Palestinian female, male detainees subjected to mistreatment in Israeli jails

Palestinian female, male detainees subjected to mistreatment in Israeli jails

[ 03/10/2014 - 09:34 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Dozens of Palestinian female and male detainees, held at different Israeli prisons, are subjected to harsh detention conditions, activists in prisoners and ex-prisoners’ affairs reported Thursday. According to a statement by the committee of prisoners and ex-prisoners, the Israeli prison service (IPS) has come down heavily on at least 15 Palestinian female detainees, locked-up in the Israeli HaSharon jail, in a way that stands in sharp contrast with all international feminist laws and women’s rights. The IPS has been resorting to a set of psycho-physical torture tactics against the female detainees, including frequent denials of basic needs, medical neglect, visit-bans, exhausting inter-prison transfers, and abuse. The prisoners’ committee appealed to all the world’s free people and feminist activists to raise the world’s awareness of the agony of Palestinian female detainees and take all necessary steps to restore their freedom before it is too late. In a related development, Palestinian detainees at the Israeli Gilboa lock-up have launched distress signals over their dire detention conditions and the IPS’ intransigence to provide them with their basic humanitarian and personal needs. Lawyer of the prisoners’ committee, Ashraf al-Khatib, said, following a field visit to a number of Gilboa prisoners, the IPS has increasingly stepped up its castigatory measures with the advent of Muslim’s Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice). The lawyer further spoke out against IPS’ pre-planned delay of prisoners’ access to the canteen items over the past few months, a penalty that coincides with the unprecedented mass-incarceration of hundreds of Palestinian citizens since last June under the pretext that three Israeli soldiers had disappeared from al-Khalil. “The Gilboa detainees called for the need to step up pressure on the IPS so as to enable them to purchase canteen items at a regular pace,” the lawyer quoted the prisoners as demanding.