The Innovative Minds campaign supporting Palestinian political prisoners organized a protest in solidarity with Jordanian hunger strikers in Israeli prisons outside the Jordanian Embassy on Sunday, June 30 from 2-4 pm.
The call to the protest was as follows:
On Sunday 30th June it will be the 60th day that 5 Palestinian political prisoners with Jordanian citizenship have been on hunger strike in Israeli occupation jails. The prisoners families are asking for the immediate release of all Palestinian political prisoners, and in the very least Israel be made to abide by its side of the shameful Wadi Araba normalisation agreement which King Hussein signed with Israel in 1994, under which Jordanian prisoners in Israeli jails should be transferred to Jordan to serve their sentences where at least the families of the prisoners can visit – something Israel is not permitting. The prisoners are also demanding Israel disclose the where abouts of 20 Jordanian prisoners which are missing, and to return the bodies of the prisoners who have died in Israel custody, which Israel has dumped in numbered graves, back to their families.
It should be noted that Jordanians have consistently demanded their government tear up the treacherous Wadi Araba peace agreement in which King Hussein sold out the Palestinians, and in return gained nothing other than shame for Jordan. Needless to say Israel has been a serial violator of the treaty from day one.. its assassination attempt of Khaled Meshaal in 1997 to its Judaisation of Jerusalem, and its restrictions on access to holy places in Jerusalem..
The five hunger strikers: Abdullah Al-Barghothi, Hamzah Al-Dabbas, Muneer Merei, Alaa Hammad and Mohammad Al-Rimawi have each lost over 18kg in weight. Some of the prisoners have lost their ability to walk and are confined to wheel chairs. Mohammad Al-Rimawi, who suffers from a heart disorder where sometimes his heart beat is 125 and sometimes it drops to 50 beats per minute, is being denied his medicine by the Israeli Prison Service until he agrees to stop his hunger strike. Prisoners are being pressured to stop their hunger strikes with their cells being raided and attack dogs being used in order to intimidate them. As the strike persists the methods employed by Israel are getting more violent. Yesterday (26th June 2013) Israeli guards attacked Adbullah Al-Barghouti in the hospital, they dragged him from his hospital bed to the concrete floor and kicked him in the face, causing bleeding.
There have been over 70 demonstrations in Jordan by the families of the prisoners. The Jordanian government has shamefully abandoned the prisoners and according to some accounts is also pressuring the prisoners to give up their hunger strike. We have been asked by our brother and sisters in Jordan to protest outside the Jordanian Embassy in solidarity with their protest on the same day in Jordan outside the Royal Court (Central Government buildings). Please join us in this act of solidarity.
