Qaanitah Hunter- Cii News – July 11, 2012

While the release of Palestinian Soccer player, Mahmoud Sarsak, serves as a victory for Palestinian people and activists, there are many more Palestinians languishing in Israeli jails, 3 of whom are on hunger strike.

Samer Al-Barq, Akram Rikhawi and Hassan Safadi are still on hunger strike demanding an end to their administrative detention, better known as detention without trial.

Administrative detainees are arrested by the Israeli Occupying Forces on the basis of Military Order 1226 – the order which empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six months if they have “reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention, prisoner rights group, Addameer, noted.

According to Attorney Rima Ayoobi from the Adala Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, those individuals continued their hunger strikes because Israel did not honour its agreement with the prisoners earlier this year.

Israel agreed not to renew any administrative detention periods of any Palestinian detainee but has openly violated this agreement.

“We can see the insistence of the prisoners can sometimes get to great results some of them are released after long hunger strikes, but we see Israel not respecting all the articles of the agreement,” Ayoobi said.

In spite of the agreement, families of prisoners are not allowed visits and some prisoners remain in solitary confinement.

Ayoobi said while hunger striking does prove successful, it is still not taken seriously by Israel.

“The use of administrative detention is so indented in Israel, that there is 322 cases of administrative detainees,” she said.

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