For 27th day, Palestinian administrative detainees continue to boycott Israeli Military Courts
Occupied Palestine (QNN)- Nearly 500 Palestinian administrative detainees in Israeli prisons have been boycotting Israeli Military Courts for the 27th day in a row, in protest of their indefinite detention without charges or trial.
The Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups said that in protest against their administrative detention without charges or trial by the Israeli occupation authorities, nearly 500 Palestinian administrative detainees have been boycotting the Israeli Military Courts since January 1, 2022.
Among the 500 administrative detainees are 3 minors and one female. One of the minors is 18-year-old Amal Nakhleh who tested positive for COVID-19 on Tuesday while suffering from a chronic autoimmune disease that affects his breathing and swallowing.
The boycott includes the initial hearings to uphold the administrative detention order, as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at the Supreme Court.
Under the banner, “Our decision is freedom … no to administrative detention,” administrative detainees said in a statement their move comes as a continuation of longstanding Palestinian efforts “to put an end to the unjust administrative detention practiced against our people by the occupation forces”.
They also noted that Israel’s use of the policy has expanded in recent years to include women, children and elderly people.
“Israeli military courts are an important aspect for the occupation in its system of oppression,” the detainees said, describing the courts as a “barbaric, racist tool that has consumed hundreds of years from the lives of our people under the banner of administrative detention, through nominal and fictitious courts – the results of which are predetermined by the military commander of the region”.
Since March 2002, the number of Palestinians in administrative detention has never fallen below 100.
According to the Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups, there are now 4,600 Palestinians held in Israeli occupation jails, including 34 women, 160 minors, and 500 administrative detainees held without charge or trial.
The groups said in a recently-issued report that during the year of 2021, ‘Israel’ issued 1,595 administrative detention orders against the Palestinians while 1,114 administrative detention orders were issued in 2020.
The director of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, attorney Sahar Francis, told Haaretz that “the authorities of the occupation are not honoring the limitations that international law has set on imposing administrative detentions and they are being done arbitrarily, something that is a war crime according to the occupation laws.”
According to Francis, the decision to boycott the legal system was made after many efforts were made to battle the administrative detention policy, including hunger strikes led by a few prisoners in recent months.
