21 April 2000

Urgent Appeal To our people and Ummah to back the heroic detainees and adopt their cause . The heroic detainees in enemy jails are persisting in their hunger strike for more than ten days

The heroic detainees in prisons of the Zionist enemy are persisting in their hunger strike, which they started on 10th April to pressure the Zionist entity into releasing them and end their suffering. Their strike is further aimed at protesting their inhuman detention conditions and the daily harassments and suppression, which they are subjected to at the hands of the Zionist prison authorities.

Those heroic detainees, held behind bars, in solitary confinement and in savage torture cellars … are the Palestinian people’s conscience and their bright stars who have waged Jihad for the sake of their people and Arab and Muslim Ummah. They have struggled in defence of their people and Ummah’s dignity, Quds and sanctities. They are now tormented in occupation prisons, aspiring for freedom and an end to their suffering and detention.

More than two thousand detainees are subjected daily to cruel courses of humiliation and oppression in addition to attempts to break their will and steadfastness. They are stripped of their clothes, thrown with gas canisters, beaten and provoked by hateful Zionist jailers other than solitary confinement in dark cells for long periods that lasted for more than three years for many of them.

Our steadfast Palestinian people
Our Arab and Muslim Ummah

This is not all that your sons suffer in Zionist oppressive dungeons, for writing about them takes long pages of pain and anger. Lately the Zionist prison authorities opened a big prison specially for isolating Palestinian captives called Hadarim. A big number of Palestinian detainees were thrown there and not allowed to see their relatives for more than six months while continued solitary confinement penalties continued against prisoners in Beer Sheba and Ashkelon prisons.

The occupation authorities also cancelled a lot of gains and rights extracted by detainees during the past few years through their Jihad, struggle and steadfastness. They were now deprived of seeing their children and prevented from receiving second-degree relatives.

In face of such Zionist inhuman practices that contradict all international laws and norms, to improve their detention conditions, to re-impose their cause that was lost and faded because of the Palestinian Authority’s continued concessions and submission to Zionist dictates in various negotiation rounds, and to pressure the Zionist enemy into releasing them, the heroic detainees waged the “war of empty stomachs” and maintained their hunger strike since 10th of this month.

Those heroic detainees’ main demand is their release to acquire their right of freedom, until that is attained they demand improving their detention conditions as follows:

1. Halting the prison administration’s ferocious offensive and the daily harassment against prisoners.

2. Ending the state of solitary confinement in Beer Sheba and Ashkelon prisons and closing down the Hadarim prison.

3. Granting the detainees their right of ventilation in summer and heating in winter.

4. Allowing the prisoners to study in Arab and foreign universities.

5. Permitting children to visit their fathers along with second-degree relatives.

6. Removing asbestos from windows of their rooms.

7. Taking out a bed from each room to ease pressure within those rooms.

8. Allowing adequate medical care and expediting operations.

Our Palestinian people
Our Arab and Muslim Ummah

We owe those detainees the right of support, and utmost efforts to liberate them, to preserve their dignity and to rid them of the daily torture, which they are subjected to. Thus we call for the following:

1. Organizing activities in solidarity with those detainees such as sit-ins and marches in our Palestinian land and outside it.

2. Allocating the Friday Khutba (sermon) in all mosques to shed light on the issue of those detainees, their sufferings and the inhuman Zionist practices against them.

3. We call on the Palestinian Authority to stop its futile negotiations with the Zionist entity if it was really serious in adopting the case of the detainees.

4. We ask the Arab League and the organization of Islamic Conference to adopt the Palestinian detainees’ cause, organize activities in solidarity with them and exert all efforts to maintain their dignity and ensure their release.

5. We call on Arab, Muslim and freedom loving media men to adopt their cause, giving prominence to their suffering and exposing the enemy’s repressive measures against them.

6. We ask human rights’ organizations and institutions to defend the Palestinian detainees in occupation prisons and to organize a campaign of solidarity with them and to pressure the occupation authorities for the sake of setting them free.

We hereby congratulate the Lebanese resistance and steadfast people over the release of 13 Lebanese Mujahid from Zionist captivity as a result of the unified resistance stance in the Lebanese arena, which is a model to be followed and developed in the Palestinian arena so that all would back and protect the resistance and not turn into a daggers in its back, as some parties do.

We, in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), vow to our people and our steadfast detainees, that their cause, defending it and attempting to set them free would remain at the topmost of our priorities, and this is the least duty we can do towards those heroes who waged Jihad and struggle for the sake of their people and Ummah’s dignity and in defence of their religion and sanctities.

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas – Palestine)
Friday 16th Moharram 1421
21st April 2000