Palestinian prisoners make list of demands to improve prison conditions: “Restore satellite TV channels”
The PA daily printed a list of demands made by Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike. In contrast to PA allegations that Israel abuses and poisons prisoners, the list makes no mention of any such abuse against prisoners. The demands are all related to normal prison routine, including prison luxuries such as demanding “satellite TV channels”:
Headline: "List of demands of the prisoners on hunger strike"
"Yesterday the Prisoners' Club published the demands of the prisoners who are holding a hunger strike in the Israeli prisons. Among the demands:
- To end the policy of solitary confinement, in which about 20 prisoners are being held.
- To end the policy of strip searches.
- To allow prisoners from Gaza visits by family members, because they have been forbidden to visit since 2007.
- To allow all family members to visit the prisoner.
- To allow children [of the prisoners] to continue regular visits after they reach the age of 16.
- To allow a prisoner to visit his prisoner wife.
- To allow Arab prisoners to make telephone calls to their families and to send their families video clips.
- To restore satellite TV channels.
- To improve the visiting conditions for families: to remove the glass partition, to permit children to enter during the visit, to end the policy of humiliating and degrading searches of family members.
- To free psychiatric prisoners and those suffering from incurable illnesses.
- To provide treatment for prisoners who are ill, including surgery, provision of auxiliary equipment, and quick diagnosis of illnesses, and to allow the approved list of doctors to enter the prison easily.
- To end the policy of collective punishment and the imposition of fines on prisoners.
- To re-allow studies, including matriculation examinations, university registration, and to bring in books.
- To end the policy of handcuffing the prisoner's hands and legs during a meeting with family or his lawyer.
- To stop carrying out daily searches in the cells and destroying them.
- To improve conditions in the vehicles for transporting prisoners, especially those transporting [prisoners who are] ill.
- To release the prisoners in administrative detention.
- To allow children to embrace their mothers and fathers.
- To remove the glass [partition] with the net behind it during a visit.
- To improve the food, in terms of both quantity and quality.
- To put prisoners [from the same family], together in the same prison, to make it easier for the family during a visit.
- To allow prisoners who are related to each other, such as a husband and wife, to be in prisons close by each other, to make visiting easier.
- To end the humiliating searches of family members and to allow them to take water for drinking on the bus for visitors."
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Only a few months before this list was published, the Israeli Prime Minister announced his intention to end academic studies for prisoners and implement harsher prison conditions:
Headline: "Five years after Gilad Shalit was taken captive, the [Israeli] Prime Minister has announced the cancellation of the 'extravagant conditions' enjoyed by murderers in prison: 'There will be no more Masters candidates in murder, no more doctoral candidates in terror'"
"This evening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a move aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the soldier Gilad Shalit…: 'I have decided to change Israel's policy towards the terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons,' said Netanyahu, against the background of the refusal by the [Hamas] organization ruling Gaza to comply today with the Red Cross request to visit Gilad…
'We are committed to honoring Israeli law, international law, international conventions, but we are not committed beyond that,' noted the Prime Minister at the beginning of his address at the closing session of the President's Conference in Jerusalem. 'Therefore the extravagant and exaggerated conditions, the excessive conditions, of terrorists within the Israeli prisons, will be stopped… We are adopting a series of steps to change the conditions in prison. I shall not detail them [here]. I want to give one example: I have put an end to the absurd procedure whereby terrorists who have murdered innocent people, register for academic studies. There will be no more Masters candidates in murder; no more doctoral candidates in terror. The party is over.'
At the end of the Olmert government's term, in March 2009, a committee was established, headed by then-Minister of Justice, Prof. Daniel Friedman, which recommended that the conditions for Hamas prisoners be tightened…
According to the Friedman committee recommendations – of which it is not yet clear which will now be implemented:
• Visits by family members may be limited and physical contact may be prevented
• Television, radio and newspapers may be withheld
• The law may be changed so as to allow the prevention of administrative releases and lawyers' visits.
Headline: "List of demands of the prisoners on hunger strike"
"Yesterday the Prisoners' Club published the demands of the prisoners who are holding a hunger strike in the Israeli prisons. Among the demands:
- To end the policy of solitary confinement, in which about 20 prisoners are being held.
- To end the policy of strip searches.
- To allow prisoners from Gaza visits by family members, because they have been forbidden to visit since 2007.
- To allow all family members to visit the prisoner.
- To allow children [of the prisoners] to continue regular visits after they reach the age of 16.
- To allow a prisoner to visit his prisoner wife.
- To allow Arab prisoners to make telephone calls to their families and to send their families video clips.
- To restore satellite TV channels.
- To improve the visiting conditions for families: to remove the glass partition, to permit children to enter during the visit, to end the policy of humiliating and degrading searches of family members.
- To free psychiatric prisoners and those suffering from incurable illnesses.
- To provide treatment for prisoners who are ill, including surgery, provision of auxiliary equipment, and quick diagnosis of illnesses, and to allow the approved list of doctors to enter the prison easily.
- To end the policy of collective punishment and the imposition of fines on prisoners.
- To re-allow studies, including matriculation examinations, university registration, and to bring in books.
- To end the policy of handcuffing the prisoner's hands and legs during a meeting with family or his lawyer.
- To stop carrying out daily searches in the cells and destroying them.
- To improve conditions in the vehicles for transporting prisoners, especially those transporting [prisoners who are] ill.
- To release the prisoners in administrative detention.
- To allow children to embrace their mothers and fathers.
- To remove the glass [partition] with the net behind it during a visit.
- To improve the food, in terms of both quantity and quality.
- To put prisoners [from the same family], together in the same prison, to make it easier for the family during a visit.
- To allow prisoners who are related to each other, such as a husband and wife, to be in prisons close by each other, to make visiting easier.
- To end the humiliating searches of family members and to allow them to take water for drinking on the bus for visitors."
Click to view bulletin
Only a few months before this list was published, the Israeli Prime Minister announced his intention to end academic studies for prisoners and implement harsher prison conditions:
Headline: "Five years after Gilad Shalit was taken captive, the [Israeli] Prime Minister has announced the cancellation of the 'extravagant conditions' enjoyed by murderers in prison: 'There will be no more Masters candidates in murder, no more doctoral candidates in terror'"
"This evening Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a move aimed at pressuring Hamas to release the soldier Gilad Shalit…: 'I have decided to change Israel's policy towards the terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons,' said Netanyahu, against the background of the refusal by the [Hamas] organization ruling Gaza to comply today with the Red Cross request to visit Gilad…
'We are committed to honoring Israeli law, international law, international conventions, but we are not committed beyond that,' noted the Prime Minister at the beginning of his address at the closing session of the President's Conference in Jerusalem. 'Therefore the extravagant and exaggerated conditions, the excessive conditions, of terrorists within the Israeli prisons, will be stopped… We are adopting a series of steps to change the conditions in prison. I shall not detail them [here]. I want to give one example: I have put an end to the absurd procedure whereby terrorists who have murdered innocent people, register for academic studies. There will be no more Masters candidates in murder; no more doctoral candidates in terror. The party is over.'
At the end of the Olmert government's term, in March 2009, a committee was established, headed by then-Minister of Justice, Prof. Daniel Friedman, which recommended that the conditions for Hamas prisoners be tightened…
According to the Friedman committee recommendations – of which it is not yet clear which will now be implemented:
• Visits by family members may be limited and physical contact may be prevented
• Television, radio and newspapers may be withheld
• The law may be changed so as to allow the prevention of administrative releases and lawyers' visits.
[http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4086462,00.html, June 23, 2011]
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