The Prisoners Club announced that if the Israeli authorities continue with their policy of “administrative detention”, more Palestinians will go on strike

The group denounced that the Israeli Penitentiary Service threatened the strikers with sanctions, including deprivation of visits, taking away their belongings and isolating them in solitary cells as punishment.

The protesters are members and supporters of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

“Administrative detention” is a procedure used by Israel to arrest Palestinians for renewable intervals that typically range between three to six months on the basis of undisclosed evidence that even the defendant’s lawyer is prohibited from seeing.

Numerous detainees under this rule systematically go on hunger strikes to draw attention to their cases and force the Israeli authorities to release them.

Palestinians and human rights groups denounce that administrative detention violates due process of law because it allows for evidence against prisoners to be withheld while they are detained for long periods without being charged, tried or sentenced.

According to various sources, out of over 4,600 Palestinian imprisoned in Israel, some 740 are kept in administrative detention.

pgh/llp/mem/rob