News from Within: Palestine/Israel Podcast - The Experience of Administrative Detention Prisoners in Israeli Prisons
Ahmad Abu Haniya, the Youth Project
Coordinator for the Alternative
Information Center,
was released from administrative detention on 14 May 2007, after two years of
imprisonment without any trial or formal charges being brought against him.
Ahmad was detained at an
Israeli military checkpoint on his way to work on 18 May 2005 and placed in
administrative detention, which is imprisonment without charge or trial. As
with all of the approximately 800 Palestinian administrative detainees
currently being held by Israel,
Ahmad and his attorney were not even permitted to know the accusations against
him.
During his
time in prison, Ahmad was adopted as an appeal case by Amnesty International,
and supported by the American National Lawyers Guild.
The
detention of Ahmad and so many other Palestinians, blatantly violates
international humanitarian law, which permits administrative detention only as
an exceptional and highly regulated measure. Administrative detention violates
the fundamental right to liberty and due process, and has been used by Israel as a tool to oppress political activists
in Palestine
who struggle non-violently against the Israeli occupation and for a just peace
between Palestinians and Israelis.
We spoke
with Ahmad on the 21st of May, one week after his release from
prison, at the offices of the AIC in Beit Sahour.
To download the podcast file, right button click here and save.
Below are three paintings which Ahmad created during his time in prison.
