[Boycott - Other News]

Alert: 21st Dec - Protest Gaza Crisis / Free the Hunger Strikers - Stop Administrative Detention

inminds
19 December 2013

Date: Sat 21st Dec, 11am - 1pm
Location: Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO), junction of King Charles Street and Parliament Street, London (closest tube: Westminister)
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/428364807289877/

Free the hunger strikers - Mohammad Badr, Islam Badr & Thaer Abdu

On Saturday 21st Dec we will hold a vigil outside the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) in solidarity with the three hunger strikers Mohammad Badr, Islam Badr, and Thaer Abdu who have been on hunger strike since 16th November to protest their 'administrative detention' - the practice used by Israel to imprison Palestinians indefinitely without charge or trial.

Under administrative detention prisoners are given rolling detention orders which can be anything from 1-6 months, renewable indefinitely. This is against international law. In the past administrative detainee Mazen Natsheh has been locked up cumulatively for nearly 10 years without charge or trial. Detention orders can be based on so called "secret information" which never needs to be produced, either to the detainee nor their lawyer, but often administrative detention is used to arbitrarily jail Palestinians where there is no evidence for a trial, or as a form of punishment as in the case of 10 Palestinian MPs currently locked up without charge. Israel has on average issued over 2000 detention orders every year (2007-2011). Today there are 145 administrative detainees.

Thaer Abdu was abducted by the Israeli occupation forces from his home on 27th October and is being held under a 6 month administrative detention. Mohammed and Islam Badr are brothers, and were abducted from their family shop on 28th October. Mohammad is being held under a 6 month detention order whilst Islam is on an intital 3 month detention. All three are held in Ofer prison, but unlike other Palestinians who are placed in the political "security" section, they have been put in section 14 which is for common criminals. Until recently they were on total hunger strike, taking only water (no salts and no medication). As a result their health deteriorated very rapidly and they had to be transferred to hospital on 12th December. Now they are taking salt with water. Both Mohammad and Islam have lost 12kg in weight since the beginning of their strike. To punish them for their hunger strike the prison has put them in isolation and taken all their personal possessions from the cell and denied then adequate blankets and bedding whilst being kept in a very cold room making even drinking water difficult to swallow. Everyday the prison guards continue the punishment by violently raiding their rooms at least 5 times daily under pretext of inspection. Despite their hardships all three prisoners are committed to their hunger strike.

The foreign office has "long expressed concern about Israel’s excessive use of administrative detention" but with no follow through. We will be delivering a letter to the FCO asking them to raise the issue of the three hunger strikers with Israel, demanding their immediate release, and to bear pressure of Israel to adhere to international law by placing sanctions on it.

Corporate Complicity - G4S

The British security contractor G4S is complicit in Israel's illegal practice of punitive administrative detention. Figures from April show that 86% of administrative detainees - the vast majority, are locked up in G4S secured Israeli prisons. Most of them having been transferred from the West Bank into Israel in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Protest Gaza Crisis

We will also be highlighting the appalling situation in Gaza which is a direct result of Israel's ongoing criminal siege of Gaza - described as a slow genocide against Gaza's 1.7 million inhabitants - three-quarters of whom are themselves refugees from villages which were wiped out by Israel in 1948 as part of its ethnic cleansing frenzy of historic Palestine.

Under international law as the occupying power its Israel's responsbility to ensure the population has unhindered access as to basic humanitarian requirements like water, food, electricity and medical facilities. Not only has Israel failed its legal obligations, it had done its utmost to ensure Gazaans are denied these basic requirements. It has bombed Gaza's sole power plant and kidnapped its chief engineer, Dirar Abu Sisi. Even then, when Gaza managed to get the power plant up and running to provide its people with electricity, Israel through its Egyptian proxy cut the supply of fuel to the plant rendering Gaza into darkness, without electricity. This resulted in drinking water pumps not functioning and sewage treatment plants failing with disastrous results of rivers of sewage flowing down the streets of Gaza. Unimaginable human tragedies followed - a child rescued after falling in to the sewage had no clean water to wash the sewage off.. Now with the worst winter storms in over a hundred year hitting Gaza, Israel has without warning opened the dam east of Dier al-Balah to drown parts of Gaza resulting in over 3000 people being made homeless.

We will be demanding an end to the genocidal siege of Gaza starting with an immediate and permanent solution to the fuel crisis.

Live updates during protest

We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live (hash tags #EndGazaSiege #StopAD ) from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can't join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.

https://www.facebook.com/InmindsCom

https://twitter.com/InmindsCom

JazakAllah

Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
www.inminds.com/caged

The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.

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leaflet - otherside

Source: www.inminds.com

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