Palestinian female detainees at Beit El Military Detention Center on third day of hunger strike For Immediate Release 26 January 2003

On Sunday 26 January 2003, Addameer’s lawyer visited both ’Abla Sa’adat and Iman Abu Farah, 2 of the 3 female detainees being held at Beit El military detention center. He was not able to visit the third detainee, Fatmeh Zayed, as she was taken for her first administrative detention judicial review at Ofer military court. Her lawyer, Adv. Elia Theodory, was informed that the court hearing was postponed until 3 February 2003

Since Addameer’s lawyer Mahmoud Hassan’s last visit to Beit El on Thursday 23 January 2003, the 3 female prisoners have been on hunger strike. Their health is quickly deteriorating as they are refusing to take both food and water. During the meeting, Iman Abu Farah was experiencing extreme dizziness and ’Abla Sa’adat was suffering from severe back and neck pain, and was complaining of numbness in her hands and legs.

The detainees, in sworn affidavits, described the harsh conditions of their arrest, and reaffirmed that they would not end their hunger strike until they were transferred to more adequate facilities for female detainees. They are unable to bathe or shower, as there are no separate facilities for men and women, they share a toilet with male detainees and are allowed to use it only 3 times a day, meals are inadequate in both quantity and quality, and they are being held in small, cold isolation cells.

Iman Abu Farah stated in her affidavit that on the evening of Thursday 23 January, prison guards had moved a man who claimed to be a Palestinian prisoner from Gaza into the isolation cell in which both she and Fatmeh Zayed were being held. Iman and Fatmeh began to scream when he was left in the cell with them. Palestinian detainees in neighboring cells began to shout at the guards once they realized what was happening. The prison guards finally moved the man out of the cell. The prisoners believe the man was either a security agent or a collaborator, as he was not moved to another cell in the detention center. The use of agents and collaborators placed in cells with other detainees in order to extract confessions has become a common practice within Israeli prisons.

Addameer expresses its grave concern for the well being of the 3 female prisoners and urgently calls on the international community to intervene on their behalf to pressure the Israeli military authorities to move the 3 prisoners to detention facilities that meet the basic minimum standards of detention. Addameer once again calls for an end to Israel’s systematic use of administrative detention as a form of collective punishment, and in particular, the use of administrative detention against female detainees.

Letters of concern should be addressed to the following :

Ariel Sharon Prime Minister Office of the Prime Minister, 3 Kaplan Street, P O Box 187, Kiryat Ben-Gurion, Jerusalem 91919 Fax : +972 2 651 2631 Telex : 25279 MPRES IL E-mail : rohm@pmo.gov.il

Uzi Landau Minister of Public Security Ministry of Public Security (Police), Kiryat Hamemshala, PO Box 18182, Jerusalem 91181 Fax : +972 2 584 7872

Meir Sheetrit Minister of Justice Ministry of Justice, 29 Salah al-Din Street, Jerusalem 91010 Fax : +972 2 628 8618 E-mail : sar@justice.gov.il

Eli Yishai Minister of the Interior and Deputy Prime Minister Ministry of Interior, 2 Kaplan Street, PO Box 6158, Kiryat Ben Gurion, Jerusalem 91061 Fax : +972 2 670 1628 E-mail : sar@moin.gov.il

Elyakim Rubinstein Attorney-General/Legal Advisor to the Government Ministry of Justice, 29 Salah al-Din Street, Jerusalem 91010 Fax : +972 2 628 5438