On Thursday 5th June, Inminds and the Palestinian Prisoners Campaign will be protesting outside the AGM of British security contractor G4S for its complicity in Israel’s crimes against Palestinian prisoners. Please join us.
DATE: 5th June 2014, 1:00 pm
LOCATION: Western Terrace, Excel Centre
Royal Victoria Dock, 1 Western Gateway, E16 1XL, London
(public transport: Custom House DLR)
FACEBOOK EVENT: https://www.facebook.com/
ARAFAT JARADAT
Over 15 months ago Palestinian father of 2 young children, Arafat Jaradat was tortured to death in an Israeli prison. His autopsy determined the cause of death as “nervous shock as a result of extreme pain from the intensity of the injuries which resulted from multiple direct and extensive acts of torture”. G4S provides the security systems that keeps that Israeli torture den, and many others, operational to this day. We have not heard one word of regret from G4S for their complicity in his murder. For G4S, Arafat Jaradat’s life is of no consequence as it does not register in their profit column. We will be there protesting outside their AGM to demand justice for Arafat Jaradat, to hold British company G4S accountable for its role in his murder.
ARAFAT JARADAT – BACKGROUND
Arafat Jaradat, 30 year old Palestinian father of 2 children aged 4 and 2 years old, married with a pregnant wife, died on Saturday 23rd Feb 2013 after being savagely tortured for 5 days by Israel’s secret police Shin Bet. He had been arrested on suspicion of just throwing a stone.. 5 days later he was dead.
At his last military hearing on 22nd Feb Arafat pleaded that he didn’t want to go back to his cell, because he was being brutally tortured. He had severe pain in his back and all over his body due to the beatings and being hung for many hours during interrogation. The judge was dismissive and the torture continued. Arafat died the next day.
Shin Bet claimed he had died of a heart attack but the autopsy carried out at the National Israeli Forensic Medicine Center showed no sign of heart failure or any other illness, but revealed broken bones and found his whole body was covered in “strong and excessive bruising”.. “under the skin inside the muscle and along the spine at the bottom of the neck deep inside the tissue”. The autopsy determined the cause of death : “nervous shock as a result of extreme pain from the intensity of the injuries, which resulted from multiple direct and extensive acts of torture”.
It was revealed that an Israeli doctor was involved in Arafat’s torture who had given the green light for further torture. Shin Bet routinely tortures Palestinians with impunity, some 700 cases of torture have been lodged against them yet not a single one has lead to a criminal investigation. Since 2008 the Shin Bet has been exempt from having to videotape interrogations of “security detainees” – ie the 5,000+ Palestinian political prisoners it holds, with the official excuse being ‘budgetary limitations’. In the meantime 71 Palestinian prisoners have been murdered by torture in Israeli prisons since 1967.
Arafat died in Megiddo Prison following interrogation at the notorious al-Jalame interrogation centre infamous for its abuse of child prisoners. The British-Danish security firm G4S is complicit in Israel’s torture and murder of Palestinian prisoners by helping Israel secure both these prisons. At Megiddo the whole central command room is provided by G4S as are the security systems at Al Jalame. The transfer of Palestinians from the West Bank to these prisons in Israel is in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
MASS HUNGER STRIKE
We will also be protesting in solidarity with the mass hunger strike of Palestinian prisoners demanding an end to Israels’s illegal policy of punitive Administrative Detention. The hunger strike which began on 24th April will be their 65th day on Thursday. The Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners Affairs says 1,500 inmates have joined the hunger strike and more than 100 prisoners are in life-threatening condition with dozens of hunger strikers being hospitalized. The youngest prisoner on hunger strike is Ahmad Rimawi, he was a child at the time when the soldiers abducted him when we was on his way to school, they snatched him at the checkpoint and caged him without charge, trial or reason for 6 months under administrative detention. And when the 6 months were up they added another 6 months, and then another 6 months.. under administrative detention Israel can hold prisoners for an indefinite period of time on rolling 6 month orders.
86% of administrative detainees are held in G4S secured Israeli prisons. And during Samer Issawi’s heroic 266 day hunger strike, in January 2013, his family sent a message for our protest which specifically named G4S for its complicity in Israel’s crime. The message was written by Samer Issawi’s sister who is today herself languishing in a G4S secured Israeli dungeon. She wrote:
“..
We greet the demonstrators against G4S
that provides equipment for the prison administration.
G4S realizes that they are used in non-humanitarian ways
against Palestinian prisoners.Deliver the voice of the oppressed prisoners
and hold this company G4S accountable
for its responsibility towards these prisoners
and its partnership to the occupation in its inhumane practices.
It must stop providing these supplies to the occupation…Freedom for our prisoners; for our heroes”
Shireen Issawi
MESSAGE FROM FAMILY OF HUNGER STRIKER YASSER PEDERSAWI
For our last protest on Fri 23rd May 2014, we received a message from the family of one of the Palestinian administrative detainees on hunger strike, Yasser Pedersawi.
Yasser Pedersawi is from Balata refugee camp and works as the director of the Center for Right of Return – something the illegal Israeli occupation directly opposes.
He is 49 years old, and like most Palestinian males he has spent a large portion of his life – 9 years – in Israel dungeons starting as a child prisoner. Most of his imprisonment – 6 of his 9 years – has been under Administration detention orders – caged illegally for an indefinite period of time without any charge or trial.
He is the father of 4 daughters aged between 12 and 24 years old. His oldest daughter recalls losing her father at age two..
“When I was in the second year of my life my father was taken away to an Israeli prison, and here I am today in my 24th year. I did not share my joy of success in high school with my father, I dreamed he would be next to me when I graduated college, but administrative detention deprived me of all that. After graduating I married young, and this was the only occasion that my father shared with me the joy. I gave birth to his eldest grandson, and now here I am on the verge of having a second child, and I have lost him again to administrative detention. I ask myself when will I get my father to myself without having to share him with the occupation?”
His latest administrative detention came just over a year ago on 28th May 2013 when the Israeli occupation forced attacked his home destroying much of his family’s belongings before abducting him with no charge.
Thirty days ago on April 24th 2014 he began a hunger strike along with 130 other administrative detainees to protest their illegal administrative detention. Israel immediately punished the hunger strikers by cutting of their supply of salt, which is essential for survival, and moved them in to squalid solitary confinement and subjecting them to violent strip searches and assaults. As a result Yasser’s health deteriorated very seriously and recently he has had to be moved to Soroka hospital. He loses consciousness intermittently and is vomiting blood and has intestinal pain due to being given contaminated water whilst in solitary confinement.
Yasser was illegally caged at the G4S secured Ketziot prison under administrative detention when he began his hunger strike before being moved to Eshel prison for solitary confinement.
In her message to this protest in London his wife asks for
“international solidarity to expose the practices of the occupation and its crimes against us, especially administrative detention, in your Parliament and human rights institutions and help us put an end to administrative detention”.
She says
“Administrative detention is a heavy burden for my family, it has taken the taste of life from us. Throughout the period of detention of my husband, we keep hoping for his release, and when he is released we live each day waiting for the next arrest and the next administrative detention to start. Sometimes I wish they had just sentenced my husband to 10 years, then we could at least have adapted to that reality and been patient, but the occupations administrative detention is designed to punishes both the prisoner and his family.”
CHILD PRISONERS & WOMEN PRISONERS – THE HARES BOYS & LENA JARBONI
We will of course be continuing our campaigns for the Hares Boys – 5 Palestinian boys tortured at the notorious G4S secured Israeli children’s dungeon at Al Jalame and then caged at Israel’s G4S secured Megiddo prison, and are facing 25 years for a crime that didn’t even take place. And we will continue our campaign for women prisoners, in particular Lena Jarboni who has endured 11 years locked up and abused in Israel’s G4S secured HaSharon prison.
LIVE UPDATES DURING PROTEST
We will, inshAllah, be tweeting live (hash tags #StopG4S #Justice4ArafatJaradat) from the protest with live photos being uploaded to our twitter and facebook page. So if you can’t join us on the day, please help us by sharing the photos as they get uploaded.
https://www.facebook.com/
https://twitter.com/InmindsCom
JazakAllah
Abbas Ali
Palestinian Prisoners Campaign
www.inminds.com/caged
The Palestinian Prisoners Campaign aims to raise awareness for the plight of Palestinian prisoners and build solidarity for their struggle and work towards their freedom. The campaign was launched by Innovative Minds (inminds.com) and the Islamic Human Rights Commission (ihrc.org) on the occasion of Al Quds Day 2012 (on 17th August 2012), since then we have held actions every fortnight in support of Palestinian prisoners, if you can spare two hours twice a month then please join the campaign by coming to the next action.
