[Ppnews] Palestine - Hunger striker Hassan Safadi’s head violently slammed against cell door by prison guards

[Political Prisoner News]

  Urgent: Hunger striker Hassan Safadi’s head violently slammed against
  cell door by prison guards

*Joint Press Release, Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights 
Association, Al-Haq and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel
*

*http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=508
*

/Ramallah, 16 August 2012 –/ Palestinian hunger strikers Hassan Safadi 
and Samer Al-Barq continue to be severely mistreated 
<http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=506> by the Israeli Prison 
Service (IPS), in the forms of physical brutality and psychological 
torture. Addameer, Al-Haq and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I) 
express their utmost outrage at recent violent incidents that have left 
these already-weakened detainees on protracted hunger strikes with 
trauma and injury. Mr. Al-Barq is today on his *87^th day of hunger 
strike*, which he began only one week after his previous 30-day hunger 
strike ended; Mr. Safadi is today on his *57^th day of hunger strike*, 
which he also began shortly after the end of his previous 71-day hunger 
strike.

In a visit with Addameer lawyer Fares Ziad on 14 August, Mr. Safadi 
recounted the most recent violent incident, which had occurred the 
previous day. At approximately 9:00 am on 13 August, IPS guards entered 
the isolation room that Mr. Safadi shares with fellow administrative 
detainee Mr. Al-Barq in Ramleh prison medical clinic and announced their 
intentions to move the two hunger strikers to a room with other 
prisoners in the medical clinic who are not on hunger strike. Mr. Safadi 
and Mr. Al-Barq refused the transfer, as they considered it an attempt 
to further pressure them to break their hunger strikes by surrounding 
them with individuals who would be regularly eating in front of them.
After refusing to be moved, the *Israeli prison guards attacked both Mr. 
Safadi and Mr. Al-Barq*. During the attack, Mr. Safadi’s head was 
slammed against the iron door of the cell two times, causing him to fall 
to the ground, unconscious. Prison guards then dragged him through the 
hall to be seen by all the other prisoners. Later that night, at around 
10:00 pm, Mr. Safadi and Mr. Al-Barq were taken to a new isolation room 
with no mattresses.
*As a result of this cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, Mr. Safadi 
subsequently announced that he would no longer be drinking water*, which 
had so far been his only sustenance throughout his hunger strike. To 
protest the IPS’s brutality, the other prisoners in Ramleh also began to 
return their meals.
Mr. Safadi and Mr. Al-Barq both remain on hunger strike in protest 
against their administrative detention orders being renewed following 
the conclusion of Palestinian prisoners’ mass hunger strike in May. Mr. 
Safadi had been explicitly included in the agreement ending the hunger 
strike and had been guaranteed his release following the expiration of 
his order at the time - a promise that was not kept. A final decision 
regarding Mr. Safadi’s extension has been consistently postponed by an 
Israeli military judge and has not been reached to date.
Two other Palestinian detainees in Israeli prison are also currently on 
hunger strike: Ayman Sharawna and Samer Al-Issawi, on days 47 and 16, 
respectively. Both detainees were former prisoners who were released in 
last October’s prisoner exchange deal and subsequently re-arrested. They 
are being held based on secret information and view their hunger strikes 
as their only tool to protest against their re-arrest.
Addameer, Al-Haq and PHR-I insist that the international community 
intervene with the relevant Israeli authorities and demand an immediate 
investigation into these and other condemnable acts taken against 
prisoners on hunger strike in attempts to break them.
Addameer, Al-Haq and PHR-I specifically call on:

    * the *United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human
      Rights* and the *European Union* to take action in the strongest
      manner possible to save the lives of the hunger strikers and
      prevent any future mistreatment;
    * *European Parliament members* to bring these cases to the
      attention of relevant Israeli authorities without delay and to
      send a fact-finding mission to examine the conditions of detention
      of Palestinians arbitrarily held in Israeli prisons;
    * *High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention* and all
      *UN Member States* to put immediate pressure on Israel to abide by
      international humanitarian and human rights law and end its policy
      of arbitrary detention, and to abide by the standard rules for the
      treatment of prisoners adopted in 1955, which set out what is
      generally accepted as being decent principle and practice in the
      treatment of prisoners.

-- 
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863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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