Friends of Humanity: 2009 is the worst year in the history of Palestinian detainees

Date Published: February 8, 2010

Source: The Palestine Telegraph

Friends of Humanity International organization, based in Vienna, issued on Saturday a detailed report entitled “Beyond the Sun” on the reality of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails; the organization reported that 2009 was the worst year in history of Palestinian detainees utterly. 
“In 2009, The Israeli Prison service practiced new methods of torture against Palestinian detainees in order to increase physical and psychological pressure on them so that they could not live normal life if they were released one day. In addition, it intended to destroy the physiological state of detainees and their families by the ban of visitation right for along period.” report mentioned 
The report added. “The detainee’s ability to endure the difficult circumstances of the imprisonment in Israeli Jails for being survival means great thing in the process of defending their rights to life” 
It pointed out that the number of detainees in Israeli prisons amounted to 7286 at the end of 2009, including 36 female detainees, 20 member of Parliaments and Ministers and 250 children under 18 years. 
The report indicated that there were 319 detainees imprisoned before signing Oslo accord between the government of Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1993; those detainees are known as longest serving detainees in Israeli prisons, including 115 detainees served more than 20 years in Israeli prisons.

Marginal detainees 
The reports focused on the detainees of Jerusalem city and Palestinian territories occupied in 1948 because the Israeli authorities intended to marginalize their issue and still refuse to free any one of them as a part of prisoners swap with the Palestinians. The number of detainees of Jerusalem amounted to 237, including 4 female detainees. It mentioned also that 14 detainees of Jerusalem passed away inside Israeli prisons.

Violations
The report showed that the formation of a special Ministerial Committee by the Israeli government is the most dangerous event occurred in 2009. This committee aims at studying and evaluating the conditions of Palestinian detainees in order to tighten the screw on them.
It explained that more than 1,000 prisoners suffering from chronic diseases are medically neglected and more than 1,500 others, 775 of them from Gaza, are deprived of seeing their loved ones for long periods of time. 
Israeli forces used detainees as human shields during the last war on Gaza Strip and those detainees were caught in the cross fire. 
15 Palestinian detained in 2009; most of them were Gazans. They were arrested under what so called “unlawful combatant”. The organizations said that the above mentioned arrest violates the standards of fair trial and the principles of human rights

 

Photo by Eman Jomaa