The Law for Palestine Organization, in partnership with the Geneva International Center for Justice (GICJ), visto International for Rights and Development (Sweden), Yabous Center for Consulting and Strategic Studies (Palestine), and the International Organization for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (EAFORD) has held an international webinar on The impact of the spread of the Coronavirus on Palestinian prisoners and the urgent need for international protection.
The webinar, which was held on Thursday, August 6th, 2020, was attended by Michael Link, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories since 1967, Qadri Abu Bakr, the head of the commission of detainees and ex-detainees’ affairs/Palestine and Ihsan Adel, the chairman of Law for Palestine Organization (LFP).In addition to researchers and lawyers from Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Sweden and Switzerland. The dialogue was moderated by Naji Haraj, the executive Director of the Geneva International Center for Justice.
The seminar was widely broadcast in both Arabic and English by the official pages of the institutions organizing the seminar in addition to the Al Jazeera Mubasher network and many Palestinian news pages. This seminar had a wide following of 70,000 followers from international human rights specialists, institutions supporting Palestinian prisoners and their families, civil society and human rights institutions, in addition to Professional lawyers, journalists, researchers and more.
At the opening of the seminar, Naji Haraj has pointed out the importance of holding this seminar because of the Israeli occupation negligence towards the repeated warnings against the outbreak of the Coronavirus among Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli occupation prisons and the dangerous effects that it could cause to the prisoners. In addition to the failure of the Israeli Occupation authorities in taking the necessary protection, guarantees and preventive measures towards Palestinian prisoners. Especially in the light of the confirmation that the Palestinian prisoner, like Abu Wa’ar, who suffers from throat cancer, was infected with Corona virus in early July 2020.
For his part, Minister Qadri Abu Bakr has explained that there are 4,500 Palestinian prisoners distributed in Israeli prisons, including 700 sick prisoners, 200 of whom are sick with diseases that need permanent treatment, 40 patients with serious diseases such as cancer, 18 prisoners with disabilities, 150 children prisoners 30 of them are sentenced to house imprisonment, 41 women, 560 prisoners who have been sentenced for life, 20 prisoners who have been sentenced before Oslo, 29 prisoners who have been detained for more than 25 years, 50 prisoners who have been detained for 20 years, and 14 prisoners who have been detained for 30 years. Moreover, some of the prisoners have been detained for 40 years, such as Karim Younis. Abu Bakr has also noted that the number of prisoners since 1967 until today has reached more than one million.
Abu Bakr has added that the Israeli occupation prisons are suffering from over crowdedness, which is one of the reasons for the spread of Corona virus, as the room may contain 8 prisoners and get from 100 to 150 prisoners out during the break (rest). In addition to the fact that international organizations such as the Red Cross have been addressed since the beginning of the Corona crisis in China to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to exercise caution, take protection measures into consideration and preventive measures for the prisoners. However, they stayed for two months without taking any action and reduced some materials from the prison store, such as cleaning and sterilization materials and only after the constant pressure of the Red Cross and organizations Human rights the occupation began to respond by taking several measures, such as providing prisoners with cleaning and sterilization materials and the transfer of prisoners to the courts was stopped and the friction between prisoners and prison administrations was reduced. Matters remained under control only for a period of four months and then infections were announced among the prisoners with the Corona virus as a result of transferring prisoners for treatment matters.
For his part, Ihsan Adel has spoken about the contemplative role of human rights organizations and non-governmental organizations in dealing with the dangers facing Palestinian prisoners in light of the spread of the Coronavirus. Adel has also pointed out that human rights organizations must play a monitoring role by ensuring the implementation of the necessary measures by the Israeli occupation authorities. Such as providing hygiene tools and achieving social distancing, adding that the Israeli occupation authorities search and count prisoners three times a day without taking the criteria of social distancing into consideration. In addition to the necessity of monitoring that the crisis is not exploited to pass persecutory violations against prisoners, as it is currently the case- by preventing family visits and not providing an alternative for prisoners, such as providing phones so they can call their families.
Adel also has stressed on the necessity of putting the enough pressure on the Israeli occupation authorities in order to release Palestinian prisoners, especially administrative detainees, in addition to providing international protection for sick prisoners, the elderly, pregnant prisoners and children. And investing in Article Seven of the Human Rights Council’s agenda by organizing side events related to prisoners, in addition to interacting with special rapporteurs in submitting complaints related to violations of the right of prisoners and seeking to form an international investigation committee through the Human Rights Council that monitors violations against Palestinian prisoners.
The UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories Mr. Michael Lynk has stated that ” the UN high commissiner urged governments to work quickly to reduce the number of people in detention and several countries have already undertaken some positive actions in this regard”. When it comes particularly to Israel, adding that “we urged Israel not to discriminate against the thousands of Palestinian prisoners who are facing high risk exposure to Covid 19 and to release the most vulnerable particularly women, children, older persons and those with pre-existing medical conditions”. He added that “the Israeli prison service is required to ensure the protection of all prisoners without discrimination. It should adopt the most recent guidelines from March 2020 of the WHO regarding the prevention of Corona 19’s outbreaks in Israeli prisons, and must carefully consider the status of each and every Palestinian prisoner to be able to determine whether or not they can be safely released back to their homes, back to their families”.
At the end of the meeting, the opportunity was opened for the participants from different countries to ask questions to the lecturers, who also has answered a number of questions raised by the followers through comments on the live broadcast on the social media pages on which the seminar was broadcast. The comments and lecturers both have recommended the need to emphasize the responsibility of the Israeli occupation on protecting the health rights of prisoners and abiding by the rights stipulated in the Fourth Geneva Convention and Additional Protocol I, including the application of preventive measures to combat the virus, it is also the responsibility of the World Health Organization and international governmental and non-governmental organizations to intervene in order to put pressure on the Israeli occupation to provide protection and oversight. Moreover, the United Nations agencies must employ their mechanisms for immediate intervention in order to protect prisoners and confront Corona virus in Israeli prisons, including the formation of a fact-finding committee that deals with the committed violations against Palestinian prisoners.
