STATEMENT ON PALESTINIAN PRISONERS AND DETAINEES ON HUNGER STRIKE IN ISRAELI PRISONS
The hunger strike embarked upon by Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and detention camps has entered its second week. The prisoners are protesting against infringements and inhuman measures meted out against them by the Israeli occupation authorities, practices that are at odds with human dignity and a violation of their legitimate rights and of international conventions, mores, charters and laws.
The Organisation of the Islamic Conference which has been following this tragic situation with grave concern calls on the international community to act quickly by constituting and dispatching international committees under UN’s supervision to take stock of the inhuman conditions in which Palestinian prisoners and detainees are living in Israeli prisons and detention camps. The international community should also take necessary measures to make Israeli occupation authorities stop the crimes and infringements to which Palestinians are subjected and implement in respect of Palestinian prisoners and detainees relevant conventions and .charters, including the Geneva Convention, which demands that they be treated as prisoners of war.
The OIC also calls on the United Nations and its agencies as well as various international governmental and non-governmental organisations to assume their moral and legal responsibilities by intervening to end this humanitarian tragedy.
The OIC also condemns very strongly the racist pronouncements made by the Israeli minister of internal security in which he expressed indifference to the lives of Palestinian prisoners and detainees on hunger strike in Israeli prisons and detention camps.
Jeddah: 23 August 2004
Document Sources: Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
Subject: Prisoners and detainees
Publication Date: 23/08/2004