[Mitai-announce] Reminder: TODAY(9/4) Rally for Palestinian prisoner hunger strike

[Aimee L Smith]

[Update: the stike is on a 48 hour haitus in 
hopes that concessions the Israeli Government 
has made will be honored, but Palestinians remember 
the betrayal of Oslo and other false promises 
throughout the 57 year campaign of genocide 
against them - they will be watching very closely 
for actions to confirm the promises. -Aimee]

The New England Committee to Defend Palestine calls:

Rally In Support of Palestinian Prisoner Hunger Strike

Saturday, September 4, 1 PM 
Copley Square, Boston

 
Why should US citizens be concerned about 
prisoners in Palestine? Because the US 
government directly supports the occupation 
of Palestine, and is fully aware of the abuse 
and torture being carried out daily in Israeli 
prisons there. The occupation is itself a form 
of imprisonment. US taxpayers pay for this and
other forms of injustice in Palestine directly.

There are 7,500 Arab and Palestinian political 
prisoners detained in Israeli prisons and military 
detention facilities.  3,500 of them are currently 
on an open-ended hunger strike which began on 
August 15. Their conditions of detention have 
continued to deteriorate over a long period of 
time and this deterioration has accelerated since 
the start of the current Intifada.  Prisoners are 
routinely subjected to torture, degrading treatment, 
and humiliation. They are prevented from having 
family visits, subjected to strip searches in 
front of other prisoners, placed in solitary 
confinement for extended periods of time, 
provided with inadequate and unhealthy food, 
and prevented from pursuing educational and 
other recreational activities.  Such treatment 
is unacceptable and in violation of all 
internationally recognized and agreed standards 
of behavior. 

According to the Palestinian Center for Human 
Rights, Israeli Security Minister, Tzahi Hanegbi 
has vowed to fight the demands of Palestinian and 
Arab Detainees "until death" if necessary. Israeli 
authorities have publicly committed themselves to 
using methods of extreme psychological and physical 
pressure to bring the prisoners off hunger strike, 
in violation of their right to express their demands 
"through any media of [their] choice" (Article 19 
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).  
They have explicitly stated that they will use the 
experiences of dealing with prisoners on hunger strike 
in South Africa, Ireland, Turkey and Latin America 
to break the strike. 
(Source: http://www.pchrgaza.org/Library/call.htm .)

While solidarity hunger strikes are being held in the 
US and Canada August  27-28, and worldwide September 3-5, 
we call on people of conscience to demand an end to all 
US support for Israel now!

 
 Some facts about "the only democracy in the Middle East":

* (Source: Imprisoned Decency Arjan El Fassed, The 
Electronic Intifada, 18 August 2004  
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3008.shtml>http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article3008.shtml )

* From 1967 to now, Israelis have arbitrarily detained 
over 630,000 Palestinians.

* 32,000 Palestinians were arrested by occupation 
forces during the first three years of the Al-Aqsa 
Intifada, which began in September, 2000.

* In 1989 alone, Israelis detained 50,000 
Palestinians, representing 16% of the entire 
male population of the West Bank and Gaza Strip 
between the ages of 14 and 55.

* Over 200 Palestinian prisoners have died while 
in Israeli custody, due to torture, ill-treatment, 
deprivation of medical treatment, and neglect.

* Only one month ago, Newsweek reported on Israel's 
secret torture facility 1391, which was used for 
prisoners rounded up during the Israeli military 
assault on Jenin in April 2002. Facility 1391 has 
been airbrushed from Israeli aerial photographs 
and purged from modern maps.

* Israelis have systematically tortured and ill-treated 
approximately 80% of all Palestinian detainees. The 
torture is both psychological and physical, and includes 
beatings of sensitive organs, choking, pulling of hair 
off the body, prolonged solitary confinement, subjecting 
detainees to noise, screams, and threats against their 
families. Prisoners are also tear-gassed in confined 
spaces.

* Other forms of torture and ill-treatment include 
forcing Palestinian detainees to stand hooded and 
handcuffed for long periods of time, the use of 
electric shock, burning, beatings with hands, fists, 
truncheons, and boots, deprivation of sleep and basic 
hygiene; and starvation. In the occupied Palestinian 
territories, Israelis have established military courts 
that do not comply with fair trial standards. There 
are no standards. Justice, where it exists, is 
completely arbitrary.

* About half of the nearly 8,000 Palestinian prisoners 
are being detained without charge. The vast majority of 
Palestinian prisoners are political prisoners who have 
been arbitrarily imprisoned or detained for no 
legitimate security reason, but for political expression
or simply because they are Palestinian.

* Between September 2000 to the end of June 2003, 
approximately 2,000 Palestinian children were arrested 
and detained. Children as young as 13 are held in 
Israeli prisons, with children aged 13 and 14 
constituting approximately 10% of all child detainees. 
Almost all child detainees have reported some form of 
torture or mistreatment.

 

No issue symbolizes Israel's denial of freedom to 
Palestinians better than that of political prisoners. 
Palestinians have been subjected to the highest rate 
of incarceration in the world -- approximately 20 
percent of the Palestinian population in the occupied 
Palestinian territories has, at one point, been 
arbitrarily detained or imprisoned by the Israeli 
occupation.


New England Committee to Defend Palestine: 
http://www.onepalestine.org
 

For more information on the hunger strike, see the 
statement from Families of Palestinian Political 
Prisoners Committee:  
http://www.palsolidarity.org/prisoners/announcestrike.html

See also Palestinian Center for Human Rights: 
http://www.pchrgaza.org