Al Mezan Center for Human Rights denounced the policy of racial discrimination and the escalation of violations of the rights of prisoners in Israeli prisons guaranteed under the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, warning of its disastrous repercussions that threaten to detonate the situation inside the prisons.
It is noteworthy that the latest racist practices were restricting the exercise of the detainees’ right to receive visits from their families, which exacerbates their human suffering, especially in light of a number of escalating restrictions and violations against Palestinian detainees, starting with the policy of administrative detention, and the violation of fair trial guarantees, and not ending. By violating the guaranteed rights that are established for the detained person after the judicial ruling becomes his right to early release.
According to the information available to the Center, on August 27, 2023, the Israeli Minister of Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, issued a decision to reduce the number of visits to detainees in Israeli prisons, from once a month to once every two months, which doubles the violation of the right to Receiving family visits, especially since (60) Palestinian detainees from the Gaza Strip are completely deprived of visiting their families for political reasons. The vast majority of detainees are also deprived of the right to receive visits from first-degree relatives for security reasons, as the Palestinian detainee, Basil Imad Arif, is considered to have the longest period of deprivation from receiving visits from his father, which amounted to approximately (20 years).
It should be noted that the Israeli Prison Service administration had previously continued to deprive Gaza Strip detainees of receiving family visits, despite the end of the nearly two-year ban on detainees in the West Bank and Jerusalem due to the (Covid-19) epidemic. As a result, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights and the Center for Human Rights moved forward. HaMoked, in defense of the individual, dated 12/20/2021 AD in a petition to the Israeli Supreme Court, according to which it approved the resumption of the family visits program for Gaza Strip detainees.
Prisoners’ institutions indicate that the number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons reached (4,700) detainees by the end of 2022 AD, including (29) women and (150) children, and about (850) administrative detainees, including (7) children and two women. (15) journalists, and five members of the Palestinian Legislative Council.
Al Mezan Center called on the international community to assume its legal and moral responsibilities towards the occupied Palestinian territories and their residents, in light of the escalation of apartheid crimes against Palestinian civilians, and calls for pressure on the occupying state to guarantee the right of Palestinian detainees to receive visits from their families on a regular basis, and to abolish all measures that would restrict their rights. Guaranteed under the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law
Source: Maan News Agency