Call to Action: Join Addameer’s Campaign to Stop Administrative Detention!

Addameer calls on activists and people of conscience to stand in solidarity with all political prisoners and join Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association’s global campaign to #StopAdministrativeDetention.

Over 7000 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisoners and detention centers. These include approximately 715 administrative detainees, which include 2 females, 3 Palestinian Legislative Council Members, and 8 children. Administrative detention constitutes an arbitrary policy that Israel uses to hold Palestinians on secret information indefinitely without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Israel’s use of administrative detention violates several international standards, such as illegally deporting Palestinians from the occupied territory to Israel, denying regular family visits and failing to take into account the best interests of child detainees as required under international law.

Administrative Detention takes place under: 

• Article 285 of Military Order 1651, which is part of the military legislation applying in the West Bank;
• Emergency Powers (Detentions) Law, which applies to Israeli citizens and Jerusalem residents.

Recently, Addameer’s media coordinator Hasan Safadi was arrested on 01 May 2016 and spent 40 days under interrogation. He was subsequently placed under administrative detention due to lack of adequate evidence and charges to sentence him. Additionally, Bilal Kayed who was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 14 years and a half in prison was set to be released after serving his sentence. On the day of his scheduled release, a 6-month administrative detention order was issued against Mr. Kayed, who is currently on hunger strike in protest of his detention. Mohammad Abu Sakha, a Palestinian circus performer and trainer was arrested in December 2015 from Za’atara checkpoint in the occupied West Bank. His administrative detention order was renewed on 13 June 2016 for an additional 6 months. Abu Sakha continues to be held without charge or trial. Current administrative detainees also include 16-year-old Hamza Hammad from SIilwad village. These recent cases highlight the continued practice of administrative detention as arbitrary and punitive policy practiced in the absence of sufficient evidence or charges.

The United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT), in its concluding observations on 13 May 2016, called on the Israeli government to “[t]ake the measures necessary to end the practice of administrative detention and ensure that all persons who are currently held in administrative detention are afforded all basic legal safeguards.”

DEMANDS

The government of Israel should end the policy of administrative detention and to release all administrative detainees, and in the meantime, all administrative detainees must be granted their rights in accordance with international law.

TAKE ACTION!

You can join the campaign against administrative detention by:

• Organizing a mass day of mobilization in your city to highlight the arbitrary policy of administrative detention;

• Organizing a “Stop Administrative Detention” event in your school, university or college campuses using Addameer’s campaign materials, including poster, infographics, factsheets, statements, reports, videos, and statistics;

• Writing to your local elected officials and members of parliament to call upon the Israeli government to end the use of administrative detention and to release all administrative detainees who are held without charge or trial;

• Sending a letter to an Israeli official in English or your own language, calling them to release all administrative detainees and to end the practice of administrative detention.

CONTACTS