[Pnews] Palestinian Administrative detainees on hunger strike issue their will as they stand "at the edge of death"

[Prisoner News]

  Administrative detainees on hunger strike issue their will as they
  stand "at the edge of death"

Submitted by Shahd Abusalama on Wed, 06/11/2014 - 20:53
*http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/shahd-abusalama/administrative-detainees-hunger-strike-issue-their-will-they-stand-edge-death*

Our Palestinian detainees have been battling the Israel Prison Service 
(IPS) with their empty stomachs since 24 April, embarking on the 
longest-known mass hunger strike in the history of the Palestinian 
prisoners movement. Hunger is the only remaining weapon they can use 
against the IPS and its well-armed Israeli occupation soldiers.

They launched this hunger strike to call for an end to their detention 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/hunger-striking-palestinian-prisoners-punished-israel> 
with no charge or trial based on secret "evidence" submitted to a 
military court that is kept from the detainees and their lawyers --- an 
unjust policy that Israel calls administrative detention 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/administrative-detention>. One 
hundred and twenty administrative detainees launched this mass hunger 
strike which grew to involve nearly three hundred prisoners, according 
to the rights group Addameer.

Our dignified prisoners are striking in protest of Israel's violation of 
an agreement reached with the IPS after the 28-day mass hunger strike 
that ended on 14 May 2012. According to that deal, the use of 
administrative detention --- the key issue behind the hunger strike -- 
would be restricted and administrative detention orders would not be 
renewed without fresh evidence being brought before a military judge. 
However, Israel did not abide by the agreement and has continued its 
practice of arbitrary administrative detention.


    Strikers hospitalized

Administrative detainee Ayman Tbeisheh from Dura village near Hebron in 
the occupied West Bank has exceeded one hundred days of refusing food in 
protest of his administration detention orders which have been 
continuously renewed since his last arrest in May 2013, according to 
/al-Quds al-Arabi/ <http://www.alquds.co.uk/?p=177807> newspaper. 
Tbeisheh has spent a total of eleven years in Israeli jails, including 
nearly five years under administrative detention.

According to Addameer <http://www.addameer.org/etemplate.php?id=613>, 
Tbeisheh first began to refuse food on 22 May 2013, immediately after 
his four-month administrative detention order was confirmed in a 
military court. He suspended his strike after 105 days, when he thought 
he reached a deal with the IPS. But this was soon broken as his order 
was again renewed, despite his deteriorated health.

Ayman Tbeisheh told 
<http://www.pnn.ps/index.php/prisoner/56847-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%8A-%D9%8A%D8%AE%D9%88%D8%B6-%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%B1%D9%83%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A5%D8%B6%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D8%B9%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%A1-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B0-18-%D9%8A%D9%88%D9%85%D8%A7> 
Palestinian lawyer Ibrahim Al-Araj, who managed to visit him during his 
previous hunger strike, "I will continue this open hunger strike until I 
put an end to the ghost of administrative detention that keeps chasing me."

Soon after he regained some of his physical strength, he re-launched his 
hunger strike on 24 February 2014. Tbeisheh has since been placed in 
Assaf Harofe Medical Center where he lays shacked to a hospital bed that 
may become his deathbed at any moment.

Ayman's condition is no different than the rest of administrative 
detainees whose hunger for freedom and dignity drove them to launch the 
mass hunger strike that has been continuing for 51 days. Eighty hunger 
strikers have been hospitalized as a result of their ongoing hunger 
strike, but they persevere in this battle for dignity.

Despite their weak bodies that are drained of energy, their hands and 
feet are shacked to their hospital beds. They are threatened with 
force-feeding on a daily basis, an inhumane and dangerous practice that 
Israel's parliament, the Knesset, is close to setting into law 
<http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israeli-hospital-doctors-say-they-will-force-feed-shackled-palestinian>.


    Death penalty

My father, who spent a total of fifteen years in Israeli jails, calls 
force-feeding "a death penalty." He participated in the Nafha prison 
mass hunger strike in 1980 which lasted for 33 days. He was subjected to 
force-feeding and thankfully survived. But his comrades Rasem Halawa 
from Jabalia refugee camp and Ali al-Jaafary from Dheisheh camp were 
victims of this murderous practice that aimed to break their hunger 
strike, and were killed after being subjected to force-feeding.

The Israel Prison Service escalates its oppression of the hunger 
strikers as their health constantly deteriorates. They put them in 
windowless isolation cells, keep their hands and legs shackled for tens 
of hours, deny them family and lawyer visits, and they even deny them an 
access to salt, which is necessary for their survival.

The strikers are committed to "hunger until either victory or 
martyrdom," the same as Khader Adnan 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/khader-adnan>, Hana al-Shalabi 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/hana-al-shalabi>, Mahmoud Sarsak 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/mahmoud-sarsak>, Samer Issawi 
<http://electronicintifada.net/tags/samer-issawi> and other ex-detainees 
who freed themselves after heroic battles of hunger strike against the IPS.


Below is my translation of a letter our administrative detainees managed 
to smuggle on 8 June to call upon humanity and people of conscience for 
popular and international support of their battle for justice. The 
ex-detainee Allam Kaaby 
<https://palestinefrommyeyes.wordpress.com/2012/02/15/in-valentines-day-a-celebration-of-love-and-struggle/> 
read it during a press conference in front of the sit-in tent erected in 
front of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza in 
solidarity with our Palestinian prisoners' open-ended mass hunger strike:

    Despite the chains and the prisons' bars and walls, this is a will
    from those who are standing at the edge of death to the guards of
    our homeland, Palestine.

    After leaving the isolation cells which are no longer able to
    tolerate our pains, illnesses and corroded bodies, from our hospital
    beds to which we are shackled by chains and guard dogs, from amidst
    the jailers who keep watching our heart monitors that may announce
    our death any moment, from the edge of death, we send our call which
    could be the last for some of us. It might be the time to announce
    our will before we embrace our people as dignified martyrs. Our call
    is our voice, our scream, our will. We are the administrative
    detainees who are heading towards immortality, towards embracing the
    sun of dignity which might mark at the same time, the end of the
    battle for dignity. We raise our voice, hoping that it will reach
    our revolutionary people.

    First, we call upon you to intensify your support of the hunger
    strikers who are not yet martyred; the fighters who fight our
    fascist enemy with their bodies deserve from you a stand of loyalty
    that prevents the continuation of our bloodshed which will never
    stop until the achievement of our just demands.

    Second, the pains of hunger damaged some of our organs but some
    organs must be still in tact. As death is waiting for us, we declare
    that nothing will stand in the way of our sacrifices, even death.
    Therefore, we donate our functioning organs to the fighters, poor
    and oppressed people who are in need. We are waiting a visit from
    the International Committee of The Red Cross to endorse these donations.

    Third, we call on you to stay faithful to our blood and the blood of
    all martyrs who sacrificed their souls over the course of our
    Palestinian struggle. Faithfulness is not just through words, but
    through revolutionary practice that knows no hesitance nor weakness.

    Fourth, hold on to our historical and legitimate rights and never
    give up an inch of Palestine, from the river to the sea. The right
    to return is the bridge to our historic rights. These rights cannot
    be restored without resistance, which is the only language that our
    enemy understands.

    Fifth, don't fail prisoners who remain alive after us, as those who
    sacrifice their freedom as a price for their people's freedom
    deserve freedom rather than death.

    To our dignified people in Palestine and diaspora, to the free
    people and freedom fighters worldwide, we will let our screams be
    heard despite the darkness of Israeli jails, which are graves for
    the living. To people of dead conscience worldwide, our Palestinian
    people will continue the struggle until victory. We bid farewell
    with smiling faces.

Reading their words which embrace pain and disappointment must make us 
all ashamed as we watch them die slowly. Changing our profile pictures 
to a picture that shows solidarity with their battle for dignity cannot 
do them much help. We have to move beyond superficial solidarity to 
serious actions that will bring meaningful change to them. Act before we 
count more martyrs among Palestinian heroes behind Israeli bars. Their 
death would be our shame.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20140612/dbd2bada/attachment.htm>