Support Statement for the Right of Prisoners to Education

Palestinian Prisoners in the Israeli occupation prisons comprise an essential fraction of our people; they gave up their youth and sacrificed their freedom for the rights of their people. Due to the Israeli measures, they were deprived of all their rights including their right to basic and higher education. Against these Israeli measures contradicting every human right stating the right of every person to education, and in light of the violations to the Geneva Conventions against the treatment of prisoners, the prisoners decided to educate themselves. The prisoners innovated ways to educate themselves and their fellow prisoners, they also published many writings in different fields. As the rights of prisoners should be the responsibility of their community and their state both during their imprisonment and release, official institutions headed by the Ministry of Education should take the cultural and academic level and circumstances of prisoners into consideration. This will enable them to invest in their acquired knowledge during their imprisonment, and help evaluate their academic publications fairly according to their academic evaluation.

The Palestine Coalition for Education affirms the rights of prisoners who are liberated and those still imprisoned in the occupation prisons as follows:

1. Advocating the movement demanding the right of prisoners to education, and supporting their work in order to achieve these rights.

2. Demanding the positive approach of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to take responsibility for these demands, and demand calling the proper attention to the cause through serious and responsible dialogues. Liberated prisoners, teachers and academics should participate and provide insights about the implications of education for prisoners to help offer them the proper techniques that will enable them practice their right to basic and higher education.

3. Assessing the literary, academic and scientific works of prisoners in accordance with objective assessment criteria taking into consideration their deserved level.

4. Fully supporting liberated prisoner Esmat Mansour in his campaign “Prisoners’ Right to Education.”

5. Forming a committee consisting of scholars, academics and teachers to set the assessment criteria for evaluating the works and compositions of prisoners.

The Palestine Coalition for Education reaffirms its constant support to the right of prisoners to education, their right to invest and expand their compositions and writings, and their right to fair academic assessment. The Coalition also affirms its alignment in the struggle of prisoners to support their retainment of their right to education.

The Palestine Coalition for Education – Palestine