291 PALESTINIAN WOMEN ARRESTED BY ISRAELI FORCES IN 2015
Gaza, 22 Rabiul Awal 1437/4 January 2016 (MINA) – The Palestine Center for Prisoners Studies (PCPS) confirmed that last year (2015) witnessed a noticeable escalation in the Israeli arrest of Palestinian women especially women from the city of Jerusalem.
The report pointed out that the center recorded 291 arrest cases of women, young and minors, and even elderly women aged over 60 years, adding that the arrestees including mothers and wives of prisoners, The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.
Researcher Riad Ashqar, the PCPS spokesman, explained that last year was marked by the arrest of minor girls aged as little as 14 years old, recalling the first minor girl was Malak Khatib who spent 3 months in prison before her release.
He added that other girls were shot with live ammunition then arrested under the pretext of their intention to carry out stabbing operations against Israeli soldiers or settlers; four of them are still suffering from wounds in captivity.
Deputy in the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Khalida Jarrar, from Ramallah, was among the women arrested in 2015. She was held in administrative detention for a month, but the Israeli prosecution refused to release her after the month and filed an indictment against her and the court passed a 15-month imprisonment against her.
Incitement via Facebook
Ashqar pointed out a new phenomenon emerged in 2015, which is arresting girls and women on the background of posts on the social networking sites; which the Israeli occupation considered as incitement.
Under the pretext of incitement via Facebook, five young women are still detained, two of them from within the 48 occupied territories, namely: activist and poet Darren Tawfiq Tator, 33 , from the village of Reineh, who was accused of sharing a poem read in her own voice on social networking sites. Her poem called for the continuation of the Intifada and operations against the occupation.
The other young girl was from the city of Nazareth, Asmaa Fahad Hamdan, 18, on whom the IOF imposed administrative detention for 3 months, and accused her of incitement via social networking sites.
Administrative detention for prisoners
Ashqar indicated that the Israeli occupation authorities (IOA) had gone too far in the use of administrative detention policy during 2015, and expanded its use to include categories and regions that were not previously included on the list of administrative detention, namely; women, children and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and the 48 occupied territories.
He added that the occupation detained four women administratively. They were from Ramallah, Nablus, al-Khalil, and Nazareth.
Damon Prison
Ashqar said, “As a result to the rise in the numbers of female prisoners because of mass arrests against women, and the Hasharon prison inability to accommodate more prisoners, the IOA opened a new section for female prisoners in the Damon prison, and transferred 18 female captives to it so far.”
Damon prison is one of the worst Israeli prisons, where the female prisoners suffer from very bad incarceration conditions. They don’t enjoy privacy due to the presence of surveillance cameras all the time, in addition to the lack of life necessities in the prison; as the prisoners were transferred without their belongings, and there are no electric appliances, sufficient clothes or necessary materials in the prison’s canteen.
The PCPS called on international institutions, which claim to take care of women’s affairs, to intervene so as to protect the women of Palestine from the Israeli occupation crimes against them especially unjustified shooting, the cold-blooded murders, and arbitrary detention. (T/P011/R03)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
