Protest to foreign secretary Miliband over Israels's abuse of Palestinian prisoners

Use the model letter below to send your protests to the British Foreign Office over the treatment of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners being illegally held in Israel's prisons:

Rt. Hon. David Miliband
Foreign Secretary, London SW1

Dear Mr. Miliband

Justice for Palestinian prisoners

I am writing about the plight of the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners held by the illegal occupying power. There have been protests all over the Middle East to coincide with a hunger strike held by Ahmad Sa’adat, a prominent prisoner held in illegal detention by the State of Israel. The British government have an historic responsibility towards the whole Palestinian people, from the Mandate period to the present day. They have a special responsibility towards Mr. Sa’adat , whom they were jointly guarding on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, and who they then allowed to be seized by the occupiers of his birth place.

Mr. Sa’adat is suffering from back pain, but true to form his captors have denied him medicine. He has also been kept in isolation, like many Palestinian prisoners, who include women and children in their ranks. Mr Sadaat is also a representative on the Palestinian Legislative Council [PLC], as are several of the detainees including Mr. Aziz Dweik the Speaker of the PLC, and prominent Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti. Mr. Barghouti is being held for the murder of civilians inside the green line; murders which he did not commit or condone. All three men are prisoners because they defend the right of the Palestinian people to resist Israel’s illegal occupation.

If Her Majesties Government wish to be instrumental in bringing justice to the Middle East, the release of prisoners, beginning with the women and children in administrative detention, would be a good start.

The criminalisation of acts of resistance, including military operations against disproportionately powerful Israeli forces, is against the spirit and thrust of international law. Rather than label people as terrorists, they must be engaged as legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. That is certainly true of Sa’adat, Barghouti, and last but not least Dweik, whose “crime” is to be elected as the Speaker of a democratic assembly.

If democracy is to championed as a universal right leading to a more just world, rather than a catchphrase suitable for certain situations, the scandal of Israel’s Palestinian prisoners must be rectified. The British people and their government must play its part.

Yours sincerely,

From the Palestinian Information Center:

GAZA, (PIC)-- The ministry of prisoners in Gaza on Sunday called on the popular and official institutions to organize wide campaigns in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails against the Israeli violations of their rights especially the attempts to force them to wear the orange uniform.

In a press release received by the PIC, Riyadh Al-Ashqar, the information director at the ministry, stressed that the prisoners must not be left alone especially by the media or else the Israeli occupation would dare to violate their rights further and apply its own arbitrary laws against them.

Ashqar added that the state of silence towards what happens to Palestinian prisoners encouraged Israel to commit further violations of international law against them, so it is necessary to intensify events and activities that highlight their poor incarceration conditions and the injustice inflicted on them and not just organize weekly sit-ins in front of the Red Cross headquarters in Gaza.

The official pointed out that what happens inside Israeli jails is much worse and more brutal than the atrocities committed in Guantanamo prison, but the different media outlets failed or did not play a strong role to highlight the barbarism and war crimes taking place in Israeli prisons as was the case with Guantanamo.

The official appealed to all media outlets in the world to necessarily give greater attention and priority to the issue of Palestinian prisoners in their programs and media coverage in order to reveal the true face of Israel and thus pressuring it to stop its violations of prisoners’ rights.