Palestinian Women's Association in Europe Calls for Release of Female Prisoners

Copenhagen, MINA – The Association of Palestinian Women in Europe calls for the release of Palestinian female prisoners in Israeli-occupied prisons.

The appeal was made at a virtual seminar forum entitled “We are with the Women Prisoners to Their Freedom”, centered in Copenhagen, Denmark. Quds Press reported on Tuesday.

The seminar opened with the Palestinian national anthem, followed by an introduction by a Palestinian media figure, Fatima Al-Qadi, about the reality of Palestinian female prisoners in the occupation prisons.

There are 34 Palestinian female prisoners in the occupation prisons who lived in critical conditions and were subjected to brutal treatment.

Chair of the Association of Palestinian Women in Europe, Iman Abu Shuwayma, said the symposium highlighted more than one issue to closely identify the plight of Palestinian women prisoners, including the occupation’s practice of all kinds of physical and psychological torture against them.

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“At this seminar we report on the conditions on the ground that we carried out after the occupation prison administration’s attack on female prisoners, and through that we want to encourage action to help and support prisoners,” she said.

Abu Shuwayma stressed that what is needed at the official level and the general public is “material and moral support for the detainees and their families, spreading their plight on social media, political and popular actions to support them, and pressure on the occupation to release them.”

“The detainee file is almost at the top of the agenda of European institutions, and it is hoped that there will be initiatives soon to support women prisoners, both materially and morally,” he continued.

Elsewhere, lawyer Khaled Al-Shouli said that the female prisoners were civilians who were captured from their homes, and therefore the occupation should be subject to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

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“The Israeli occupation is obliged to comply with the principles and treaties of so-called international humanitarian rules and public law, not according to the will of the occupation,” she said.

Al-Shouli stressed that the Israeli occupation has committed the war crimes described in the Rome Statute, or in the protocols supplementing the four Geneva Conventions.

“The international community should be able to use pressure to stop the occupation’s abuses against women prisoners. Especially for European countries, where there are many ways to suppress, in addition to the presence of many European human rights institutions that bring up the concerns of women prisoners,” she continued.

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The chairman of the Association of Palestinian Women Abroad, Nisreen Odeh, said, “The family is the target that the occupation uses to subdue the fighters from time to time. But we see the problem of women who prefer to be detained, we feel proud of them. This is part of the Palestinian revolutionary movement.”

She added that female prisoners were willing to do that because they were educated and forged in the field.

“It will continue to be carried out which ends with the end of the occupation and arrests,” she added.

According to her, an agenda like this seeks to create public pressure through campaigns to sympathize with the detainees.

Also sharing her experiences were Suzan Al-Awiwi, a freed Palestinian female prisoner, and Palestinian writer Lama Khater. (T/RE1)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)