[Pnews] Palestinian Hunger striker Muhammad Allan released by Israel

[Prisoner News]

  Hunger striker Muhammad Allan released by Israel

Maureen Clare Murphy 
<https://electronicintifada.net/people/maureen-clare-murphy> 6 November 2015
*https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/hunger-striker-muhammad-allan-released-israel*

After a year of detention without charge or trial, and a two-month-long 
hunger strike that nearly killed him, Muhammad Allan 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/muhammad-allan> was released from 
Israeli custody on Thursday.

“Thank God who favored us with what we asked for. Thank God who brought 
us out of these dark prisons,” Allan said upon his frenzied reception 
home <https://www.facebook.com/QudsN/videos/1030579883685579/> in 
Einabus, a Palestinian village near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus.

Allan, a 31-year-old lawyer, was among several Palestinians who went on 
hunger strike <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/hunger-strikes> 
earlier this year to protest their detention without charge or trial on 
renewable orders handed down by Israeli military courts 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israeli-military-court-system>.

This practice, known as administrative detention 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/administrative-detention>, is 
routinely used by Israel against Palestinians, depriving them of their 
fundamental rights.

Several prisoners who went on lengthy hunger strikes this year reached 
agreements 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/hunger-strikers-suspend-protest-after-israel-yields-demands> 
with their Israeli jailers that their detention orders would not be renewed.


    Costly victory

“With this hunger strike we succeeded in creating a new balance,” Allan 
said <https://www.facebook.com/QudsN/videos/1030628857014015/> at a 
press conference upon his release.

“We won an end to administrative detention, but it was costly,” he added.

Allan, who had rejected 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/muhammad-allan-wakes-coma-vows-continue-hunger-strike> 
an Israeli proposal to expel him to another country in exchange for his 
freedom, said that solidarity strikes by other detainees helped force 
the hand of the Israel Prison Service 
<https://electronicintifada.net/tags/israel-prison-service>.

Islamic Jihad <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/islamic-jihad>, the 
Palestinian resistance party with which Allan is affiliated, also warned 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/hunger-striker-muhammad-allan-now-life-support> 
at the time that it would not abide by the August 2014 ceasefire that 
ended 51 days of Israeli bombardement in Gaza if Allan died in custody.


    Arrest and detention

Having already spent three years in Israeli prison 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/muhammad-allan-wakes-coma-vows-continue-hunger-strike>, 
Allan’s latest ordeal began when he was arrested during a dawn raid on 
his family’s home one year ago and then held under a six-month 
administrative detention order on the basis of secret evidence.

Allan began his hunger strike on 16 June after the detention order was 
renewed for another six months.

During his strike, the Israeli prison authorities transferred him among 
several detention centers and eventually to the intensive care unit in 
Soroka hospital, in the south of present-day Israel.

The Israeli government, which had recently legalized the practice, made 
moves to force-feed Allan 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-force-feeding-palestinian-hunger-striker-imminent>.

When doctors at Soroka hospital said they would refuse to force-feed 
him, Allan was transferred to nearby Barzilai Medical Center, where he 
was shackled to a bed and placed under guard.

Allan was put on life-support 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/hunger-striker-muhammad-allan-now-life-support> 
in mid-August after he temporarily lost consciousness. A few days later 
Israel’s high court suspended his detention order 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-freezes-detention-hunger-striker-after-mri-shows-brain-damage> 
when medical tests showed he had suffered brain damage from malnutrition.

Nearly a month later, Israeli forces arrested Allan 
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/muhammad-allan-resumes-hunger-strike-after-arrest-israeli-hospital> 
at the medical center shortly after its director signed his release forms.

Allan was transferred to Ramle prison clinic in central Israel.

His detention order expired on Wednesday.


    1,200 new arrests

Israeli forces arrested approximately 1,200 Palestinians amid a sharp 
increase in confrontations and deadly violence last month.

Of those arrested, 171 were being held under administrative detention 
orders, according to Palestinian rights groups 
<http://www.alhaq.org/images/stories/PDF/2012/Al-Haq.Palestinians.Arrested.Infographic.Oct2015.pdf>.

Israel was holding 6,700 Palestinian political prisoners 
<http://addameer.org/statistics> in October, among them 320 child 
prisoners, and 450 administrative detainees, according to the 
Palestinian prisoner advocacy group Addameer.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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