<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes"?><oembed><version><![CDATA[1.0]]></version><provider_name><![CDATA[Occupied Palestine | فلسطين]]></provider_name><provider_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com]]></provider_url><author_name><![CDATA[occupiedpalestine]]></author_name><author_url><![CDATA[https://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/author/hajarhajar/]]></author_url><title><![CDATA[Price of Dignity: Palestine&#8217;s Political&nbsp;Prisoners]]></title><type><![CDATA[link]]></type><html><![CDATA[<table border="0" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="1" width="100%" align="center">
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-left:15px;" align="right">22:43 01/27/2011</td>
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<td height="15px" valign="top"><img src="https://i2.wp.com/www.palestinechronicle.com/images/separator.jpg" alt="" width="510px" height="1px" /></td>
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<td align="center"><img class="border" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.palestinechronicle.com/uploads/1296186207westbank_kids_arrested_lendman.jpg" alt="" vspace="2" width="400px" height="300px" /></td>
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<td class="caption_text" align="center">Many of the Palestinian political prisoners are minors.</td>
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<td class="normal_text" style="padding-top:10px;"><strong>By Kim Bullimore – The West Bank</strong></p>
<p>Currently  there are more than 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners locked up in  Israel&#8217;s jails. This week, I found out that my friend Hasan (not his  real name) is one of them. When in Ramallah, I mentioned to a mutual  friend that I had planned to ring him to let him know I was in  Palestine. Our mutual friend informed me that Hasan was being held under  “Administration Detention” and had been in prison for three months.</p>
<p>I  last saw Hasan more than a year ago, when I was last in Palestine. A  year previous to this last meeting, he had emailed me to apologise for  not answering my phone calls and emails when I had tried to contact him  when I was in Palestine. Unfortunately, he apologised, he had been in  prison for seven months held without charge or trial by the Israeli  military under an Administrative Detention order.</p>
<p>When I met him  last year in a local Ramallah coffee shop, he looked the same but  different.  In his early to mid-twenties, Hasan, who I had met him  several years before, had always had a lean but strong build, but now he  was thinner than I remembered him. He was also smoking more and his  demeanour was different. He was still as politically sharp as I  remembered him, but his youthful, upbeat enthusiasm had been tempered  and he was much more cynical and world-weary than before. I could see  that the seven months he spent in Israel’s prisons had taken a definite  toll on him. Hasan told me that he had been repeatedly tortured while in  prison but it had made him stronger and more committed to his people’s  struggle.</p>
<p>Hasan with wry humour, also recounted the toll his  imprisonment had also had on his family, particularly his mother. An  atheist himself, Hasan, comes from a Christian Palestinian family and  upon his release from Administrative Detention; he came home to find  that his mother, a believer, had hung a crucifix on his bedroom wall and  left a small crucifix on his study table. For the first few weeks, he  told me, he out of love and deference for his mother he allowed the  Cross on the wall to remain but would put the small one on his table  away. However, every time he returned home from being out, he again  would find the small cross had reappeared on his table, placed there by  his concerned mother. Our mutual friend, when she told me of Hasan’s  re-incarceration, also recounted to me that his mother after his release  from his first imprisonment woke at 3 am every morning, the time the  Israeli military had raid the family’s home to kidnap Hasan. His mother,  terrified that the Israeli military would again raid her home and take  either one or both of her sons, woke at this time each morning to check  they were safely in their beds.</p>
<p>Hasan’s imprisonment, our mutual  friend informed me, came at a time when he was finally getting over the  horrors of his first imprisonment and torture and was much more like  his “old-self”. As I write this article, I worry that my friend is being  tortured and that his family is suffering, like so many other  Palestinian families who are experiencing the same horrendous  situation.</p>
<p>Since 1967, more than 650,000 Palestinians or twenty  percent of Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian  Territories have been detained by Israel. According to the Palestinian  prisoner&#8217;s support and human rights association, Addameer, most of those  detained are male.  Addameer notes that this translates to more forty  percent of the total male Palestinian population of the Occupied  Palestinian Territories being incarcerated since 1967.</p>
<p>Since 1967,  when Israel illegal seized and occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank  and the Gaza Strip, more than 1500 military regulations have been issued  by Israel’s military to “govern” the West Bank, while more than 1400  have been issued to “govern” the besieged Gaza Strip. These military  orders can be issued on the whim of an Israeli military commander and do  not need to be publicised. As a result, the Palestinians and the wider  public, including the media and legal services, only become aware of the  existence of such orders when they are implemented. In 1970, Israel  issued Military Order 378, which authorised the military commanders of  regions to issue “Administrative Detention” orders. These orders allow  Israeli occupying forces to detain and arrest large numbers of  Palestinian civilians without charge or trail. In 1988, Military Order  378 was amended by Military Order 1229 in the Occupied West Bank and  Military Order 941 in the Gaza Strip, with these amendments allowing  military orders to be issued for Administrative Detention without  designating a maximum period of time for incarceration without charge or  trail.</p>
<p>According to the first paragraph of Military Order 1229:  “If a Military Commander deems the detention of a person necessary for  security reasons he may do so for a period not in excess of 6 months,  after which he has the right to extend the detention period for a  further six months according to the original order. The detention order  can be passed without the presence of the detainee&#8230;”</p>
<p>Under this  regime, 22% of persons held under administrative detention are held for  less than 6 months, while 37% have been held between 6 months to 1  year.  Another eight percent have been held for 2-5 years. The longest  period an individual has been held under administrative detention  without then being charged is 8 years.</p>
<p>Israeli human rights group,  B&#8217;Tselem notes that the highest number of Palestinians held under  administrative detention was during the First Intifada, with almost 1800  Palestinians detain in November 1989. During the early to mid 1990s,  between 100-350 Palestinian political prisoners were detained under  administrative detention at any given moment. By the second year of the  Second Palestinian Intifada, approximately 1000 Palestinians were  detained under Israel&#8217;s regime. B&#8217;Tselem notes that as of August of  2010, 189 Palestinians were being held under administrative detention.</p>
<p>B’Tselm  points out that while administrative detention is allowed under  international law, it “can only be used only in the most exceptional  cases, as the last means available for preventing danger that cannot be  thwarted by less harmful means”. B’Tselem notes, however, that Israel  uses administrative detention in an arbitrary and regular manner in  order to detain Palestinian civilians, denying them proper legal  recourse, which is in violation of international law. Not only are  Palestinians, who are detained under Administrative Detention orders,  not charged with anything and denied the right to a trial, both the  detainee and their legal council are denied the right to even know what  the detainee is accused of. The detainee’s lawyers are also denied the  right to access the military ‘evidence’ against those detained under the  Administrative Detention regime. Addameer notes that the use of  administrative detention by Israel is such a manner is in contravention  of Fourth Geneva Convention, as well as other international and human  rights law.</p>
<p>Nearly all Palestinian political prisoners, both male  and female, as well as adults and minors, have suffered torture at the  hands of their Israeli captors. According to Addameer, “Physical and  psychological torture against Palestinian and Arab prisoners has been a  distinguishing factor of Israeli occupation since 1967”, noting that  “torture has taken different shapes throughout the period of  occupation”.  According to Addameer since the beginning of the first  Palestinian intifada in 1987, at least 30,000 Palestinians have been  tortured by Israel.</p>
<p>Many of the Palestinian political prisoners  detained under the Administrative Detention regime are minors. In the  last week, the village of An Nabi Saleh, has been raided almost nightly  and at least four Palestinian minors have been kidnapped by the Israeli  military, including an 11 year old off the streets of the village. Under  Israeli military law, Palestinian children age 14 years and over are  tried as an adult in Israel’s military courts. In practice, however,  children as young as 11 and 12 have been brought before these courts and  held under Administrative Detention. According to Defense for Children  International, 213 Palestinian children are currently being held in  Israeli prisons as of December 2010. The majority of Palestinian child  political prisoners report that they have also been tortured by the  Israeli military.</p>
<p>The children kidnapped and detained in An Nabi  Saleh are now being imprisoned under the same barbaric and illegal  regime that my friend Hasan is imprisoned under. Their freedom is denied  and the Israeli military will attempt to break their spirits and their  resistance to the brutal military occupation which Israel is intent on  perpetuating. While the Israeli state and its military machine may break  the bones and tear the flesh of its captives, it will fail to break  their resistance because these young boys, men and women understand the  struggle in which they are engaged is not just a struggle for a  homeland, but a struggle for human dignity, equality and freedom. And no  man or woman or child, no matter how hard pressed by their oppressor,  will ever give up the struggle for such basic and inalienable human  rights.</p>
<p><em>&#8211; Kim Bullimore is currently living in the Occupied  Palestinian Territories, where she is a human rights volunteer with the  International Women&#8217;s Peace Service: </em><a href="http://www.iwps.info/"><em>www.iwps.info</em></a><em>. She writes regularly on the Palestine-Israel conflict for the Australian newspaper, Direct Action: </em><a href="http://www.directaction.org.au/"><em>www.directaction.org.au</em></a><em> and has a blog at: </em><a href="http://www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com/"><em>www.livefromoccupiedpalestine.blogspot.com</em></a><em>. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.</em></td>
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<p><a href="http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=16592">Price of Dignity: Palestine&#8217;s Political Prisoners</a>.</p>
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