150 days, and Palestinian prisoners keep boycotting Israeli courts
Monday was the 150th consecutive day of a protest action by Palestinian prisoners boycotting the Israeli regime’s military courts.
The boycott includes initial hearings to uphold the administrative detention order, as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at Israel’s so-called ‘supreme court’, the Palestinian Information Center reported.
Nearly 500 inmates have been refusing to show up for their military court hearings since the beginning of the year.
The Palestinian detainees say their move is a continuation of longstanding efforts to end the “unjust administrative detention practiced against our people by the occupying forces.”
They also say the courts are 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.”
International human rights groups say that the boycott of Israel’s military courts “underscores the need to end this cruel and unjust practice which helps maintain Israel’s system of apartheid against Palestinians.”
Palestinian prisoners are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted, which is in sheer violation of human rights. Advocacy groups describe Israel’s use of the detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on Israel to end its use.
The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) keeps Palestinian prisoners under deplorable conditions lacking proper hygienic standards. They have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.
According to the Palestine Detainees Studies Center, about 60% of the Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails suffer from chronic diseases, a number of whom died in detention or after being released due to the severity of their cases.
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