Today marks Palestinian Prisoners Day, a day when the Palestinian people and supporters of justice and liberation for Palestine all over the world express their support to Palestinian political prisoners of freedom.
In Palestine, political imprisonment is a central feature of Israeli Apartheid with over 20% of Palestinians facing imprisonment in their lifetime.
According to the Commission for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoner Affairs ;-
,http://www.addameer.org/news/joint-monthly-report-609-palestinians-arrested-during-month-march-2018 roughly 6,500 Palestinians are currently lanquishing in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 350 children, 62 women (8 of whom are female child prisoners), 500 administrative detainees held without charge or trial. 1,800 prisoners who require medical care (700 of whom suffer from serious and chronic conditions), 6 parliamentarians, and 18 journalists. The youngest being a 12-year-old girl. All are treated with the same callousness regardless of age or gender, and UNICEF has said that Israel’s treatment of child detainees is in violation of international law and the Rights of the Child.
Since Israeli began its military occupation of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip in 1967, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been abducted and imprisoned by Israel. This figure represents 20% of the total Palestinian population and 40% of the Palestinian male population. It also includes 10,000 women imprisoned since 1967 and more than 200 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons as a result of torture and lack of medical care. Furthermore, 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested since 2000.
Under international law and conventions, including the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (the Third Geneva Convention), the Fourth Geneva Convention and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966, Israel is legally bound to exercise its powers for the benefit of the occupied area and its people.
Palestinian Prisoner Day was founded to remind the world of the thousands of Palestinian political prisoners imprisoned in Israeli prisons or detention centers without charge or trial for extensive periods of time. The number of Palestinian detainess increases as Israeli occupying forces continue to wage campaigns of arbitrary arrests and detentions against thousands of Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails continue to be subject to wide-ranging violations of their rights
and dignity.
The numbers of Palestinian women detained has also increased,. Investigations have revealed that prisoners are regularly subject to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, including poor detention conditions, in violation of Israel's obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law.
Out of the total number of detainees, 48 had spent more than 20 successive years in prison, 25 spent more than 25 years and 12 having spent more than 30 years.
The longest serving are Kareem Younis and Maher Younis, who have been in detention for 35 years, and Nael Barhoutti, who served 24 years in Israeli prisons and released during one of the prisoner exchange deals but was later re-arrested to continue his previous life sentence and an additional 18 years.
These are some of the reasons that I support Palestine Prisoner Day and continue to support the international communities efforts to ensure the immediate and effective measures to ensure that Israel releases all unlawfully detaned prisoners, and ensures that conditions of arrest are consistent with international human rights and humanitarian law.
Take action
http://samidoun.net/2012/04/palestinian-prisoners-day-take-action-to-call-for-freedom-for-palestinian-prisoners/
https://www.palestinecampaign.org/campaigns/childprisoners/
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