Comments from a Palestinian comrade about incarcration conditions

nur wrote:

I read the description of icarcration conditions of people accused with "terrorist activity/intensions" (for exmple: "...At Terre Haute prisoners have all communications monitored. Phone calls are limited and visits are restricted to four hours a month. Terre Haute is also the location of the federal government's death row and execution chamber....")

And I just want to tell you that it's seems much better than the situation in Israeli prisons...

In the Israeli prisons, "security prisoners" are:

1) have the right for 1 hour of visits a month (1/2 an hour once every 2 weeks), through a glass panel (sometimes through plastic panel + a wired net) and only first degree relatives. As 10,500 out of the more than 11,000 political prisoners & POW's are from West Bank & Gaza, their families need special permits to enter & visit, so lot of people (especially if their families are connected in a way to activistm) can't get those permits (men in the ages between 16 - 45 years can't get permits). As a consequence of this, thousands of prisoners can't get visits at all.

exeptional "open visits" are granted, 2 times a year, in speciall request and mainly to under 6 years old kids (and this is also a new settlement that was gained after long leagal battle)

2) No phone calls are allowed even in the most serious circumstances

(for example: the son of our imprisoned comrade had a serious horse exident, and was for 2 days in a hospital between life & death... He knew about it just in the next visit after 10 days... In cases of death in the family, the BOP are telling it to the prisoner, but many times even don't let him to phone his family).

3) People are closed in their cells for 20 - 23 and half hours a day, the only facillity they have access to is the library... (most of the books in the libraries are, also, a result of support groups work and not purchased by the state). All prisoners says that they never see the sky or any plant during their time in prison.(you can see in the photo how it looks).

4) Lot of problems with studying (on the expense of the prisoner), It's allowed to study only in the Hebrew language (Hebrew open university) for the 1st degree. It's not relevant for most of the prisoners that almost don't speak Hebrew. The state also make problems with stydying for high school graduating exams...

5) Problems with commissiary (money to buy suplyments) - a) the amount of money a prisoner can get a month is limmited to 1300 IS (something as 300 $) which are not anough to purchase the things that the BOP don't suply - as shampoo soup, sufficient food etc. Most of the prisoners don't get this money from their famillies, because the famillies don't have so much money (it's more than 1/3 of minnimum wage in Israel, and more than a minnimum wage in West Bank & gaza).

A new law frobid support groups to collect money for prisoners - under the leagal count of "assisting terrorism" (5 people from the Islamic movement were imprisoned to periods of 2 - 3 and half years, for "assisting terrorism" by collecting money for prisoners support [mainly help for commissiary + help for prisoners' kids).

The situation is that prisoners are starving and lack of basic suplyment as soup, tooth-paste etc.

6) People are put in sollitary confinement sometimes for years... For the last months, the political prisoners are fasting for one day every month in solidarity with their comrades in the sollitary confinement...

7) The BOP are confiscating lot of times the radios and TV sets, trying to issolate the prisoners from the outside world... (for example: after an Israeli soldeir failed in the hands of Palestinian forces in Gaza in the middle of June last year, the BOP prevented the whole political prisoners/pow's population from: a) visits of lawyers for 4 weeks, b) radio, newspapers & TV for 3 weeks - after that let people to see only Israeli TV (2 stations). c) family visits untill the and of the war - almost 2 months

8) The situation of "not political prisoners" is also stinking, but better than that.

Bye;

Iris