Civic Organizations: Prisoners' Day is an Occasion to Affirm Rejection of the Death Penalty Law and to Demand Protection for the Lives of Female and Male Prisoners in Occupation Prisons

SadaNews - The Palestinian Network of Civic Organizations affirmed, on the occasion of Prisoners' Day, which this year comes amidst extremely harsh policies that have taken an unprecedented turn with the enactment of the death penalty law against prisoners; a law described as racist that cloaks the crimes of the occupation in a veil of (legitimacy), continuing and expanding the gross violations inflicted upon them, including starvation and torture, as well as sexual violations and deliberate medical neglect. What has been revealed by the testimonies of recently released prisoners illustrates the reality of what has occurred and is occurring in prisons and detention centers, especially after October 7.

The network called in a statement it issued for the following:

- To strengthen and intensify the popular and official movement to reject the death penalty law and the dangerous policies of the occupying state against female and male prisoners, which represent unprecedented violations of international law and the Geneva Conventions, and to work in a comprehensive manner within broad international and media advocacy campaigns to continuously convey the message of the prisoners on this day to international bodies and institutions.

- To enforce international law by imposing international sanctions on the occupation government and its prison administrations, implementing comprehensive boycotts against them, and considering what happens in the prisons as an extension of the same approach based on genocide and ethnic cleansing policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.

- To demand that the International Red Cross and international human rights and humanitarian organizations immediately announce their stance rejecting the death penalty law and the policies of the occupation, and to send international committees to resume family and lawyer visits to the prisons without hindrance or delay, as a right guaranteed by international charters.

- To provide international protection through specific and immediate international steps in the face of the retaliatory measures and repeated assaults faced by female and male prisoners, placing the prisons under the protection of the United Nations and its relevant institutions.

- To develop legal mechanisms at the official level and to intensify international efforts through representations, embassies, and communities, and to act at the parliamentary level to halt the gross violations faced by the prisoners.

- To firmly uphold the freedom of female and male prisoners as a natural right for a people under occupation, considering them as fighters for freedom and to abolish the racist law against them, and to organize campaigns for their release, particularly for child prisoners, female prisoners, sick prisoners, the elderly, and veteran prisoners without conditions or delays.

- The network emphasizes the importance of adhering to the rights guaranteed by law for female and male prisoners and the continued payment of allocations by the authority, as this is a national issue relating to the dignity of an activist segment and an entitlement that is non-negotiable, which protects the legitimacy of the entire national struggle.