Today, The Freedom Theatre joins organisations in Jenin camp and city to show solidarity with the hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who are undergoing a hunger strike to protest against being held without charge or trial – so called administrative detention – in Israeli prisons.
A first group of around 100 Palestinian administrative detainees launched a peaceful protest in April and were later joined by more detainees. The total number of hunger strikers now stands at around 290, with more expected to join in the coming weeks. This protest has already become the longest running collective hunger strike by Palestinian political prisoners. Solidarity actions are taking place throughout occupied Palestine in support of the prisoners.
Israel is currently attempting to pass legislation through the Knesset in order to begin force feeding hunger strikers. According to the prisoner rights advocacy group Addameer, Israel is holding some of the hunger strikers in solitary confinement while others have been admitted to Israeli hospitals, where they are shackled to their beds.
The use of administrative detention was one of the issues that fueled the last major Palestinian prisoner hunger strike in 2012, when 2000 people engaged in the protest. The Israeli prison service eventually agreed to some of the demands made by the prisoners, including limiting its use of administrative detention to only exceptional circumstances, ending the long-term isolation of prisoners and allowing family visits for prisoners from Gaza.
However, since then Israel has reneged on the agreement by continuing to systematically use administrative detention. According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, there has been a steady increase in administrative detainees and 191 prisoners are currently held under administrative detention. In total 5000 Palestinian political prisoners are imprisoned in Israel.
Administrative detention is detention without trial, officially intended to prevent a person from committing an act that is liable to endanger public safety. Unlike a criminal proceeding, administrative detention is not intended to punish a person for an offense already committed, but to thwart a future danger. The entire procedure is secret: administrative detainees are not told the reason for their detention or the specific allegations against them.
International law allows administrative detention only in exceptional cases, to prevent a grave danger that cannot be prevented through less harmful means. Israel’s use of administrative detention blatantly breaches these rules. Moreover, nearly all the detention facilities where Palestinians are held are located inside Israel, a violation of international law, which prohibits imprisoning residents of an occupied territory outside that territory.
