Birzeit—Today, 2 December 1998, approximately 200 Birzeit University students held a demonstration near the Bet El settlement near Ramallah calling for the release of all Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli jails. Fifteen students were lightly injured when clashes erupted with Israeli military authorities during the demonstration after a car carrying an Israeli settler and an Israeli soldier drove through the demonstration. The settler, who was driving, abandoned the car to roll into the demonstration. The Israeli soldier suffered light injuries before fleeing from demonstrators. Injuries sustained by the fifteen students resulted from rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas inhalation, and 3 injuries from live ammunition.
The students were protesting Israel's lack of implementation of the release of Palestinian political prisoners as agreed upon in the Wye River Memorandum. According to the agreement, Israel committed itself to release 750 Palestinian prisoners in three phases over the next three months. However, in the first phase of prisoner releases which occured 27 November 1998, 150 of the 250 Palestinian prisoners released were criminal rather than political prisoners.
At present, 41 Birzeit University students are in Israeli prisons. In the recent prisoner release after the Wye Agreement, two Birzeit University students were released, one serving the last year of his 4 year sentence, and the other released after being held in interrogation since 25 August. Arrest, detention, interrogation and torture are daily realities of student life at Birzeit University. The prisoner's issue is one that touches many students personally, with over 40 percent of the student body having been arrested at some point by the Israeli military authorities for their political beliefs. In most cases, students are not charged, but undergo interrogation and, in many cases, torture, and are released, or are held without charge or trial under administrative detention.
For more information concerning planned solidarity activities with Palestinian prisoners, or general information concerning human rights violations as they relate Birzeit University community, please contact the Human Rights Action Project of Birzeit University at hrap@admin.birzeit.edu.
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Human Rights Action Project homepage - http://www.birzeit.edu/hrap/