Hurryyat: Israeli Prisons in Crisis The International Community Has to Respond and Save the Life of Khader Adnan
Administrative detainee Khader Adnan is entering his 48th day of hunger striking while his health is deteriorating and he is not getting any significant medical treatment or supplements. He is still cuffed to his hospital bed in “Assaf Harofeh” Medical Center, while the prisons are witnessing a state of flux and are on the verge of outburst, as Hurryyat stated, due to the threat encompassing the life of Sheikh Khader Adnan midst the refusal of the Israeli Government to comply to his demand of immediate release from administrative detention.
This flux is also witnessing the warnings of Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Ahmad Saadat, and his comrades, to declare an open hunger strike. He is fighting for his legitimate right provided by the International Humanitarian Law (IHL), particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention 1949, and the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners 1957, to allow his family to visit again after being arbitrarily deprived of their visits by an order from the Israeli Intelligence Services since September 2014. He has given them a deadline until the coming Tuesday.
This all is occurring concurrently with the continuous policies of the Prison Services violating the rights of prisoners and their human and national dignity, abusing solitary confinement and medical negligence, while suffocating the prisoners depriving them of their basic rights. Moreover, the Knesset is pushing towards legislating racial laws of force-feeding and capital punishment for the Palestinian prisoners. Furthermore, this critical state is escalating as the policy of medical negligence is growing nastier and harsher posing the life of sick prisoners in danger, mainly Alaa Al-Hams, Yusri Al-Masri, Eyas Al-Refa’i along with other sick prisoners in the Ramla Hospital Prison and elsewhere.
Hurryyat deems these policies an unprecedented targeting of the prisoners’ movement that breaches the basic rights of prisoners and all the international conventions and agreements nurturing these rights.
Hurryyat warns of a coming outburst in prisons due to these policies threatening the life of Sheikh Khader Adnan and putting the lives of sick prisoners in danger. Hurryyat therefore calls upon the international community, UN Secretary General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, in particular, Amnesty International, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to undertake their responsibilities to speak out and condemn this policy targeting prisoners and their livelihood in the Israeli Occupation Prisons. Hurryyat urges them to hold the Israeli Government accountable for the life of Adnan and his fellow prisoners facing death, and urges them to exert pressure on the Israeli Government for immediately responding to Adnan’s demand of release from administrative detention, and immediately releasing all the sick prisoners.
Hurryyat calls upon the Palestinian Leadership, the Palestinian people, the national organizations, the popular unions, and the political forces to declare a state of alert for solidarity with Sheikh Khader Adnan through different activities and events. An urgent meeting should be held between the Arab League, the United Nations General Assembly, and the Human Rights Council to urge them provide the cause of Prisoners with paramount attention at all levels, and enlist it in the agendas of all international agencies and organizations, particularly the case of Sheikh Khader Adnan and all the sick prisoners threatened with death, before it becomes too late.