IPS to Adalah, Human Rights NGOs: New Guidelines Require Prisoners Confirm Meetings with Lawyers - New Policy Announced in Response to Demand that IPS Allow Palestinians Hunger Striking Prisoners to Meet their Lawyers Immediately

(Haifa, Israel) On 3 May 2012, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) responded to a letter sent by Adalah earlier that day on behalf of several prisoners' lawyers and Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations demanding an immediate end to the illegal policy that prevents lawyers from meeting with Palestinian security-classified prisoners and detainees on hunger strike. The IPS's response announced a new policy that each prison section issues a daily list of meetings with lawyers. The prisoner must confirm his/her interest in the meeting in order to attend.

Adalah Attorney Rima Ayoub sent the letter regarding IPS's obstruction of lawyers' meetings to the IPS Commissioner Aharon Franco on behalf of lawyers Mohammed Mahajneh, Alaa Masarwa, Hanan Khatib, Fouad Sultani, and Nabeel Dakwar, as well as in name of the following human rights organizations: Addameer, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), Physicians for Human Rights - Israel, Hamoked - The Center for the Defence of the Individual, Al Mezan, and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI). The letter demands that the IPS stop using direct and indirect means to prevent, delay, or reject meetings between lawyers and hunger strikers. The most common reason given is that prisoners who are unable to stand up and be counted during role call cannot meet with their lawyers.

Since 17 April 2012, when approximately 1,600 Palestinian prisoners and administrative detainees began a mass hunger strike, and even beforehand, several lawyers have reported difficulty obtaining permission from the IPS to meet with their clients.

Attorney Ayoub emphasized in the letter several cases in which lawyers coordinated and confirmed their visits in advance, but upon arrival at the prison, were informed that they were unable to meet with their clients as an act of punishment imposed by IPS, or where the meetings were delayed and finally prevented without a reason given.

In one case, Attorney Mohammed Mahajneh submitted several requests to see hunger strikers hospitalized at Assaf Harofeh Hospital near Ramleh and in the IPS medical center. His requests were denied on the grounds that the prisoners were sick and that it was in their best interests not to receive visits at the time. In another case, the IPS granted Attorney Mahajneh's meeting requests, but later he was told that he would not be able to meet with four of the prisoners because they were not present for role call.

Attorney Hanan Khatib received approval to visit Gilboa Prison, but when she arrived, the prison was informed by telephone from the IPS that five of seven meetings had been cancelled because hunger strikers were not allowed to meet with their lawyers. The five prisoners who were prevented from meeting with their lawyer were on hunger strike, while the remaining two were not.

Attorney Fouad Sultani waited for meetings with prisoners at Nafha Prison, located in the Naqab (Negev) desert, hundreds of miles from his office and home, for six hours. He was told that the delay was due to the fact that the prison was in a state of emergency. The following day Attorney Sultani tried every possible way to arrange a visit to prisoners in Nafha, but the IPS rejected all of them. Eventually IPS agreed to visits on 6 May 2012, long after the attorney's requested dates.

Attorney Nabeel Dakwar of PCATI was granted permission to visit prisoners in Section 5 of Ramon Prison on 1 May. However, upon his arrival, guards informed him that he could not meet with three of the five prisoners as they were on hunger strike, that the fourth prisoner refused to leave his location to meet him, and that the fifth prisoner was being transferred to another location.

Adalah Attorney Rima Ayoub argued in the letter to IPS that the policy of preventing meetings with lawyers is illegal and constitutes prohibited punishment. Banning meetings violates the basic constitutional rights of prisoners to meet with their lawyers, and removes their ability to defend themselves, including on intrusions against rights to freedom and bodily integrity, dignity, and their right to access court.

Adalah and the co-signing human rights organizations demand that written instructions and guidelines be immediately issued to all officials and guards in prisons and detention centers, as well as in the IPS medical center clearly stating that using any method to prevent, delay or cancel meetings between prisoners and lawyers contradicts the law and is to be stopped immediately, especially during a hunger strike.

For more information, see: Haaretz, "Israel should reduce use of administrative detention for Palestinians, top official says," 3 May 2012

Haaretz, "Palestinian convicts on hunger strike must leave bed to see lawyer, Israel Prison Service says," 3 May 2012

Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations, "Palestinian Political Prisoners Subject to Collective Punishment as Mass Hunger Strike Continues," 3 May 2012