Pressure mounts on Israel over Palestinian prisoner fast

By Noah Browning

RAMALLAH, West Bank – (Reuters) – Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails declared a one-day fast on Tuesday in solidarity with four inmates whose hunger strike has fuelled anti-Israel protests in the occupied West Bank.

Samer al-Issawi, one of the four Palestinians who have been on hunger strike, has been refusing food, intermittently, for more than 200 days. His lawyer says his health has deteriorated.

Gaunt and wheelchair-bound, Issawi appeared on Tuesday before a Jerusalem civil court, which deferred releasing him for at least another month.

The prisoners’ campaign for better conditions and against detention without trial has touched off violent protests over the past several weeks outside an Israeli military prison and in West Bank towns.

In the Gaza Strip, the Islamic Jihad group said a truce with Israel that ended eight days of fighting in November could unravel if any hunger striker died. ….

Read more » Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/19/us-israel-palestinians-prisoners-idUSBRE91I0MK20130219

Emir of the barking

by Hakim Hazik

Hundreds of women who would have spent their days in quiet comfort in our serene district jails, because they could not produce four adult, sane, pious, male, Muslim witnesses, will now be dragged through the courts and will have to bear the full brunt of the cross examination of the prurient defense counsel. Any faithful Muslim women would rather die than bear this humiliation.

Ours is a religion which for the first time in human history has given the women the right to be raped with dignity. This is a great civilizational achievement. Empires have come and gone but the condition of the women did not change. ….

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