UN-Truth

Khader Adnan, a schoolteacher who was arrested by Israeli soldiers in his home in a village near Jenin in front of his wife and children in the predawn hours on December 17, continues his hunger strike protesting both the Administrative Detention under which he is being held and the abusive treatment he has experienced.

On Sunday, he was on Day 57 of his hunger strike, which the PA Minister for Prisoner Affairs, Issa Qaraqa’a, said weeks ago was “the longest hunger strike in Palestinian history”.

Medical and human rights organizations say that Khader Adnan has now passed the point where long-term or permanent damage has already been done to his body.

Adnan is said to be a member of the Islamic Jihad organization — but Human Rights Watch pointed out in a statement posted here that:

“Human Rights Watch has condemned attacks by the armed wing of Islamic Jihad against Israeli civilians as war crimes and crimes against humanity. However, Israel has not claimed that Adnan has participated in such attacks or charged him with any other crime, his lawyer said, and is holding him on the basis of secret evidence that he and his lawyer are not allowed to see or challenge. Adnan’s lawyer said the only known allegation against him arose when Adnan was questioned after his detention about his participation in a graduation ceremony for a kindergarten that was allegedly funded by Islamic Jihad“.

But, the sentences of Administrative Detention handed down by Israeli military courts according to the military justice system in place in the West Bank do now allow even the accused or his lawyers to know what evidence is held against him — so no defense is possible. Administrative Detention sentences, which are renewable, are handed down on Palestinians who are said, by Israeli Security Services, to be “a threat to the peace + security of the area”.

Bobby Sands, the IRA prisoner who conducted a widely-watched hunger strike while in Britain’s Maza Prison, died on the 66th day.

Ma’an News Agency reported yesterday.here, that:

“In a letter [handed to Jalal Abu Wasil, a lawyer from the Palestinian ministry of prisoners affairs who visited him in hospital] from Zeiv Hospital where he is receiving treatment, Adnan said he only drinks water and that he lost 42 kilograms. ‘I started my battle offering my soul to God almighty and adamant to go ahead until righteousness triumphs over falsehood. I am defending my dignity and my people’s dignity and not doing this in vain. The Israeli occupation has gone to extremes against our people, especially prisoners. I have been humiliated, beaten, and harassed by interrogators for no reason, and thus I swore to God I would fight the policy of administrative detention to which I and hundreds of my fellow prisoners fell prey … Here I am in a hospital bed surrounded with prison wardens, handcuffed, and my foot tied to the bed. The only thing I can do is offer my soul to God as I believe righteousness and justice will eventually triumph over tyranny and oppression … I hereby assert that I am confronting the occupiers not for my own sake as an individual, but for the sake of thousands of prisoners who are being deprived of their simplest human rights while the world and international community look on … It is time the international community and the UN support prisoners and force the State of Israel to respect international human rights and stop treating prisoners as if they were not humans”…

Human Rights Watch is one of the latest human rights organizations to speak out against the Israeli military’s Administrative Detention of Palestinians. Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said in the statement that ““Israel should immediately end its unlawful administrative detention of Adnan and charge or release him … He may be approaching death from his hunger strike, and yet Israel is chaining him to his hospital bed without bothering to even charge him with any wrongdoing”. Whitson also said that “Israel should end, today, before it’s too late, its almost two-month-long refusal to inform Adnan of any criminal charge or evidence against him”.

Responding to the hunger strike, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, and the still-in-office PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad have made a number of calls on regional and world leaders to intervene with Israel to release Khader Adnan.

There are now over 300 Palestinians being held under Administrative Detention [an increase of almost one-third, within the last year], among the 5,000 or so Palestinians now in Israeli jails — most of them somehow linked with Hamas and opposition to the policies of the current PA leadership.

Some of these prisoners have demonstrated solidarity with Khader Adnan by starting a hunger strike on 2 February, and other prisoners will reportedly join the hunger strike today.

Filed under: Human Rights, Israel, Palestine & Palestinians