Urgent Action for Hana Shalabi, Palestinian hunger striker

Amnesty International Urgent Action Update – Palestinian hunger striker’s health declines
Further information on UA: 71/12 Index: MDE 15/013/2012 Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories, Date: 13 March 2012
Amnesty International calls for URGENT ACTION as Palestinian hunger striker’s health declines
Hana Shalabi’s detention order has been reduced to four months, but an Israeli military judge has yet to rule on her appeal. She has been on hunger strike since her arrest over three weeks ago. Her health is deteriorating.
Following a judicial review on 29 February 2012, a military judge decided on 4 March to reduce Hana Shalabi’s six-month administrative detention order by two months. Her detention order now ends on 16 June 2012 but could be renewed. She remains on hunger strike, which she initially began to protest against ill-treatment during her arrest on 16 February 2012 and then continued in protest at her detention without charge or trial. On 23 February, she was ordered to spend a week in solitary confinement as punishment for her hunger strike, but after four days was put in a cell with other detainees where she remains.
Her lawyers appealed the four-month order and a hearing was held at the Military Court of Appeals on 7 March 2012. However, the military judge postponed a decision after the military prosecution objected to the request for her release, citing “secret evidence” justifying Hana Shalabi’s detention, which they refused to reveal for “security reasons”, making it impossible for her to effectively exercise her right to mount a legal challenge.
A doctor from Physicians for Human Rights – Israel visited Hana Shalabi on 8 and 12 March 2012. The doctor reported that she is growing weaker by the day, that her muscles have begun to atrophy and that she is suffering from spells of dizziness and loss of consciousness.
Hana Shalabi has not been allowed family visits since she was arrested. Her father was prevented from attending the military court hearing on 7 March, and was thus unable to see her.
Please write immediately, before 20 April 2012, in English or your own language [remember, polite and calm is more effective, and you may wish to incorporate extra information given below]:
• Calling on the Israeli authorities to release Hana Shalabi and other Palestinians held in administrative detention immediately, unless they are promptly charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offence and brought to trial in full conformity with international fair trial standards;
• Urging them to allow Hana Shalabi regular access to her lawyers, family and independent medical care, and to ensure she is treated humanely at all times and not punished in any way for her hunger strike, such as by being placed in solitary confinement.
PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 20 APRIL 2012 TO:
• Military Judge Advocate General
Brigadier General Danny Efroni
6 David Elazar Street
Hakirya, Tel Aviv,
Israel
Fax: +972 3 569 4526
Email: avimn@idf.gov.il
Salutation: Dear Judge Advocate General
• Commander of the IDF – West Bank
Major-General Nitzan Alon
GOC Central Command
Military Post 01149
Battalion 877
Israel Defense Forces,
Israel
Fax: +972 2 530 5724
Salutation: Dear Major-General
• And copies to:
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence
Ehud Barak
Ministry of Defence
37 Kaplan Street, Hakirya
Tel Aviv 61909,
Israel
Fax: +972 3 69 16940
+972 3 691 7915
Salutation: Dear Minister
• Also send copies to diplomatic representatives accredited to your country.
Please check with amnesty international if sending appeals after the above date. This is the first update of UA 71/12.
Further information: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/013/2012/en

*****

Additional Information on URGENT ACTION (UA 71/12):
Palestinian hunger striker’s health declines
Hana Shalabi is from the village of Burqin, near Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank. According to her family, she had plans to study nursing at al-Rawda College in Nablus before she was arrested on 16 February 2012. She was taken to Salem detention centre for interrogation and transferred the next day to HaSharon detention centre in northern Israel. On 23 February 2012, she was given an administrative detention order, signed by a military commander, stating that she would be detained for six months. A military judge who reviewed the order reduced it to four months on 4 March. According to her lawyer, the Israeli military authorities allege that Hana Shalabi is involved in activities that pose a security threat to Israel.
Hana Shalabi was previously arrested by the Israeli authorities on 14 September 2009 and spent 25 months in administrative detention without charge or trial. In a response to Urgent Action letters from activists, the Israeli Embassy in the UK wrote that Hana Shalabi received an administrative detention order on 29 September 2009 “based upon intelligence information regarding her involvement in dangerous activities including planning to commit a terrorist suicide attack”. She was released on 18 October 2011, a few days before the order was due to expire, in the Israeli-Hamas prisoner swap which saw the phased release of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. She has never been charged with any offence.
Hana Shalabi went on hunger strike to protest at being detained without charge the day she was arrested. According to her lawyer, Hana Shalabi says that she began the hunger strike to protest at being strip-searched by male Israeli soldiers after her arrest.
According to her lawyer, Hana Shalabi was kept in solitary confinement from 23 until 27 February as punishment for her hunger strike. Hana Shalabi’s lawyer filed a request to the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to transfer her to the Ramleh prison hospital where she could receive medical treatment.
Under the system of administrative detention, detainees’ rights, as guaranteed by Articles 9 and 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Israel is a state party, including their rights to be informed promptly and fully of the reasons for their detention, to be presumed innocent, to examine and have examined the witnesses against them, and to be tried in public, are consistently flouted. The evidence against the detainee is heard by a military judge in secret, without either the defendant or their lawyer being given access to the evidence or able to challenge it, whether at the first judicial review of the administrative detention order, at the Military Court of Appeals if an appeal is filed, or at the Supreme Court of Israel if an appeal for a hearing is filed there. Furthermore, no prisoner or detainee should be forced to undergo a body search conducted by members of the opposite sex , which constitutes a violation of the right not to be subjected to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and the right to privacy and is also in breach of international standards relating to the rights of detainees and prisoners, including the UN Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders.
Amnesty International has long called on the Israeli authorities to end the practice of administrative detention. Administrative detainees held on account of their non-violent political opinions or activities should be released immediately and unconditionally; others should be released or charged with an internationally recognizable criminal offence and promptly tried according to international standards.
According to the IPS, there were 309 Palestinian administrative detainees as of 31 January 2012, though the number may have increased since. There are currently 24 Palestinian Legislative Council members in administrative detention. One man has been held in administrative detention for five years.

Amnesty International, International Secretariat
Peter Benenson House, 1 Easton Street
London WC1X 0DW
United Kingdom

These days I'm ashamed to be Swiss…

On Nov 29, 2009, the majority of my fellow Swiss citizens voted against religious freedom. I am deeply ashamed and can only hope Switzerland's Supreme Court will throw out this decision, which will violate international human rights law.
Sadly, Switzerland has not only a long tradition of religious tolerance, it also has a long history of xenophobia and narrow-mindedness.

Here's the press release from the amnesty international website. I have nothing to add.

Switzerland votes against religious freedom

29 November 2009

AI Index: PRE01/003/2009

Amnesty International deeply regrets the choice of Swiss voters today to introduce a ban on the construction of minarets into the constitution. The ban, which takes immediate effect, violates both the freedom of religion of Muslims living in the country and the prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of religious belief as set out in several international human rights instruments that Switzerland is a party to.

"The yes vote comes as a surprise and a great disappointment. That Switzerland , a country with a long tradition of religious tolerance and the provision of refuge to the persecuted, should have accepted such a grotesquely discriminatory proposal is shocking indeed,” said David Diaz-Jogeix, Europe and Central Asia Deputy Programme Director at Amnesty International.
“The general prohibition of the construction of minarets violates the right of Muslims in Switzerland to manifest their religion. It can do lasting damage to their integration."

Islam is the second largest religion in Switzerland after Christianity, and its followers represent over 4 per cent of the country’s population.

The ban is expected to be rejected by either the Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland or the European Court of Human Rights.

See also: Switzerland: Banning the construction of minarets would violate international human rights law (EUR 43/001/2009).

A mixed bag of things: blogs, Palestine/Gaza, Xmas letters

Hello again

My lovely downstairs neighbours surpassed themselves this past night: at two am, three or four of them came home in a huge commotion, with people probably very drunk, shouting and their dog barking. It sounded like someone was either attacking someone else or being attacked, and the furniture taking a beating in the process. Being ripped out of a deep sleep like that and having to hear their fighting actually made me feel sick to the stomach.
About half an hour later, the police were seen taking two of the miscreants away. However, the pair came back another hour later, rousing the dog that barked again. And so it has gone, with noise disturbing the quiet of this very quiet place every hour or so. I do love my neighbours -- almost to death! ;)

So, rather than tossing and turning, I have been awake and catching up on this and that. One thing was re-reading at leisure all the lovely Xmas circular letters I received over the past month or so. Some of them are true gems, with sophisticated layout and beautiful illustrations. Each one of them contains gems of information, news sad and happy – of dearly loved relatives dying; but also of others making miraculous recoveries after serious illnesses; of weddings; scholarly, professional and publishing successes; and of new babies coming into families; of fantastic holidays undertaken and enjoyed -- it's fascinating and enriching to be allowed those glimpses of dear but distant friends' lives. Thank you, each and everyone: Althea in Basel, Pam & Peter in "Washers" (aka Washington, DC), Philippa, Heidi and Sue in Switzerland, Susan in Surrey, Ros & David in The Netherlands. And thank you, everyone else who sent me messages and greetings. There was quite a laundry line of colourful cards in my hallway. Lovely! And this time I really mean it! :)

On a much more sombre note, one of my friends here has a great blog. Quite apart from some truly spectacular photographs, a post from just a few days ago caught my attention and I would like to quote from it here:
"Israel claims to be waging war against Hamas. Strange, I see pictures of civilians dying in great numbers. I teach small children and it always pains me to see small children maimed, killed and distressed. Today it was reported that the death toll has reached 1000. I know that Israel wants to stop the rocket attacks but there is no justification for this atrocity they are committing. There is no proportionality here.
When will Israel learn [...]?"

Back in 2003, millions took to the streets protesting against the illegal war on Iraq. It's been disheartening to realise that the powers-that-were took absolutely no heed of the people in those colourful protest rallies and vigils. I know many people who have been refusing to buy products "made/produced in Israel" -- I try to avoid them myself. Not buying the products from that country was one of several strategies that helped end the Apartheid regime in South Africa...

And to those out there who smile condescendingly at people like me, I can only say this: just because the vigils and one-person boycotts have seemed to have no effect doesn't mean they were pointless. We need to keep supporting those who are wrongly done by and ostracize those who commit obscenities even though we know that it may not appear to make a difference. From my work with and for amnesty international I know that at least 30% of all the letters written to demand the release of a political prisoner make a big difference in that person's life, even if they may not get the person out of custody straight away.
Yesterday's Oban Times (15 Jan 09, p. 4) carries an article about Andrew Muncie, 34, from Spean Bridge, embarking on a medical supply ship bound for the Gaza Strip from Larnaca, Cyprus, on a voyage organised by the Free Gaza Movement.
Sadly, according to the Free Gaza Movement blogsite, the "Spirit of Humanity", "carrying five tons of supplies and 21 passengers, including three surgeons" (not 30, as the Oban Times claims), was threatened by the Israeli Defense Forces (that's another "newspeak" kind of term blurring the fact that those forces are as much about attacking other countries as defending their own), so the ship has gone back to Cyprus. What a waste!

The people in Gaza lack the most essential supplies. According to the Oxfam site, "As fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas militias has intensified over the last two weeks, the impact on civilians is appalling, with innocent women, men and children being killed and injured. For people living in Gaza, four out of five of whom were already largely dependent on food aid, this comes on top of 19 months of blockade. They now have little or no access to clean water, food or power. Medical and sanitation systems are also on the verge of collapse."

Aerial photographs shown on TV recently revealed the stark reality of mostly parched earth in Gaza surrounded by mostly lush green fields on Israeli territory. I wonder why that is...

Even though the "Spirit of Humanity" has been turned back, people like Andrew Muncie deserve our wholehearted support. Israel has been violating international law and committing crimes against humanity for years now. High time the Israeli government was taken to account!
(And no: I'm not being anti-Semitic, nor do I defend Hamas' often reprehensible actions. But they were elected to power in what was a fairly "clean", democratic process. When you have nothing left to lose, why not toss everything in the balance?)