2019-11-19

Ramallah

Human Rights Defenders / West Bank / position paper

Do Former Palestinian Prisoners Need to Burn Out to Achieve Their Demands?

A Rallying Cry for an Immediate Response!

Following the visit undertook by MUSAWA’s Media and Translation Officer to the picket tents set up at Al-Saa'a Square in Ramallah to examine the conditions of the Former Palestinian Prisoners picketing there in defense of their right to equality, and in demand for invariably implementing the spirit of the law on the entire Palestinian Body. 

Whereas the official Palestinian commitment to reject tax revenues collected on its behalf by “Israel” after deducting the amount of money paid by the PA to families of Palestinian prisoners and martyrs, was considered a bold stance and a genuine embrace of the sacrifices made by those families. 

Whereas in its Declaration of Independence, the State of Palestine announced itself to be a peace-loving State that adheres to the principles of peaceful co-existence and assures a permanent peace based upon justice and the respect of rights.

Whereas the ninth article of the Basic Law, the PA Constitution, provides that Palestinians shall be equal before the law and the judiciary, without distinction based upon race, sex, color, religion, political views or disability, and whereas its 22nd article provided that maintaining the welfare of families of martyrs and prisoners is a duty that shall be regulated by law. 

Whereas the Palestinian Prisoners Law No. 19 (2004) guarantees to provide the prisoners, including freed prisoners, and their families decent standards of living, as they are part and parcel of the Palestinian Nation’s struggle for freedom.

Whereas the Palestinian Government has lately announced its intention to hold elections, whose success is unimaginable in view of the continued discrimination among citizens with respect to rights, and whose viability is unanticipated insofar as the public finance management lacks a system that upholds the principle of equality in rights and duties among citizens, one capable of combating corruption in all its forms and eliminating the manifestation of both economic and social deprivation, not least the right to a remuneration that ensures a decent standard of living; in maintaining the citizens’ trust in that public finance management and the governance system altogether.   

Now, therefore, as MUSAWA- the Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession favorably and recognizably perceives the prisoners’ claim for justice and equality, MUSAWA calls for providing an atmosphere of freedom, where the rights to citizenship, human dignity, and equality in duties and rights are protected and guaranteed, by responding to the protesters’ demand to cash their paychecks suspended since 2013, by implementing the Prisoners Law No. 19 (2004), and by adhering to the principles of the Basic Law and Human Rights, to remedy any physical harm that could affect the protesters, who have been on a hunger strike for 20 days now, not to mention that on Thursday, six of them has shut off water intake, while others threatened to burn themselves along with their families in the event of failure to comply with their legitimate demands, raising the alarm and making the immediate response a maximum priority that does not accept any postponement or ignorance.

MUSAWA reiterates the Palestinian Nation right to genuine participation in the exercise of shaping its future, which raises the need to proceed to genuine and periodic elections, whose results shall be respected and adopted as means for conferring public posts and powers on those who are capable, qualified, and committed to indiscriminately respecting the constitutional rights of citizens pursuant to the constitutional rights repeatedly cited in the Basic law articles. 

In addition to these demands, MUSAWA believes that all manifestations of discriminations and social tension consists in the persistence of the phenomena of political imprisonment, depriving prisoner of their rights, and the governmental inaction in fulfilling those constitutionally guaranteed rights. 

Are we going to stand idly by, until one of the protesters burns himself before we take a serious stand to ensure the restoration of their rights?