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| Palestinian political prisoners hunger strike against strip searches |
| 2006-08-24 | Some 2,400 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli Al Naqab Prison are on hunger strike this week in protest of routinely being stripped naked.
The naked body searches are described as humiliating and sometime Israeli prison authorities conduct them against political prisoners’ parents and other family members during visits.
This latest act of nonviolent resistance began with 20 Palestinians and quickly became 2,400. The first meal skipped was lunch Tuesday.
But with each meal skipped the demonstrators speak out about more infractions, dedicating the breakfast and lunch they refused to eat Wednesday to the escalation in aggressive Israeli practices against them and their families, speaking specifically of their mothers, sisters and wives.
Female residents of Qalqilia and Salfit in the West Bank received the most horrific treatment during their visiting day. And on the day allotted for Bethlehem families, Israeli guards began the invasive searches, despite an agreement to stop strip searching family members.
One of the girls came from Qalqilia in the northwestern West Bank to visit her brother. She refused to strip naked in front of Israeli prison guards. The police did not allow her to see her brother. The same thing happened with William Jalal from Salfit and Khalid Assakrah from Bethlehem.
Israeli guards are using trained military dogs to terrorize children during the visits. And they are preventing Friday prayers by disallowing the Sheikh to move freely between the sections in order to perform the weekly service.
For the first time in six years the normal negotiator is not allowed to move between sections anymore either. His role defused a great deal of attention as he was in the position to gather collective complaints and bring them to the prison administration. Without that, several Palestinians inside have said, the situation could explode at any moment.
There are 2,400 Palestinians in Al Naqab (Negev Desert) Prison. Among them are 500 without charge or trial on Administrative Detention. | | Source: Palestine News Network |
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