Boycotting the courts and the Shin Bet.. Administrative prisoners in occupation prisons escalate to end their detention

Nablus

- Palestinian prisoner Hussam Al-Razza has spent about a third of his life and is still in the Israeli occupation prisons, most of it in administrative detention. He is soon released from prison until he returns to it, to the extent that he and his family feel that his stay for a few months is surprisingly free and reprehensible.

And in a secret accusation file, like other administrative prisoners, Al-Razza - who hails from the city of Nablus in the West Bank - is arrested without knowing any of its provisions, he, his lawyer, or the judge of the Israeli court to which he represents, not even the army officer who told him when he was arrested, "I came to arrest you against my will." The verdict of administrative detention is up to the Israeli intelligence officer, and he is the one who forbids it.

In the Israeli Megiddo prison, the prisoner Al-Razza is spending his third week after being transferred to administrative detention for 6 months, and there he counts days, nights and diseases that burdened his body as a result of previous arrests, the last of which was 6 months ago. for previous arrests.

The prisoner Bilal (right) and his father Hussam Al-Razza, both of whom are in administrative detention (Al-Jazeera)

Al-Razzah had no means other than a hunger strike to end his detention, so he fought it for two days, before stopping him after pressure and advice from his fellow prisoners who saw his body crumbling due to illness, to engage in the collective boycott of the occupation courts, which the administrative prisoners waged in refusal to detain them for two decades in prisons, most of which are administrative.

At home, the suffering of the Al-Razza family, especially his wife Sana, who no longer counts the number of times or years of his arrest, which exceeded 20 years, even dated some arrests with the birth of her children with whom Husam did not live for a continuous time, and he was not overwhelmed by the joy of their graduation from universities or their marriage, Sana was and still bears the hardship of all that alone.

Sana - as Al-Jazeera Net told - does not know the slightest information about her husband and what his condition has become, and by appointing a lawyer at her own expense, she is trying to check on him and follow up on his file in an effort to limit his detention period to the specified period.

From the solidarity event with the administrative prisoners in Nablus (Al-Jazeera)

Sanaa adds that it is ironic that while her husband is struggling to refuse his administrative detention, she and her family are waiting for the release of her son Badr, who has been in administrative detention for 5 years soon.

interrupt

Al-Razza is one of 500 Palestinian prisoners who, for the 34th day, continue their boycott by the Israeli courts under the slogan “Our decision is freedom,” in order to refuse their administrative detention, and to stop this occupation policy once and for all.

By boycotting the courts, the prisoners confirm their illegality and sham as well, as they are unfair and in accordance with international law by defining and directing specific charges to the prisoner and trying them on them, and whoever does this and determines the period of administrative detention is the military commander and intelligence officer.

In order for the prisoners not to be alone in their struggle, the Palestinian street rose up in support of them on the ground, by organizing solidarity activities in city centers, in front of the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and across the virtual world on various social media sites by tweeting the hashtag “Our decision is freedom.”

Thus, the prisoners laid a solid foundation - according to the head of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, Qaddoura Fares - to launch a comprehensive struggle process based on collective action, in refusal to accept the racist measures of the occupation.

From a previous event in support of prisoners in Nablus, during which the prisoner Hussam Al-Razza was detained (Al-Jazeera)

Fares stressed - in a statement that Al Jazeera Net received a copy of - that the battle of the prisoners is "victorious", and that what is required is to support them popularly with organized and systematic work coupled with political, diplomatic and legal support locally and globally.

This is what the head of the Supreme Committee for the Support of Prisoners in Nablus, Muzaffar Thouqan, goes to, who tells Al Jazeera Net - which she met in an event organized yesterday, Thursday in Martyrs' Square in the center of Nablus with the administrative prisoners - that the awakening of the street is linked to the steps of the prisoners themselves.

Thouqan revealed that the prisoners, according to his information, are going to escalate further by engaging in a collective and open hunger strike, which was confirmed by the Administrative Prisoners Committee in a statement issued this evening and Al Jazeera Net reported that their battle is "open and continuing."

The committee announced its refusal to sign the administrative detention decisions and its refusal to go out to meet the "Shin Bet" (the Israeli internal security service), which it said is the one who holds the prisoners and extends their detention without charge.

From the solidarity event with the administrative prisoners in Nablus (Al-Jazeera)

important step

For her part, lawyer and director of the Addameer Foundation for Prisoners’ Care and Human Rights, Sahar Francis, believes that boycotting the courts is an important step, although it is not the first, as is the collective strike of prisoners as well.

She tells Al Jazeera Net that the success of the prisoners' move requires a long-term strategy, not for a month or two, and for them to have serious, popular external support from the highest official levels.

Francis believes that the responsibility bears more on the Palestinian and international community together, and called for the use of the recent Amnesty International report to criminalize the occupation internationally, especially since the report indicated that administrative detention is one of the apartheid practices of the occupation, in addition to unfair trial and torture in prisons. .

Attorney Sahar Francis, director of the Addameer Foundation for Prisoners’ Care and Human Rights (Al-Jazeera)

The administrative prisoners recorded several experiences in individual and group strikes and court boycotts to end the detention, and they achieved varying successes. Despite this, their step - according to Francis’ description - is important to shed light on this “arbitrary arrest” and expose “the war crimes of the occupation and its crimes against humanity.”

The “administrative detention” was considered arbitrary because it lacked fair trial guarantees stipulated in Article 75 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, including the presumption of innocence and the right of the accused to know the charges against him, which according to Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention are grave breaches of the Convention.

It is reprehensible, according to the head of the Law Organization for Palestine (based in Britain), Ihsan Adel, that Israel refuses to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to the Palestinian territories, and thus justifies the administrative detention orders based on Articles 42 and 78 of the same convention, which allow the occupying power to detain civilians for “causes of reasons.” imperative security,” or in the event that the security of the occupying power “absolutely” requires such action.

International law prohibits administrative detention, and human rights experts at the United Nations describe it as a "despicable act", and it is not justified as a security necessity.