A global Palestinian campaign to pressure Israel to stop administrative detention
A previous Palestinian campaign against Israeli administrative detention
Today, Sunday, Palestinian factions and institutions concerned with prisoners' affairs launched a local and international campaign to pressure Israel to end the "administrative detention" file.
This came during two simultaneous press conferences held by the participating factions and institutions, the first in front of the headquarters of the United Nations in Ramallah, and the second in front of the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza City.
Among the institutions participating in the conference are: the Prisoners' Affairs Commission (which is affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organization), the Prisoners' Club (non-governmental), and the Prisoners' Committee for National and Islamic Forces (Palestinian factions).
Administrative detention is imprisonment by an Israeli military order, without an indictment, and extends for 6 months, subject to extension.
This campaign is launched "locally, regionally and internationally to affirm the right of prisoners to administrative emancipation," according to the head of the Prisoner Club, Qaddoura Fares.
In his speech on the prisoners' institutions during the conference in Ramallah, Fares added, "Work must be intensified at all levels until the policy of administrative detention is ended."
He criticized the international institutions, whose position he said was "typical and traditional and did not go beyond the limits of criticism," saying that this traditional (international) position was read by Israel "as a green light to continue its practices."
The campaign includes a popular, media, and local, Arab and international diplomatic movement, in which local and international human rights organizations and official bodies, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, participate, as announced at the Ramallah conference.
At the Gaza conference, Khaled al-Batsh, a leader in Islamic Jihad, said on behalf of the participating institutions and factions, “administrative detention is a permanent injustice that violates the dignity of the Palestinian in the West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza,” adding, “This campaign is to support the prisoners and those affected by this policy, and to put a national end to this detention.” This file requires "unity of position and unity of national discourse."
He called on the Palestinian people, wherever they are, to "actively move and put pressure on the entity, to reverse the policy of administrative detention." He called on local and international human rights organizations to "take legal human rights steps to stop this administrative detention, and to deal with it."
Al-Batsh indicated that "prisoners inside Israeli prisons will soon start escalating steps to demand the abolition of this type of arbitrary detention."
According to a statement by the Prisoner’s Club, on Sunday, 13 prisoners are continuing their open hunger strike in the occupation prisons; Among them, 12 are being beaten to refuse administrative detention.
The club said, in a statement, that the hunger strikers "face difficult health conditions that are exacerbated by the passage of time due to the intransigence of the occupation authorities and the refusal of the occupation authorities to respond to their demand."
Israel holds about 4,850 prisoners in its prisons, including 41 female prisoners, 225 children, and 540 administrative detainees, according to institutions specialized in prisoner affairs.