Astrid Essed: Hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners

Dear Editor,

In contarily with the allegations of the Israeli authorities, the recently started hungerstrike of the 1600 Palestinian prisoners is not political, but stems from the alarming human-rights situation in a number of Israeli prisons and military detention-camps.

Those 1600 Palestinian prisoners are part of a group of  8000 Palestinian prisoners, who have been largerly  arrested by the Israeli army in 2002 during the two big Israeli military offensives  and since then are detained in Israeli prisons as well as Israeli military detention-camps.

Not only more than 20 percent of those prisoners is being detained without any form of trial, which is a flagrant violation of the international judicial rules, there is also a lack of the most elementary facilities like enough food, medicins and enough beds, among else due to overcrowding cells.

Another alarming aspects are the serious violations of human rights like torturing and the denying of  the right on an attorney, which are  flagrant violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Treaty against Torture and other international treaties concerning the treatments of detainees.

Therefore it is of great importance, that the European Union will exercise political pressure on Israel to maintain the international human rights rules concerning detainees.

Astrid Essed
Amsterdam
The Netherlands