Ahmad Sa’adat confined to “Collective Isolation”

In Nafha Prison

On Sunday, 25/11/2007, the Israeli occupation’s military court in the ‘Ofer barracks near Ramallah held another hearing in the case against Ahmad Sa’adat, the secretary general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

In the previous court hearing, a week ago, we revealed that Sa’adat was deported to the remote Nafha prison in the Naqab desert, in punishment for his position against the US sponsored ‘Autumn Conference’ in Annapolis. Now, Sa’adat had a chance to say some words before the hearing begun, and we learned that he is in the “Collective Isolation” section. This special section used to be in the Be’er Sabe’e prison, but was transferred to Nafha.

The “Collective Isolation” section is used by the Israeli prison authorities against some of the political leaders among the Palestinian prisoners, to isolate them from the rest of the prisoners and to prevent them from continuing their political activities. Conditions in this section are worse than those in ‘ordinary’ sections, and the prisoners are deprived of some of the very limited rights that are still held for other Palestinian militants in Israeli prisons. It should be remembered that Israel treats all Palestinian militants much worse than criminals, and refuses to recognize them as political prisoners or as prisoners of war.

The court hearing was due to hear three witnesses, all of them spent some years as prisoners in Israeli prisons but were already released. Two of those were invited to the hearing, but didn’t care to show up. The third witness was not even invited, so that his non appearance in the court was postponed to the next hearing. In these circumstances, Ahmad Sa’adat’s boycott of the military court, due to his refusal to recognize the legality of the occupation and its institutions, was confined this time to refusing to stand up in front of the judges.

The military court decided to hold its next hearing on 27/1/2008.

For more details: www.freesaadat.ps