WEST BANK (Dispatches) – Palestinian prisoners languishing in the Zionist regime’s jails continue their boycott of the occupying regime’s military courts for the 30th consecutive day in protest against the so-called policy of administrative detention.
At least 500 inmates have been refusing to show up for their court hearings since the beginning of the year, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported on Sunday. The boycott includes hearings for the renewal of the so-called administrative detention orders as well as appeal hearings and later sessions at the regime’s supreme court.
Palestinian detainees say their action is a continuation of longstanding Palestinian efforts “to put an end to the unjust administrative detention practiced against our people by the occupation forces.” They say the regime’s use of “administrative detention” has expanded in recent years and many women, children and elderly people have been incarcerated under the thorny policy.
Under the “administrative detention”, the regime keeps Palestinians without charge for up to six months, a period which can be extended an infinite number of times. Women and minors are also among those detainees. The detention takes place on orders from a military commander and on the basis of what the regime describes as ‘secret’ evidence. Some prisoners have been held in detention for up to 11 years.
Palestinians and human rights groups say the so-called administrative detention violates the right to due process since evidence is withheld from prisoners while they are held for lengthy periods without being charged, tried, or convicted.
Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes in an attempt to express their outrage at the detention. They have also been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of occupation of the Palestinian territories.
More than 7,000 Palestinian prisoners are currently held in about 17 jails in the occupied territories. Over 540 detainees, including women and minors, are under the administrative detention. Rights groups describe use of the detention as a “bankrupt tactic” and have long called on the regime to end it.