PRESS RELEASE
PLO Executive Committee
Department of Culture and Information
PLO Executive Committee member, Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, marked Palestinian Prisoners’ Day by reaffirming that the freedom of the 5,224 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons remains the PLO’s top priority:
“The Palestinian leadership is currently focusing its efforts on Palestine’s accession to the Four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949 and the First Additional Protocol, and ensuring their implementation in regards to occupied Palestine, with the issue of Palestinian political prisoners at the forefront.”
“We commend the bravery and determination of all Palestinian prisoners and their continued steadfastness and commitment to freedom in the face of the belligerent occupier.”
Dr. Ashrawi stressed, “With 2014 as the International Year of Solidarity with the Palestinian People and in light of Palestine’s accession to 15 multilateral treaties and conventions, we call on all members of the international community to expose Israel’s criminal treatment of Palestinian prisoners, to form an independent international commission to investigate violations committed by the Israel Prison Service and to undertake additional punitive action.”
“It is high time for Israel to be held accountable for its flagrant breach of the rights of Palestinian prisoners, especially in regards to the imprisonment and ill-treatment of Palestinian men, women, children, and elderly, the transfer of detainees from occupied Palestine to Israel, the deliberate medical neglect and lack of health care for the 1,400 Palestinian prisoners suffering from chronic diseases, the extreme and unjust use of administrative detention and solitary confinement, and the constant prevention of visitations by family members; all of these actions committed by Israel are cruel and dehumanizing measures that constitute war crimes.”
“We call on the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Conventions to act on the basis of justice and human rights and to ensure that Israel complies with international law and conventions with respect to Palestinian political prisoners.”
Dr. Ashrawi concluded with requesting for international intervention pertaining to Israel’s continued imprisonment of Palestinian parliamentarians, in particular Marwan Barghouthi and Ahmad Sa’dat, and she requested that Israel respect international norms dealing with the immunity of elected officials.