Palestinians want an end to their solitary confinement

[Classical_Liberal]

Just who are the military holding in these prisons? Mostly they are young, and most are detained illegally, without charge or trial. Generally, they are the most active members of their local community, and the majority are detained for non-military activities. Most of them have gone through what can only be called show trials, in military courts, where collaborators and undercover army officers testify against them in secret..........

The conditions in the prisons cannot be believed. The facilities in which juveniles are held are exceptionally bad. In Megiddo and Ketziot military prison camps, which are run by the Israeli army, children are treated as adults and held in threadbare tents which offer little protection against freezing winters and scorching summers. Bedding consists of wooden pallets covered by a thin mattress, and there are four toilets and two showers for every section in which about 120 detainees are held. A young woman, Su'ad Ghazal, was punished for writing details about the terrible prison conditions in a letter to a French human rights organisation.

Palestinian children are also detained in the Telmond Compound and Ramle Women's Prison, administered by the Israeli prison service, where they are locked in their cells for hours on end with, in some cases, only 45 minutes outdoor exercise allowed every two days. Many are forced to sleep on the floor due to overcrowding. Windows are boarded up with iron panels, which block out the light and intensify the heat in the rooms. The prison guards routinely and arbitrarily beat and humiliate Palestinian detainees.

Though these are all political prisoners - held by foreign military occupiers - this hunger strike is not a political strike. The 2,269 prisoners who began the strike were asking for humane conditions, such as the cessation of public strip searches, the ability to use the telephone, to be able to see their families, and an end to arbitrary and indiscriminate beatings. These are not privileges or favours. The prisoners want the authorities to respect internationally recognised rules governing imprisonment. The minimum standards can be found in articles of the 1949 Geneva conventions, which should be applied to prisoners in occupied territories. Now more than 4,000 prisoners have joined the strike......

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1292678,00.html

[number6]

1. kick

:kick:

[number6]

2. and this is the "only" "democracy" in the middle east .....

"Mostly they are young, and most are detained illegally, without charge or trial. Generally, they are the most active members of their local community, and the majority are detained for non-military activities...."

the middle east's only democracy :eyes: