Middle East Monitor / April 30, 2022
Around 500 Palestinian administrative detainees, detained without trial or charge, have been boycotting Israeli military courts for the 113th consecutive day, the Palestinian Prisoners Club announced on Friday.
The administrative detainees are taking the measure to underscore the need to end this cruel, unjust practice that helps maintain Israel’s apartheid system against Palestinians.
“Palestinian human rights defenders, journalists, academics and others have suffered from this cruel and inhuman practice and have been protesting it for decades, including through hunger strikes,” Saleh Higazi, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, shared.
He added: “This boycott is a renewed collective call saying ‘enough is enough’.”
Higazi continued: “This courageous boycott highlights Israel’s inhuman treatment and punishment of Palestinians. The international community, particularly states with close relations to Israel, must now take concrete action and pressure Israel to end its systematic use of arbitrary detention as a step towards dismantling apartheid.”
Palestinian human rights group Addameer disclosed that the Israeli authorities issued 5,728 administrative detention orders against Palestinians across the Occupied Palestinian Territories between 2017 and 2021.
Addameer also confirmed a surge in 2021 of 1,695 orders, which were tied to a campaign of mass arrests by Israeli authorities during weeks of violence in May and June.
According to Amnesty International, Israel has for decades intentionally used administrative detention to detain individuals, including prisoners of conscience, held solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association and to punish them for their views and activism.
