JERUSALEM, August 9, 2015 (WAFA) – The United Nations has voiced concern over a recently adopted Israeli law allowing the force-feeding of detainees and prisoners on hunger strikes in Israeli prisons.

In a statement published Saturday, it said such a law is a “cause for concern to those who work to protect the right to health of Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory.”

“The law potentially affects all detainees but particularly Palestinian detainees who have resorted to hunger strikes to protest their conditions, including their prolonged detention on administrative orders without charge,” the statement added. 

The UN maintained that hunger strikes are a non-violent form of protest used by individuals who have exhausted other forms of protest to highlight the seriousness of their situations.

This came a day after a medical committee in the Israeli Soroka hospital in Beersheba, where Palestinian hunger striking detainee Mohammad Allan from Nablus is being treated due to severe deterioration on his health, permitted physicians at the hospital to force-feed him in case his life was in danger

Allan has been on a hunger strike for 55 consecutive days in protest against his administrative detention without trial or charge.

On July 30, the Israeli parliament, Knesset, approved the second and third reading of a legislation allowing the force-feeding of hunger striking Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails.

The move, which saw 46 members of Knesset vote in favor and 40 against, was opposed by Israel's Medical Association also opposed the law, which considered force-feeding as a form of torture that is medically risky. It urged Israeli doctors not to abide by the law.

Ahead of the bill’s approval, Issa Qaraqe, Chairman of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Affairs Commission, said the law legalizes murder of Palestinian hunger striking detainees.

“It's against the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, it legalizes torture of prisoners who are demanding their rights in a non-violent way,” asking for a meeting of state parties to the Geneva Conventions to take a stand against the law and demand Israel not to apply it.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez, has called “feeding induced by threats, coercion, force or use of physical restraints of individuals, who have opted for the extreme recourse of a hunger strike to protest against their detention... tantamount to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, even if intended for their benefit.”

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dainius Pûras, has observed that “under no circumstance will force-feeding of prisoners and detainees on hunger strike comply with human rights standards. Informed consent is an integral part in the realization of the right to health.”

M.N/M.H