Information

Information

Hunger Strike for Better Imprisonment Conditions

P R: 18 / Arab. Sec. /16-8-2004
Doc. 2-8-2004

Around 1800 Palestinian and Arab Prisoners of War (POWs) started a hunger strike in the Israeli prisons, calling for the improvement of their living and detention conditions. This was the first group of strikers that is to be followed be the rest of the 8000 POWs in the Israeli prisons.


Commencing a hunger strike means facing death voluntarily, and no one so does unless the conditions in which one lives are worse that death itself. In such conditions, voluntary death because of hunger strike or subjecting oneself to death because of hunger strike becomes better than going on with the bitter conditions in which Palestinian POWs live.
The "empty bowels" slogan raised by the prisoners reflects a cruel image that unveils the Israeli claims of civilization. The prisoners in the horrendous Nazi camps of Buchenwald, Auschwitz and Dachau used to find their food and even used to live in better conditions than those of the Palestinian POWs in the camps of Hadarim, Nafha and Eshel. The humiliation of POWs by searching them while they are naked, entering their rooms forcibly, destroying their possessions or confiscating them, imposing fines on them, refusing to provide them with necessary medical aid, forcing them to solitary detention and the inadequate food in quality and quantity offered to them: all such forms of humiliation establish the fact that we are in front of a process aiming at slow death and executing thousands of prisoners without and execution sentences.
The moral killing by humiliating the prisoner and destroying their will is no better than material killing, as both of them end the real existence of the human being.
The Israeli prisoners are not less horrible than the German Nazi concentration camps, against which the Jews filled the whole world with their cries. They are not less horrible than the prisons of the occupying forces in Iraq, such as the Abu Ghreib prison.
AAPSO calls for the immediate release of those POWs and treating them humanely until released, in the way that answers their ordinary and just demands and goes in conformity with international rules and customs. We urge all justice and democracy living forces and all human rights activists to raise their voices against the Israel's violations of international legitimacy and basic human rights and to stand solidly beside Palestinian and Arab POWs in the Israeli prisons.


P R: 19 / Women's Sec / 5-9-2004
Doc. 1-9-2004

AAPSO Denounces Terrorism

The tragedy is still overwhelming Russia despite the end of the operation of holding hundreds of schoolchildren and their families as hostages in Beslan school in the Republic of Northern Ossetia in Russia last Wednesday, 1st of September 2004. This day not only is a start of the school year, but also a feast awaited by all children every year, on which they go with their families to schools happy, carrying flowers and shiny hopes for tomorrow.
Destiny's will was that this day become a sad memory engraved in the minds of the Russian people, as the children and their families were faced by a massacre that has victimized 370 persons including 155 children at least, in addition to 700 persons injured. A group of Al-Qaida terrorists and Chechen separatists detained the children and their families for two consecutive days, deprived them of food, water and medications and closed all ventilation opening, which led to the suffocation of some of them and forced others were forced to take off their clothes. The terrorists refused letting in any humanitarian aids from international organizations to the school. While the Russian forces attempted entering the school to free hostages, one of the terrorists blasted an exploding belt, which led to the killing of hundred of children with their families. So far, many families do not know what happened to their children and relatives and whether they are alive or dead. The taking off of debris will probably uncover more innocent victims in the upcoming hours, besides the suffering of the surviving children because of their psychological trauma and the horrifying images that will follow them for a long time.
AAPSO strongly condemns this horrifying massacre and considers it a cowardly act aiming at the innocent and a terrorist act that has done much harm to the Chechen cause and complicated any available chance for negotiations between the two parties. The escalation of terrorism deforms real resistance and creates confusion in a way that harms the rights of peoples to struggle for their dignity and liberty.
AAPSO calls upon all peace-lovers and international, regional and national organizations to take all necessary measures to eliminate terrorism in all its forms all over the world.