Palestinian prisoners keep boycotting the Israeli regime’s military courts on the 93rd consecutive day of their protest action against the so-called policy of administrative detention.
There are now at least 500 prisoners who have been refusing to show up for their military court hearings since the beginning of the year, Palestine’s official Wafa news agency reported on Sunday.
The boycott has to do with hearings for the renewal of administrative detention orders as well as appeal hearings and sessions at Israel’s ‘supreme court.’
In practicing the administrative detention, Israel keeps the detainees without charge for up to six months, a period which can be extended an infinite number of times. Women and minors are also among the imprisoned people. The detention takes place on orders from a military commander and on the basis of what the Israeli regime describes as ‘secret’ evidence. Some prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.
Palestinians and human rights groups say the detention policy 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 prisoners have been subjected to systematic torture, harassment and repression all through the years of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. More than 7,000 prisoners are currently held in some 17 Israeli jails, with dozens of the detainees serving multiple life sentences. Over 540 prisoners, including women and minors, are held under the administrative detention.
Rights groups say Israel’s use of administrative detention is a “bankrupt tactic.”
