Palestinian parliamentarian and activist Khalida Jarrar has revealed details of her time in Israeli detention, in an interview with the National.
Jarrar was recently released following 20 months in jail without charge or trial.
Several thousands Palestinians from all over flocked to visit Palestinian lawmaker Khalida Jarrar and celebrate her release last week from Israeli prison, where she was held for nearly two years without facing charges or a trial. https://t.co/e80BwdNgO9 pic.twitter.com/yZtjSl7BmR
— The IMEU (@theIMEU) March 10, 2019
According to the paper, Jarrar was kept in Damon prison, “a maximum-security complex” where the parliamentarian was “sent to solitary confinement, barred from showering and left without the means to cook her own food” as a punishment for “teaching fellow inmates their rights”.
Jarrar’s administrative detention was extended three times by an Israeli military court, which she suspects was due to her work during detention.
Palestinian lawmaker and feminist leader Khalida Jarrar speaks out about harsh conditions in Israeli confinement, being held without charge or trial, and how she organized resistance to Israeli brutality from inside prison walls https://t.co/SSSDYBVuVg pic.twitter.com/tuVE1y4zRn
— The IMEU (@theIMEU) March 11, 2019
In another example, “after rebelling against the constant camera surveillance”, the National reported, Jarrar “ organized a 63-day protest in which inmates refused to leave their rooms until the authorities removed the cameras she said were infringing on the privacy of inmates”.
The report added:
“Every few months, Israeli authorities would chain Mrs. Jarrar’s arms and legs, put her in a cage at the back of a security truck known as a ‘bosta’ and drive her and fellow Palestinian inmates to a military court for a secret trial.”
The National View: Khalida Jarrar's ordeal exposes Israel's arbitrary detention of Palestinians https://t.co/bCECOuRGvD via @TheNationalUAE
— The National Comment (@NationalComment) March 11, 2019
In Damon, Jarrar’s family “were allowed to visit twice a month for 45-minutes to speak to her by phone through bulletproof glass”. The long-time activist was also “forced to shower in public, her books were confiscated and, at times, she was left in solitary confinement for days on end”.
(MEMO, PC, Social Media)
The way that Palestinian people are imprisoned without trial, without reason, under the most inhumane conditions, is evidence of the cruelty of the Israeli,Zionist occupation forces. Many people with first hand experience of Apartheid including Desmond Tutu, and the son of Nelson Mandela, have named the Israeli occupation of Palestine as being worse than that which was enforced in South Africa. Khalida Jarrar’s imprisonment and treatment echoes this. I do believe it is time to draw parallels between the treatment of jewish people by the Nazis and the treatment of the Palestinian people by a Zionist government. The renewed bombing of Gaza with over 100 bombings in one night, is a holocaust.