Save the life of Khalil Awawdeh ! An Urgent Appeal from Chris Williamson, European Alliance in Defence of Palestinian Prisoners

To all members of worlds parliaments!
To all associations and institutions who stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people!
To all human rights institutions!

For 166 days, the Palestinian detainee Khalil Awawdeh is continuing his hunger strike, and his life has reached a critical stage that he may lose his life any moment due to his fast-deteriorating health conditions inside the Israeli prisons because of his hunger strike that started on the 7th of March 2022.

The detainee Awawdeh has been arrested on 27 December 2021 under the rules of the Administrative Detention Law, which dates to the period of the British Mandate in Palestine, which Israel, the occupying power, applies to all Palestinian people. This law empowers the ruling authority to file charges against the detainee.

The detainees are forced to go on hunger strikes to draw the world's attention to their case as the prison authorities and the occupation courts are completely indifferent to their conditions. That is why the prisoners see that they have nothing left before them except risking their lives to gain their freedom. As a result of these Israeli practices against Palestinian administrative detainees, who currently number 620, they have decided, since the beginning of this year, to refuse to appear before the Israeli military courts, which have accepted the task of legitimizing the administrative detention and passing sentences to legitimize this illegal practice.

To gain his release, Detainee Khalil Awawdeh and a number of other detainees, are continuing their hunger strike determined to gain their freedom or fall as martyrs.

The European Alliance in Defence of Palestinian Prisoners calls on all European governments, parliaments, parties, human rights institutions, and international courts to end these unjust practices and injustice against the detainees, provide him with the necessary treatment, and release Awawdeh to rejoin his wife and children in his home.

We demand the closure of the administrative detention files, which go against international law and international humanitarian law, and end to the practice of detention that goes for months and years under false security pretexts.

We call on you to intervene to save the life of detainee Khalil Awawdeh and secure his immediate release.

No to administrative detention!
Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners!

Brussels August 17, 2022

CHRIS WILLAMSON
the Honorary President of the European Alliance in Support of Palestinian Prisoners

 

Administrative detention of Palestinians is a crime against international law and humanity, and we demand its cessation!

 

Coalition européenne de soutien aux prisonniers palestiniens
Coalición europea de apoyo a los prisioneros palestinos
Europäische Allianz für die Solidarität mit den Palästinensischen Gefangenen e.V.

A Call from The European Alliance in Defence of Palestinian Detainees

Nearly 500 Palestinian administrative detainees in the prisons of the Israeli occupation authorities announced their decision to refuse to appear before the occupation courts, at the beginning of 2022.

This firm decision came as a response by these detainees to the occupation authority's practice of an arbitrary law, the Administrative Detention Law, especially.

After the Israeli courts proved that they are part of the occupation system that legitimizes its illegal procedures and provides cover for them, and does not meet the standards of fair courts, this decision was preceded by 6 administrative detainees declaring an open hunger strike for long periods, with the aim of forcing the prison authorities to release them or setting a limit on the length of their illegal detention.

Administrative detention is arbitrary detention that gives the Israeli occupation authority the right to arrest any Palestinian man or woman without his knowledge of the accusation and to imprison him for a period of up to six months, subject to extension. During the period of detention, which may sometimes reach years, the detainee is not charged with a specific charge and without being brought to court to defend himself.