09/2012

The Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) holds Israeli occupation authorities full responsibility for the life of Palestinian Detainee Hana Yahya Shalabi (30) years from Burkin town, in the district of Jenin, who has  been on an open hunger strike for the eleventh day in a row in a solitary confinement in “Hasharon Prison”, in protest against her administrative detention.

Israeli occupation authorities re-arrested detainee Hana Shalabi from her house on 16/02/2012 and was also beaten by an intelligence officer. She was released in the first phase of the prisoner exchange or prisoner swap that took place in October 2011, during which Israeli occupation authorities released (1,027) Palestinian detainees for the release of the kidnapped Israeli soldier.

Arbitrary administrative detention is a detention to which the occupying power resorts based on an administrative order without trial and without judicial support or an indictment. This is in accordance with the British Emergency Law of 1945, which allows for the detention of Palestinians by the occupying power for renewable periods and without trial or giving reasons. In detaining Palestinians for renewable periods, the occupying power relies on the so-called secret file where it is to invoke the existence of secret evidence by the Israeli Security Service, which is a fabricated charge under which Palestinians are placed under administrative detention for open periods without any right to legal proceedings or to appoint a lawyer to defend them.

In this context, ICHR expresses its deep concern about the life of Detainee Hana Shalabi, the deterioration of her health condition and the degrading conditions of her detention to human dignity.  ICHR condemns her re-arrest without charge, and the degrading treatment to which she was exposed during detention, showing Israeli occupation authorities’ violations of the most basic standards of human rights, particularly her right to respect her dignity, her right to humane treatment, and her right to a fair trial. Israeli occupation authorities’ practices force Palestinian prisoners to risk their lives by announcing the open hunger strike. He case is the second of hunger strike after Prisoner Khader Adnan, with the aim of forcing the occupation authorities to stop the administrative detention applied against Palestinians, their freedom and respect for their dignity. Administrative detention constitutes a serious threat to the lives of prisoners.

Therefore, ICHR calls on the international community to:

• Immediately intervene with the Israeli occupation authorities for the immediate release of detainee Hana Shalabi.
• Break the silence regarding escalation of Israel’s violations of the international standards of human rights and the rules of international humanitarian law.
• Force Israeli occupation authorities to respect the Geneva Conventions of 1947.
• Compel the occupying power to respect international law, stop its practices and its humiliating and degrading treatment of human dignity, and its systematic violations and arbitrary measures against Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli prisons occupation, and to stop the unjust laws that affect thousands of the Palestinian people.