Palestinian prisoner Ahlam al-Tamimi on hunger strike against strip searches and isolation

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Palestinian prisoner Ahlam al-Tamimi said she plans on continuing her hunger strike until her demands are met, after the Hasharon prison administration placed her in isolation when she refused to succumb to a strip search.

She said in a letter that she leaked to her lawyer during a visit on 3 June and published by the Ahrar Woledna (Born Free) site that her morale is high.

Tamimi also gave her account of the events that led to her isolation on 29 June. She said she was called for a lawyer visit and an officer asked to take her clothes off for a search. But she refused to do so and declared that she no longer wanted to see the lawyer. She was then beaten by the officer and two other female prison guards. The guards then cuffed her and searched her until she was fully naked.

“When I went out to the lawyer I was carrying no more than a pen and small pad to write notes during the lawyer visit,” she said.

She added that after the guards failed to find anything, they placed her in isolation, and she immediately declared that she would go on hunger strike. Later that day, she was tried at a military tribunal in the prison and was sentenced to seven days in isolation. The judge alleged that she had papers and wanted to see them.

She suspected that the entire ordeal was staged by the prison administration. A few months ago, her cell was raided in search of a cell phone and some of papers and letters were confiscated in the meantime.

Since the strike began, Tamimi has undergone daily checkups by the prison ward as she has lost significant weight and has low blood pressure. She was informed that if she did not end the strike she would be moved to isolation in another prison facility.

She has demanded that she be allowed visits by her husband who is also imprisoned and to be allowed to call her family in Jordan after she had already received permission to do so by the courts.

Tamimi, 31, from Ramallah was served 16 life sentences in 2001.

Ex-prisoner Ghufran Zamil in a statement on Monday confirmed that Tamimi was placed in isolation with the prison’s criminal population and has entered a hunger strike after refusing to be strip searched and that her health condition has gone from bad to worse since she began fasting.

Thanks to the Palestinian Information Center

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