MIDDLE EAST: Doctors warn of deteriorating health, as Palestinian prisoner Hana Shalabi enters 30 days of hunger strike in Israeli detention

Record ID: 340691

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Doctors warn of deteriorating health, as Palestinian prisoner Hana Shalabi enters 30 days of hunger strike in Israeli detention
  • Date: 17th March 2012
  • Summary: BURQIN, JENIN, WEST BANK (MARCH 16, 2012) (REUTERS ) VARIOUS OF RESIDENTS MARCHING IN SUPPORT OF PALESTINIAN PRISONER HANA SHALABI SHALABI'S FATHER YAHYA SHALABI HOLDING POSTER LARGE POSTER OF SHALABI MORE OF FATHER IN MARCH VARIOUS OF PROTEST
  • Embargoed: 1st April 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel, West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Conflict
  • Reuters ID: LVA7TO6JVT49655HVZO7C5FH8BWR
  • Story Text: Hana Shalabi, a Palestinian female prisoner held without charge, entered day thirty of her hunger strike on Friday (March 16) at Hasharon Prison in Israel.
    The deteriorating health of the Palestinian prisoner on hunger strike for the past month is focusing international attention on Israel's decades-old use of detention without trial.
    In Jenin's neighbouring village of Burqin, people of all ages took part in the daily marches and visits to the Hana Shalabi sit-in tent. School children, men and women chanted slogans and carried pictures and posters of Shalabi. The tent set up in the village has become a focal point for people to gather and show their solidarity with Shalabi's family.
    Shalabi's family complains that they are denied visitation rights and are unable to visit Hana ever since she refused salts and minerals.
    "She is held in Hasharon (prison), and up till now we couldn't visit her, it's prohibited, and her health is getting worse" Ammar Shalabi, Hana's brother in Burqin said.
    The 30-year-old has refused to consume anything but water since being arrested in the West Bank village of Burqin last month and held on terms of "administrative detention".
    At Um El Fahem, Shalabi's lawyer Mahameed told Reuters that the policy of administrative detention goes against International laws and conventions.
    "There are unjustified arrests against Palestinian prisoners, the arrest is not based on any evidence or laws, and it relies on confidential materials which can only be accessed by the security institution, these arrests contradict with all international laws and the fourth Geneva Convention.," Raed Mahameed, one of Shalabi's lawyers said.
    In many instances, Israeli military authorities explain detentions in terms of their security concerns, and base cases on evidence from local informants or members of its own security services whose identities are not revealed.
    Evidence isn't revealed and the way decisions against defendants are met is kept secret. Accusations and evidence are kept from the defendant and their lawyer, and the judge is made to act in the capacity of the defence, Naama Baumgarten-Sharon of the Israeli rights group B'Tselem said of the procedure.
    Israel's High Court has upheld the procedure for decades, siding with the government's argument that detention without trial is a necessary security measure.
    Israel, currently detaining some 300 Palestinians without trial, had held Shalabi for 25 months without trial but released her in October under a prisoner swap with the Islamist militant group Hamas.
    This magic phrase, 'endangering public order' used by the Israelis to justify administrative detention is a dishonest instrument, Jawad Boulos, another Shalabi lawyer, told Reuters. Some of those behind bars are not even accused of being violent, and their detention has more political motives, Boulos added.
    Shalabi's legal team and the Israeli prosecution have failed to reach a compromise and a military judge is expected to relay his views on the case in the coming days.
    Shalabi is now suffering spells of dizziness, muscular wasting and loss of consciousness, her lawyers and medical observers say.
    Ran Cohen, of Physicians for Human Rights in Israel, told Reuters TV that Shalabi could be risking her life if she remains on hunger strike. Unlike many who go on hunger strike, Shalabi has refused salts and minerals which can make her health suffer worse consequences.
    "The situation is of course deteriorating, according to our physician, she is suffering from muscle atrophy wasting as well as weakness, and she is losing conscious periodically and so on," Ran Cohen Executive Director at Physicians for Human Rights in Israel said.
    Her protest is part of a spreading movement by Palestinian prisoners ignited in December by Khader Adnan who ended a near-fatal fast of 66 days after Israeli authorities agreed to cut his detention period.
    Shalabi's parents were invited to visit the Palestinian Prime Minister who expressed his support for Shalabi and her cause. 'She is fighting for her dignity,' Fayyad said calling on international community and human rights institutes to step in and get involved.
    "This is a good occasion to express the importance of human rights and the international organizations that work on such issue, and also those who work on the rights of the Palestinian people in general. In order for take a more assertive stand concerning this case and all other aspects of the suffering of the Palestinian people," Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told reporters at his office in Ramallah.
    Shrouded by winter gloom, Palestinian protesters clutching pictures of Hana Shalabi gathered on Thursday (March 15) outside Ofer prison, the largest in the occupied West Bank, and shouted slogans at Israeli soldiers guarding the facility.
    Shalabi and Adnan are affiliated with Islamic Jihad, a militant group which earlier this week was engaged in days of combat with Israel in Gaza and the country's south during which more than a dozen of its fighters were killed by air strikes.
    With Shalabi's condition serious, and 23 other Palestinians pledging not to eat while in Israeli custody, calls have mounted for Israel to repeal the controversial policy it has applied to detainees from the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.
    Last month, Catherine Ashton, the European Union's foreign policy chief, expressed "longstanding concern about the extensive use by Israel of administrative detention without formal charge."
    In the meantime, the Palestinian government in Ramallah is asking for help from the international community.
    Islamic Jihad, an opponent of the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, said these efforts were falling short.
    Official policy is not nearly enough, and they have not mobilised international institutions or rights organisations, said Jaafar Izzedine, Islamic Jihad's spokesman in the West Bank. They make statements, but nobody is moving, Jaafar added.
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