Thursday 8 March 2012

Freedom for Hana al-Shalabi


Hana al-Shalabi is a 29 year old woman from a village near Jenin in the occupied West Bank. The night of Febrary 16th, around 50 Israel soldiers with dogs burst into the family house.
Hana was placed in administrative detention for six months. She began a hunger strike immediately after her arrest and on International Women's Day she has been 22 days without food. She is currently detained in
Hasharon prison.

Administrative detention is detention without charge or trial that is authorised by an administrative order rather than a judicial sentence. According to international law, administrative detention must only be used in exceptional cases to prevent danger that cannot be countered with less damaging means.

Israel's use of administrative detention openly violates such restrictions. Detainees are denied the possiblitiy of preparing a proper defence. In the course of the years, Israel has used administrative detention against thousands of Palestinians, holding them for extended periods of time, without bringing them to trial, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them to study the evidence.

For Hana, this isn't the first experience of administrative detention. She was arrested on 14/09/2009 and from that data, the Israeli authorities proceeded as usual. As the six month limit for the detention was reached, it was extended. Hana was among the prisoners released in exchange for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than 4 months later, she was arrested again and detained without trial.

Send letters to the Israeli military judge , Dani Afroni, demanding that Hana be freed. (Click here to send a letter.)