Adalah to Israel Prison Service: Withdraw decisions banning hunger-strikers from family visits and going out to the prison yard
Today, 11 June 2014, Adalah sent two urgent letters to the Israel Prison Service (IPS) and the Attorney General demanding that the IPS withdraw its recent decisions preventing Palestinian hunger-striking prisoners and detainees from all family visits and going out to the prison yard for an hour a day.
Adalah Attorney Aram Mahameed stated in a letter that through the correspondence between Adalah and the IPS, the Legal Advisor to the IPS acknowledged that the IPS is preventing the hunger-strikers from family visits as a punitive measure, as hunger-striking is a violation of prison regulations.
Concerning this sanction, Attorney Mahammed argued that, "The last means possible for prisoners to protest is through hunger striking, and since the strike does not affect any person or the property of any person, there is no logic in punishing the prisoners because of their strike. In addition, family visits are not a privilege but a part of the prisoners’ constitutional rights of dignity and family life."
Adalah Attorney Nadeem Shehadeh argued in another letter that going out to the prison yard for one hour a day is a basic right granted to any prisoner under the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Attorney Shehadeh added that preventing the prisoners from one hour in the open air of the prison yard means that the prisoners do not see the sunlight and will not be able to breathe fresh air for many consecutive days.
Attorney Shehadeh argued that the IPS is dealing with the basic rights of prisoners as if they were a reward and as if the IPS is allowed to revoke them at any moment. He added that, "The prisoners' rights to have sun exposure and to breathe fresh air are a fundamental right that reflects a physiological, psychological and basic humanitarian need, and therefore the prisoners cannot be deprived of them."
Read more:
Adalah to IPS: Illegal to prevent attorneys from visiting Palestinian detainees on hunger strike, 20 May 2014
