Folie 1

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"Anguish of Deprivation and Hope for Reunion" A
file that propounds the hardships encountered by
the Palestinian prisoners and their families at
the time of the prisoners' visit Caricatures
were sketched by the Palestinian artist and
former prisoner Raed Kurran
FRIENDS OF HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS
ORGANIZATION MENSCHENFREUNDE INTERNATIONAL GESELLS
CHAFT FÜR MENSCHENRECHTE VIENNA - AUSTRIA ..
2006
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The Prisoners' Issue Is A Public National Cause
? The cause of the prisoners' freedom poses a
national obsession and undisputed goal for the
majority of Palestinians. Besides being a human
cause, it touches on most of the Palestinian
families in the occupied West Bank and Gaza
Strip. There is scarcely a Palestinian family
that has escaped the detainment procedures
undertaken by the occupational forces against one
of its members, or that is not related by a way
or another to one of the current prisoners. The
multiple political affiliations of the prisoners
as individuals, leaders and government members
render their case a public national cause.
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Unparalleled suffering endured by the Palestinian
prisoners and their families

• ?In view of the abominable siege which the
  Israeli political and military authorities have
  been imposing on the Palestinians
• it has become extremely difficult for the
  Palestinian families to visit their prisoners in
  the Israeli jails and custodies
• ? Moreover, the Israeli procedures applied in
  connection with the prisoners and their families
  resulted in so many complications, thus hindering
  or, in many cases, suspending the visits

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? In the light of the fact that the current
population of Palestinian prisoners in the
Israeli jails approximates to 10300, it becomes
evident that ten thousand three hundreds
Palestinian families at least are experiencing
the agony of deprivation from getting in touch
with their family members and first relatives
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The Occupation Authorities make it a
condition for the prisoners' relatives to obtain
special visit permission from its security
systems. In many cases these permissions are
withheld from the father, mother, son or brother
for security reasons
Conditions Permissions
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? The Israeli authorities bar visits as a form of
a collective punitive policy against whole
Palestinian directorates (Nablus as example) for
long periods
Collective punishment
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Friends of humanity and supporters of freedom
all over the world pose the crucial question as
for what guilt the little kid is denied the
privilege of seeing his father and the aged man
is deprived from seeing his son
The Innocent Childhood
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? The visits are totally obstructed during the
interrogation of the prisoner. In some cases the
interrogation duration may extend to 70 days
The Intrrogation of the Prisoner
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The Intrrogation of the Prisoner

• ? During this stage
• ? The occupational authorities are
  practicing brutal and internationally prohibited
  torture tactics against the Palestinian
  prisoners.
• ? The Israeli occupation is the only
  "state" that endorses and legalizes torture and
  uses it as an official practice that has been
  granted substantial political support and legal
  coverage by the Supreme Court of the Israeli
  Security Systems in 1996 when the Court permitted
  Shabak system to use torture and other tactics of
  shaking and physical pressure against the
  Palestinian detainees.

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A Journey of Real Torment
When visitors get on board of the vehicles
assigned to carry them to the jail, they embark
on a journey of real torment. There have to go
through a good number of barricades where they
are forced to wait for long hours and are treated
in an offensive manner by the soldiers who
practice superiority and discrimination on them.
They are searched and asked to change the
vehicles several times. All these procedures
rendered the visit venture a truly painful
experience.
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? The visitors set out on their visit journey at
3 a.m. (dawn) and go back home just before
midnight at the most, though the drive to the
jail takes only one hour and a half or two hours
at the most and the visit does not exceed 45
minutes, which is even made shorter in some cases
under various pretexts
Prisoners' families 21 hours of tough travel,
discomfort, searching and waiting which they
experience throughout their 100 Km journey to
spend 45 minute with their beloved prisoners
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? In some cases the occupational forces would
send the visitors back home without being
permitted to see their imprisoned relatives due
to what they describe as "security reasons"
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Upon their arrival, the visitors are made to wait
in unfurnished yards where they are delayed for
various periods, sometimes approximating three
hours. In some cases and to the surprise of some
visitors, the jail administration would deny the
presence of the prisoner in the jail
The Arrival of the Visitors
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Search Policy
The jail administration applies search policy on
the prisoners and their families before and after
the visit. In many cases, the administration
compels them to take off their garments amid a
flood of insults, abuses and improper language
addressed to the prisoners
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Search Policy
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? The visit starts by allowing the visitors to
enter into the visiting hall where they line up
outside the buffer metal grid fence and glass
wall while the prisoners line up on the opposite
inner side. ? When the visitor and the prisoner
start talking they have to yell in order to hear
each other due to the two buffers and the
enormous volume of voices of the people who are
allowed to talk to one another only for few
minutes. They focus on the lips movement to
understand what is being said ? Some times they
use microphones to talk.
The Visiting Hall
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Touching Is Not Allowed
? ? ? ? ? ?
? Depriving the prisoner from sitting with his
beloved relatives (father, mother, wife,
children, brothers and sisters), enjoying their
company, talking to them and sharing their
moments of joy and grief, and cherishing the
pleasure of cuddling his children especially the
small ones, constitute an incomparable suffering
rarely witnessed anywhere else at the present
time. It is a complex torment that inflicts agony
simultaneously on the prisoners and their
relatives and aggravates their anguish.
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? This is how the prisoner feels after his family
45 minute-visit is over?
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Under the commonly practiced policy of
deprivation, to get a family visit has become an
occasion that calls for other prisoners'
congratulations
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The state of the Palestinian prisoners and
detainees speaks of itself
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Passing away before the anticipated visit
As some prisoners are deprived from their family
visit for prolonged periods of time, any of the
parents or the family member would, in some
cases, die without the prisoner having the chance
to see or say farewell to the deceased or take
part in the funeral ceremony. Here are few
examples
? After a long struggle with the disease and six
consecutive years of deprivation from seeing her
son, mother of Fuad Al Razem, a prisoner from
Jerusalem with the longest imprisonment period
ever recorded in the Israeli jails, passed away
on 13/9/2005.
? A'esha Mohammad Al Zeben (55 years old), mother
of the prisoner Ammar Al Zeben from Nablus, died
on 30/8/2004 during the hunger battle. She was
the first to sacrifice her life when she went on
hunger strike during the consolidation campaign
launched in support of the prisoners and had
consequently a severe heart attack and died in
her agony of deprivation.
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Passing away before the anticipated visit
The Compassionate Mother And Affectionate Poetess
? On 23/10/2005 mother of the two prisoners Nail
and Omar Al Barghouthy passed away after she had
had a heart attack caused by the years of agony
she experienced away from her sons, during which
she strove to see them and waited for the moment
of her reunion with them, just to die without
having realized her dream. The prisoners' father
also died a year earlier before he could see off
any of them. The prisoner Nail Al Barghouthy is
the second prisoner with the longest imprisonment
period in the occupational jails. He was arrested
along with his elder brother Omar and his cousin
Fakhri AL Barghouthy in April 1978. Hajja Farha
Al Barghouthy, their mother, is known as the
poetess of Kober village and was one of the most
prominent woman leaders of the strikes and
demonstrations that were organized in support of
the prisoners and detainees in the Zionist
occupational jails.
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Who would support the prisoners' children and
families!!!
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A Part of the Truth ?

• The above procedures constitute a loop in the
  chain of the policies which the Israeli
  occupation authorities adopt against the
  prisoners in general.
• The picture becomes more obvious once one
  becomes familiar with the tactics of oppression
  and torture practiced by the authorities against
  the prisoner from the first moment of his
  detention and imprisonment through the subsequent
  hard times experienced inside the interrogation
  rooms, the intelligence executioners, the
  horrible torture, the inequitable sham trials,
  and the oppressive sentences issued against him.
• More and above, the prisoner undergoes other
  appalling circumstances in the jail, which
  includes the crowded rooms, the inhuman living
  conditions, malnutrition, medical inattention and
  negligence in addition to many other dreadful
  circumstances which can not be mentioned in this
  file.

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Enchained .. behind barbwires
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Enchained .. behind the bars
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The paintbrush of the artist and former prisoner
Raed Kurran unfolds the reality of the torture
vaults
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Thus, it becomes evident that the aim of the
Israeli authorities is to undermine the
prisoners' spirits, ruin their health, apply
punitive actions against them and their families,
which calls for a serious concerted effort to put
an end to the prisoners' suffering and
deprivation and fulfill their yearning for
lasting reunion with their families.
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Roses that blossom at dawn when darkness fades
away