[Ppnews] Israeli Appeals Court Decision Delayed in Disregard of Khader Adnan’s Critical Medical Condition
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Fri Feb 10 16:52:47 EST 2012
2 articles follow
Israeli Appeals Court Decision Delayed in
Disregard of Khader Adnan’s Critical Medical Condition
http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=436
Ramallah, 9 February 2012 – Addameer reiterates
its grave concern for the life of
<http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=428>Khader
Adnan, who received no decision today in the
appeal against his administrative detention
order. On the 54th day of his
<http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=434>hunger
strike, Khader’s health has entered an alarmingly
critical stage that will likely have irreversible
consequences and could lead to his fatal collapse
at any moment. He stated that he will remain
steadfast in his hunger strike until he is released.
Khader’s appeal hearing took place today, 9
February, at Zif medical center in Safad and was
attended by his lawyers, including two from
Addameer. His hands and feet were shackled while
he was moved from his room in the hospital to a
different room for the court hearing. During the
hearing, the shackles were removed from his hands
only. Israeli military appeals judge Moshe Tirosh
did not reach a decision on Khader’s appeal of
his 4-month administrative detention order and is
expected to make a decision within the coming
week, though any delay may prove fatal. The legal
discussions of the hearing are not public, as per
the Israeli standards of administrative detention.
A Physicians for Human Rights-Israel doctor was
able to visit Khader yesterday, 8 February. This
examination was only his second since he began
his hunger strike. Because Israeli Prison Service
guards did not grant Khader and the doctor
privacy during the examination, Khader did not
feel free to discuss the full extent of his
condition. For more details on his current state,
please refer directly to
<http://www.phr.org.il/default.asp?PageID=4>Physicians for Human Rights.
On 7 February, Khader’s wife, Randa, and his two
young daughters were permitted to see him for the
first time since his arrest on 17 December. His
wife described his shocking appearance, noting
that his body had shrunken significantly, that he
had ulcers covering his face and tongue and that
his hair, beard and nails were extremely long. He
told her that he had not been allowed to shower
or change his clothes or underwear since his
arrest. His 4-year-old daughter repeatedly asked
her mother, “Why is he tied to the bed? Why does
he look like this? Why can’t he come home with
us?” During the visit, both his legs and his
right hand were shackled to the bed and soldiers
stayed in the room the entire time. Nevertheless,
he remained mentally aware and was able to fully
express his love for his family. Khader’s
unwavering hunger strike is in protest of the
inhuman and degrading treatment he has been
subjected to since his arrest despite his
deteriorating health and of Israel’s ongoing
policy of detaining Palestinians without charge or trial.
Addameer holds the Israeli Occupying Forces
accountable for Khader’s life-threatening
condition and also holds the international
community responsible for not taking action to
save his life. Addameer demands that the European
Union, the United Nations and the International
Committee of the Red Cross intervene with Israel
immediately before it is too late. Addameer
further hails all local and international
solidarity efforts made on Khader’s behalf and
urges individuals to continue calling attention to this most urgent matter.
****
ACT NOW!
Here is how you can help Khader Adnan:
Write to the Israeli government, military and
legal authorities and demand that Khader Adnan be released immediately.
* Brigadier General Dani Afroni
* Military Judge Advocate General
* 6 David Elazar Street
* Harkiya, Tel Aviv
* Israel
* Fax: +972 3 608 0366; +972 3 569 4526
* Email: arbel at mail.idf.il; avimn at idf.gov.il
* Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi
* OC Central Command Nehemia Base, Central Command
* Neveh Yaacov, Jerusalam
* Fax: +972 2 530 5741
* Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Ehud Barak
* Ministry of Defense
* 37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
* Tel Aviv 61909, Israel
* Fax: +972 3 691 6940 / 696 2757
* Col. Eli Bar On
* Legal Advisor of Judea and Samaria PO Box 5
* Beth El 90631
* Fax: +972 2 9977326
Write to your own elected representatives urging
them to pressure Israel to release Khader Adnan
and to put an end to such an unjust, arbitrary
and cruel system of incarceration without trial.
****************************************************************
Interview: Ex-prisoner reflects on friendship
with Khader Adnan and his hunger strike for justice
<http://electronicintifada.net/people/bekah-wolf>Bekah Wolf
http://electronicintifada.net/content/interview-ex-prisoner-reflects-friendship-khader-adnan-and-his-hunger-strike-justice/10919
9 February 2012
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/mousa-abu-maria>Mousa
Abu Maria spent nearly five years, from 1999 to
2003, in Israeli prisons. He spent an additional
14 months, from 2008 to 2009, in
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/administrative-detention>administrative
detention (without charge or trial). He, like
current hunger striker
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/khader-adnan>Khader
Adnan, was subjected to cruel and inhuman
treatment and torture as part of his
interrogation. In 2001, he shared a cell with Adnan.
Abu Maria, a member of the popular committee in
the West Bank village
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/beit-ommar>Beit
Ommar and co-founder of the
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/palestine-solidarity-project>Palestine
Solidarity Project, spoke to Bekah Wolf about
Khader Adnan, who is being held by Israel without
charge and has entered his 55th day of hunger strike.
Bekah Wolf: How do you know Khader Adnan?
Mousa Abu Maria: We met in 2001 or 2002 in
Askelon prison. He was an organizer in the
prison, because it wasn’t the first time he’d
been in jail. He used to lead classes about
Palestinian history and the uprising. Prison was
like a university in those times and he was one of the professors.
BW: What was he like as a person?
MAM: Most [foreign] people think if you have a
beard or you’re a member of Islamic Jihad, you
just sit and pray all day. Khader would joke
around, just like anyone else. He’s my age, we
were young, we were like any other young people.
He would try to make us feel like we weren’t in
prison, like we were in a dorm room. He was
always organizing the prisoners, which of course
got him in trouble with the guards. He was often
put in solitary confinement, but would come out
and continue what he was doing before.
BW: He began his
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hunger-strike>hunger
strike to protest how he was treated during his
interrogation. He was held in stress positions,
beaten and insulted. Is that similar to what you experienced?
MAM: This is what the occupation forces do to
activists. They try to show how they have control
over you. They want to say, maybe you had power
[as an organizer] outside, but in here [prison]
we have complete control. They would force me to
sit with my hands cuffed to my ankles, on a tiny
chair that was tilted over so that I was in a
crouching position for hours, day after day. It
is both very painful and a psychological torture.
You can’t lift your head, you can’t look them in
the eye. They want you to feel that you do not
own yourself, that they own you, and you do not have any power to resist.
BW: What about the beating and insults? What is the purpose?
MAM: Again, it is just to show control, to break
your will to resist. They know you have been an
activist and that you have internal strength to
resist. They have to break that from you.
Sometimes it’s to try to get information from you
but many times it is just to break your will.
That’s why you go on hunger strike. It is the
only thing you can control: what you eat, what
you put into your body. It is the way to show
that you can still resist. You are showing your
captors and your comrades, but you are also
showing yourself, giving yourself strength that
you are still resisting, that they haven’t taken everything away from you.
BW: Khader is now striking to protest being in
administrative detention. You were in
administrative detention for 14 months. Can you
explain what it is and why it is inspiring a man
to die rather than live under such conditions?
MAM: First of all, I do not believe Khader wants
to die. That is not in his mind. We all went on
hunger strikes before, to protest conditions of
our imprisonment. He is showing his commitment to
resistance in the only way he can right now, with his own body.
Administrative detention is also a psychological
attack on a person. You are held, without knowing
what you are accused of, but most importantly,
without knowing when the imprisonment will end.
When you are convicted, you can accept in your
mind what is happening, and put it aside, and
plan and hope for the day when you are released.
Administrative detention does not allow you to do
that. Because you never know when you will be
released, you are in constant turmoil. Your
family is also in turmoil. You remember when I
thought I was going to be released. The guards
told me to pack my things, and I sent a message
to you through another prisoner that I was being
released. They even drove me to the gate of the
prison, with all of my things, and I thought,
after 12 months, I was being released, I would see my wife and family again.
And then they said it was a joke, and put me back
into the jeep and brought me back to the prison.
It destroys your soul. Your mind can only
experience so much loss of power before you start
to destroy yourself. It takes a huge amount of
strength not to fall into despair. This is a
powerful reason for Khader going on hunger
strike. I believe he needs to feel that they
[occupation forces] are not in full control of
him. They can control when he sees his family,
when he will be released, all of that but he
has control over something now, something they
cannot take away from him. The goal of any
occupation force is to demonstrate their total
power over the people, so that they will not
resist. Khader is showing himself, and all of us,
that the power to resist is always in our hands.
Occupation forces cannot take that away from us.
BW: Mousa, you were in jail for more than six
years. You were beaten so badly during your
interrogation for your first imprisonment that
they had to take you to the hospital. You’ve had
your house raided in the middle of the night
several times, and any time you know they might
take you away and put you in administrative
detention again, even if you haven’t done
anything. How do you continue working with the
popular struggle? How do you keep resisting?
MAM: People like me, like Khader, like
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/bassem-tamimi>Bassem
Tamimi [imprisoned organizer from
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/nabi-saleh>Nabi
Saleh], we made a commitment a long time ago to
resist. We promised ourselves and our people that
we would face the occupation and look it in the eye.
Of course, I do not want to go to prison again. I
want to have a life with my wife and my daughter.
We Palestinians are not robots, we are not living
just to resist. We want to have a normal life, to
laugh and joke and go to the park with our
children. But we also want to keep our commitment
to ourselves and our people: we will stand up to
the occupation. We will not let them own us. Even
if the only way to resist their control is to
refuse them, to refuse their food, their water,
their medical treatment, then that is what we
will do. Khader Adnan is continuing the
resistance to the very end. He is actually
fighting for life, life with justice and dignity.
Bekah Wolf is a co-founder of the Palestine
Solidarity Project, and has worked in the West
Bank since 2003. She is married to Mousa Abu Maria.
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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