Israeli lawmaker calls to reduce water supply to Palestinian prisoners
http://freedetainees.org/6247
GAZA, (PIC)– The prisoners’ study center has warned Thursday of the adverse call of the extremist rightist Israeli Knesset member Dani Danoun to further reduce water supply to Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli jails.
The fanatic Israeli official alleged that Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails leave water taps open during night time with the aim
to “harm the Israeli economy”.
In a statement it issued Thursday and a copy of which was obtained by the PIC, the center described Danoun allegations as “old”, adding that every time the Israeli community suffer shortage in water supplies they use such allegations in order to tighten the grip on the Palestinian captives, and to make their life more difficult.
Moreover, the center affirmed that the captives had been suffering from a shortage of water supplies for a long time, but the Israeli prison authorities paid no attention to their suffering, urging the IOA not to listen to such extremist calls that would be counter-productive especially after the Israeli prison authorities reduced bread rations for the Palestinian detainees.
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Israelis `chained pregnant prisoners to beds’
http://freedetainees.org/6223
A PALESTINIAN human rights group slammed Israeli treatment of female prisoners in a new UN-sponsored report, saying pregnant women are often shackled on their way to hospitals to give birth.
The women prisoners are held in “Israeli prisons and detention centres which were designed for men and do not respond to female needs”, a report by the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association said. The report was sponsored by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).
Pregnant detainees “do not enjoy preferential treatment in terms of diet, living space or transfer to hospitals”, it said.
“Pregnant prisoners are also chained to their beds until they enter delivery rooms and shackled once again after giving birth.
“The unbalanced diet, insufficient amounts of protein-rich foods, lack of natural sunlight and movement, poor ventilation and moisture all contribute to the exacerbation and the development of health problems such as skin diseases, anaemia, asthma, prolonged stomach aches, joint and back pains.”
In addition, the majority of the prisoners were “subjected to some form of mental pressure and torture through the process of their arrest”, including beatings, insults, threats, sexual harassment and humiliation techniques.
The vast majority of Palestinian women in Israeli prisons are young — some 13 per cent of those arrested in 2007-2008 were under the age of 18 and 56 per cent were between 20 and 30 years of age. The detainees are often denied means to study, which violates their rights to
a higher education and suffer from restrictions on visits.
In September 2008, some 60 per cent had at least one family member who was not allowed to visit them. Open visits were restricted to mothers once their children reached the age of six.
Female prisoners with a husband or other relatives also in jail were
“accorded the right to family visits… after months of delays”.
In addition, the Israeli prison authorities do not provide gender-sensitive rehabilitation programs, it said.
The report was based on interviews with 125 Palestinian women who were
arrested, detained or imprisoned in Israeli jails between November 2007 and November 2008.
Of those, some 65 remain in prison – part of some 9,000 Palestinians
currently incarcerated in Israel.
A spokesman for the Israeli prison authorities said he was not aware of the report and could not comment.
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Report: Israeli soldier threatened to rape mother of detained boy
Bethlehem – Ma’an – “Shut up or I will f*** you,” a Christian
Peacemaker Team observer quoted an Israeli soldier yelling at the mother of a boy bound in military custody near Hebron on Monday.
CPT observers near the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron detailed an attack on an unarmed 16-year-old boy that also saw his mother threatened and death threats launched at his father, who attempted to file a police report against the actions. The boy volunteers for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem as a cameraman and has undertaken nonviolence
training.
“At 4:30pm on Monday 13 July two Israeli soldiers attacked a 16-year-old Palestinian boy 150 yards from his home,” the CPT report said. “The attack happened as the boy was walking to his home carrying heavy electrical cables necessary for repair work on his family’s house. Two workers who were with him left to raise the alarm.”
According to CPT the boy had been harassed several times by Israeli soldiers. When his mother and cousin arrived on the scene to defend the boy, soldiers threatened his mother with sexual acts. They were convinced to take the boy to his home, and were met there by a small group of settlers, who live illegally in the West Bank city.
“The soldiers cuffed the boy’s hands behind his back, blindfolded him and again forced him to sit” behind the house where settlers were glaring down from adjacent rooftops, the report said. “One or more
people kicked and hit him again, but because of the blindfold he could not see whether his attackers were soldiers or settlers.”
The boy’s father and friends arrived at the home, having been alerted by his mother, and began filming the incident. “The officer observed that Palestinians were filming the incident and removed the blindfold and handcuffs and released the boy. He gripped the boy by the jaw and warned him, `If you say anything to internationals or the police, I will kill you,'” the report said.
That evening the boy received hospital treatment for his injuries, and the following day his father spent four and a half hours at the police station making a complaint, in support of which he passed over video of the incident, CPT said.
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Palestinian children in Israeli prison are deprived
the most basic of human rights
http://freedetainees.org/6244
Gaza / PNN – There are 345 Palestinian children in
Israeli prisons where physical and psychological torture are both
practiced.
Since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 some 7,800 boys and girls have been arrested. The number since the occupation of 1967 is in the tens of thousands.
The figures come as part of a report by prison expert Abdel Nasser Ferwana issued today that says children constitute 3.6 percent of the total number of Palestinian political prisoners. “The future of these children are at risk and face harsh torture and degrading treatment,” he said. “Children are subjected to systematic violations and the continual deprivation of their most basic rights, among them sickness without medical care.”
Children are treated similarly to adults: arrested at checkpoints or snatched from homes and are subjected to middle-of-the-night searches that use dogs. The difference is the destruction of the formative years and the denial of the right to education. Ferwana noted the targeting of the next generation to ensure that it comes into its own without proper education or socialization, and with deep-rooted psychological problems.
International law does not prohibit the imprisonment of children for short periods of time but does not condone the deprivation of liberty.