an easing of restrictions regarding telephone calls and communication with families and lawyers and an improvement of recreational activities and books

 

The PHRMG also demands that legal documents and prison policies are made available to them in their own Arabic language and that they are treated above all according to the confines of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

 

The PHRMG calls on the Israeli Authorities to stop the excessively harsh treatment of Palestinian political prisoners and to ensure that the conditions under which they are imprisoned are consistent with international and Israeli norms of human rights and basic decency.

 

The PHRMG calls for the support of the international community in its campaign against the gross violations of prisoners’ rights and against the appalling conditions under which they are being detained. The treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel violates both international and Israeli laws, as well as rules governing the administration of Israeli prisons.

 

 

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