REPORT: ISRAEL EXERCISES TORTURE AGAINST PALESTINIAN FEMALE PRISONERS

     Gaza, 23 Muharram 1435/27 November 2013 (MINA) – The Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies said in a report that the Israeli occupation has been exercising all forms of torture and violence against Palestinian female prisoners in its jail.

The center said that the international institutions, which enact laws prohibiting torture and violence against women, have been turning a blind eye to the occupation’s abuses and practices against Palestinian women and female prisoners, Al-Qassam reported as quoted by Mi’raj News Agency (MINA), Wednesday (27/11).

The center’s report was marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women that falls on November 25th.

        Media spokesman for Palestinian Prisoners Center, researcher Riad al-Ashqar pointed out that Israel has arrested since the occupation of the Palestinian territories more than 10 thousand Palestinian women and since the Aqsa Intifada more than 1,100 women, 14 of whom are still held in Israeli jails, including 5 patients.

He added that the Palestinian women are held under harsh conditions in Israeli custody, as they are subjected to humiliating treatment and repeated attacks by jailers, in addition to the policy of strip searches.

The Israeli prison administration has also been holding Palestinian female prisoners in the solitary confinement, depriving them of education, and imposing heavy fines on them for trivial reasons.

Freed prisoner Muntaha Mahmoud al-Hih said she was tortured and severely beaten by the Israeli soldiers during her interrogation, which caused her bleeding in the kidney. She was also put in solitary confinement and was cuffed for long hours, she added.

For her part, recently liberated captive Inam Qalambo asserted that a number of Israeli soldiers arrested her and beat her on the face, and then transferred her to Moscobiya interrogation center where they used electricity in torturing her, during the interrogation.

Researcher Riad al-Ashqar also pointed to the suffering of the patient prisoners from the deliberate policy of medical neglect adopted in the occupation jails.

The Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies appealed to the international and human rights institutions, particularly those concerned with women’s issues, to immediately intervene to put an end to the worsening suffering of female prisoners, to work on releasing them from jails, and to force the occupation to commit to the Fourth Geneva Convention. (T/P012/P03)

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA)