Catholic leaders urge Israel to meet Palestinian hunger strikers demands
The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land said a group of Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike are asking that their human rights and dignity be respected by Israel according to international law and the Geneva Convention.
Israeli border policemen in Bethlehem, West Bank, detain a Palestinian protester in support of Palestinians in Israeli jails April 27. Catholic leaders in the Holy Land urged Israel to concede to demands of Palestinian political prisoners on a hunger strike since April 17. (Credit: Ammar Awad, Reuters via CNS.)
Judith Sudilovsky
May 2, 2017
CATHOLIC NEWS SERVICE
JERUSALEM - Catholic leaders in the Holy Land urged Israel to concede to demands of Palestinian political prisoners on a hunger strike since April 17.
The prisoners are seeking an improvement in their prison conditions and an end to administrative detention, which allows Israel to hold prisoners almost indefinitely without having to charge them with a crime.
The Assembly of Catholic Ordinaries of the Holy Land said the prisoners are asking that their human rights and dignity be respected according to international law and the Geneva Convention.
“We urge the Israeli authorities to hear the cry of the prisoners, to respect their human dignity, and to open a new door toward the making of peace,” the bishops said in a statement released April 29. “The aim of this desperate act is to shed light, both locally and internationally, on the inhuman conditions in which they are detained by the Israeli authorities.”
The bishops affirmed the need to apply international law to the conditions of incarceration of political prisoners and condemned “the use of detention without trial, all forms of collective punishment, as well as the use of duress and torture for whatever reason.
https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2017/05/02/catholic-leaders-urge-israel-meet-palestinian-hunger-strikers-demands/