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href="http://www.addameer.org/news/14-days-free-salah-prison-will-not-be-place-where-occupier-buries-our-dreams-and-hopes">http://www.addameer.org/news/14-days-free-salah-prison-will-not-be-place-where-occupier-buries-our-dreams-and-hopes</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">14 Days to Free Salah: "Prison will not be
the place where the occupier buries our dreams and hopes"</h1>
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<div id="reader-estimated-time" dir="ltr" style="text-align:
left;"><span class="date-display-single">14 February 2018</span></div>
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<p>Today marks the half way point through the month,
and 14 days to free Salah Hamouri. </p>
<p>Salah, following an interview with the French
newspaper L'Humanite, was transferred from the Negev
Prison to the high-security Megiddo prison as
punishment. </p>
<p>The interview itself calls for the continuation of
his support campaign, and displays a defiant
attitude for someone who has been held for 6 months
without charge. </p>
<p>Below, is the interview in full:</p>
<p><strong><em>How do you feel?</em></strong></p>
<p><em>It has been a long time since I last felt like
this, this is actually a really difficult question
for me to answer. This is the fourth time I have
been detained, with this time coming after five
years and a half of freedom. In those past five
years, I’ve built a life for myself, and started a
family which have lived apart from me since 2016,
and now they’re even further away than before. In
those years I went back to school as well. I
actually became a lawyer three days before I got
arrested.</em></p>
<p><em>So I guess I’m good. There’s good solidarity
between prisoners in here, and sometimes I recieve
news from outside through the lawyers.</em></p>
<p><em>One of the most difficult thing I encounter
here is seeing children, 14 and 15-year-old
imprisoned. They are in this brown uniform,
handcuffed and dragged by prison guards from one
place to the other.</em></p>
<p><em>I was transported to al Ramleh recently. During
the transportation, I couldn’t handle the scene of
six prisoners in one small cage that no human
being should be put in. In there, I saw one
prisoner I knew and actually lived with for five
years in the past. His name is Walid Daqqa. He
looked different, and had more gray hair than the
last time I saw him. He also had more wrinkles on
his face. When he saw me he yelled, “French guy!
What are you doing in here? Why did they detain
you?” In those moments, the map of Palestine was
drawn in my head, and I was thinking of how much
Palestinians suffer. The continuous arrests are
just one mechanism that the Israeli occupation
uses to pressure us to leave our land. It’s also a
mechanism used to break and destroy our social
life. All the relationships we build inside the
prisons are a tool to resist this occupation,
which obviously aims to empty Palestine of its
people, especially Jerusalem. </em></p>
<p><strong><em>What are your detention conditions and
how are you treated?</em></strong></p>
<p><em>I’m now in al-Naqab prison where there are 2400
prisoners. Many of them have been here for the
past ten years, and there are 300 administrative
detainees as well. We have a right to receive
clothes and books but only four times a year,
which isn’t enough. We don’t receive any Arabic
newspapers and we have access to only one TV
channel of news which is in Hebrew, the rest of
the channels are for entertainment.</em></p>
<p><em>The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) are using soft
torture against us; psychological torture to break
our will and force us to leave Palestine. This
kind of torture is much harder than any physical
torture. We have enough food and we are allowed to
leave our prison cells every day, but this isn’t
what we want. We want all of this torture to end.
They just want to break us, and convince us that
there’s no use to resisting them. This is why
we’re not allowed to get enough books or to have
access to Arabic news.</em></p>
<p><em>For you to get one visit a month for 45 minutes
is also a tool of torture, especially when this
visit is from behind glass. We aren’t allowed to
hug our families; many parents suffer as a result
of our detainment. Primarily, they miss us. Also,
this prison is really far away from Jerusalem, so
it’s a struggle for families to get here. Never
mind those prisoners who aren’t allowed to receive
any visits what so ever.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>How do you contact the French
Consulate?</em></strong></p>
<p><em>The French Consul and his deputy visited me
when I was at al-Mascobiyya, and a representative
from the Consulate comes to every court session I
have. Additionally, the French Consul visited me
here at al-Naqab with his visit application being
denied a few days ago. I learnt later that a
French group were denied a visit to me as well. In
my previous arrests I used to get visits from the
French Consul and French diplomats all the time.
It’s shameful that the Israeli occupation is
treating French diplomats like this, denying them
a visit despite the fact that they have been quite
mild. The diplomats haven’t asked for the
occupation to allow me visits, or hasn’t demanded
my release.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>What is your opinion on the French
Government and their silent position?</em></strong></p>
<p><em>We saw how this silence was broken in my
previous arrest as a result of the solidarity from
French people. The reality behind this silence is
Israeli lobbying and pressure on the French
government, which prevents the French President
from speaking on the issue. France has to be brave
and break this silence, to defend me and defend
itself from this kind of censorship. France should
also defend all people who are oppressed, and live
under occupation and imperialist power. I should
be treated just as any other French citizen;
France should strongly defend my rights. Israel is
violating my basic rights by placing me under
administrative detention. France should take one
strong clear position and defend me, as it should
with all French people in the world.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>Do you thing the French solidarity
campaign to support you is important?</em></strong></p>
<p><em>This campaign is really important, it affects
me and also other prisoners with me. We all send
our gratitude to all those supporters. When I
learnt that I would not be released and would be
placed under administrative detention, I knew and
was assured that a solidarity campaign would
start. I know that in 2011, I was released from
the prison because of the strong solidarity
campaign in France. Now, I’ve been detained here
for the past 100 days and I receive news about the
solidarity campaign from my lawyers, and it’s even
bigger and stronger than the previous one.</em></p>
<p><em>Our struggle will take time, and you should not
give up even it takes a long time; I assure you
that will win. Your solidarity is increasing one
day after day, and your influence is extending not
only in France but also in other European
countries. Your solidarity is the only way to make
people around the world see us and pay attention
to our issue and suffering.</em></p>
<p><strong><em>Is there a message you would like to
send?</em></strong></p>
<p><em>You are the hope for every single Palestinian
prisoner in Israeli jails. It is important to show
the world the crimes the Israeli occupation
authority is committing against Palestinians,
especially children. There are many children who
experienced detention and this is a systematic
Israeli policy that is undertaken with the aim of
destroying Palestinian childhood.</em></p>
<p><em>You are our voice in Europe and around the
world, know that prison will not be the place
where the occupier buries our dreams and hopes! We
are getting stronger every day and we are
convinced that resistance is a right, and a duty
for all of us. Only through resistance will we be
able to gain our rights, freedom, and
independence. Every action you undertake, it sends
us sun light, which makes our dark prison cells
warmer in this cold winter. </em></p>
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