Ramallah – 3 April 2018 – Israeli occupation forces transferred the two prisoners to administrative detention after serving their sentences.

Based on Addameer’s attorney Bilal Na’amneh, the two prisoners are Tariq Jamal (26 years old) from al-A’roub camp in Hebron and Mohammad Namrouti (26 years old) from Balata camp in Nablus. Mohammad was supposed to get released today 3 April 2018 after serving a two months sentence for his student’s activity in his university. However, yesterday 2 April 2018, the Israeli occupation authorities issued him a six-month administrative detention order. As for the other prisoner Tariq, he was supposed to get released last Thursday 29 March 2018 after serving seven months in detention for his Facebook activities. Nevertheless, the Israeli occupation forces also issued him a six months administrative detention order. His confirmation hearing is scheduled for today at Ofer military court.

Addameer association considers that the Israeli occupation forces are violating international humanitarian law. Furthermore, Israeli occupation forces are implementing administrative detention against Palestinians in violation of Article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This article specifically states that the occupying power cannot detain protected persons under administrative detention unless it is for imperative security reasons. Also, this detention should be for a short period of time and is advised to be in the form of house arrest. In reality, the Israeli occupation forces violate all of the mentioned elements which makes their implementation of administrative detention amount to arbitrary detention. In this case, both Mohammad and Tariq were in detention when their administrative detention orders were issued which makes them harmless and for sure do not form an imperative security threat.

Currently, there are over 450 administrative detainees, including 3 PLC members, 3 female prisoner and 3 children. Those detainees continue their boycott campaign against Israeli military courts which was launched on 15 February 2018. This campaign is a tool that prisoners are using to express their refusal to the policy of administrative detention.