RAMALLAH, January 19, 2016 (WAFA) – The Supreme Court of Israel decided to delay the hearing session of Hunger striking journalist Mohammad al-Qiq to February 25, despite of a significant deterioration in his health, according to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs (CDEDA).
It said after 56 days of open-ended hunger strike against his administrative detention without charge or trial, al-Qiq has seen significant deterioration in his health, including a significant weight loss, inability to stand, repeated vomiting, visual impairment, constant muscle and joint pain, as well as inability to talk.
Al-Qiq, the first Palestinian prisoner to be force-fed, has even refused to receive food supplements, such as vitamins, sugar, salt, and only drinks small amounts of water.
Chairman of CDEDA, Minister Issa Qaraqe, said delaying the hearing on whether to release al-Qiq to February 25 constitutes a huge disregard of al-Qis’s life, given the significant health deterioration he has seen.
Qaraqe said efforts are underway to ensure an earlier release date.
Heba Masalha, al-Qiq’s attorney, said the director of Aful hospital, where al-Qiq is being hospitalized, informed her that physicians at the hospital are concerned about a potential kidney failure or a brain stroke, due to al-Qiq’s deteriorating health status.
She added that when she visited him at the hospital, al-Qiq was handcuffed from three directions to his bed, despite of his inability to move.
There are more than 500 Palestinian prisoners being held under administrative detention, a controversial Israeli practice that allows the detention of Palestinians without charge or trial for up to sex-month intervals that can be renewed indefinitely.
Israeli officials claim the practice is an essential tool in preventing attacks and protecting sensitive intelligence, but it has been strongly criticized by the international community as well as by both Israeli and Palestinian rights groups.
The Israeli human rights organization, B’Tselem, said international law stipulates that administrative detention may be exercised only in very exceptional cases. Nevertheless, Israeli authorities routinely employ administrative detention on thousands of Palestinians.
Israel uses administrative detention regularly as a form of collective punishment and mass detention of Palestinians, and frequently uses administrative detention when it fails to obtain confessions in interrogations of Palestinian detainees.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy, which violates international law.
M.N/M.H
