Palestinian prisoners: Abu Ayyash’s story exposes systemic abuse

Farah Abu Ayyash, a Palestinian journalist working for Tasnim News Agency, has been detained by the zionist regime since August 5, and held without trial or charge. She was arrested during a night-time raid on her home near Hebron in the West Bank. A reality echoed across the testimonies of Palestinian prisoners.

Abu Ayyash abused and humiliated by Israeli occupation forces

Abu Ayyash’s lawyer, Hassan Abbadi tells the Canary about the night of her arrest:

When they came to her home, it was after midnight. She was very afraid, and didn’t expect them to be coming to arrest her. About a dozen cars, with around 50 soldiers, two female, turned up.

Abu Ayyash experienced physical abuse and humiliation at the hands of the occupation, after her arrest.

She told Abbadi:

They took me to Karmei Tzur (an illegal colonial settlement, north of Hebron), tied me to a chair outside, next to a pipe dripping filthy water onto me… The female soldiers tightened the white plastic restraints on my wrist so hard that my artery swelled. An officer eventually cut them off with pliers. Dogs tore at my pants.

Then they put me in solitary— just a room filled with electrical boxes. They pretended not to know I was a journalist. They forced me to unlock my phone… I work with complete transparency.

Palestinian prisoners: Israeli detention ‘like a horror film’

Abu Ayyash described to her lawyer her transfer to “Maskubiah”— the Russian Compound — an Israeli occupation detention centre in occupied Jerusalem:

It was like a horror film. They shoved me inside with handcuffs, leg shackles, and a heavy chain on my shoulders. Nahshon officers (colonial Israeli prisons guards) beat me. A female soldier grabbed my hair, slammed my head into the wall, and ordered me to kiss the Israeli flag. I refused. She kicked me. I was sick.

……In Ramla prison, they put me in an abandoned room and turned off the light. I screamed. Then they placed me in an underground cell infested with cockroaches, insects, and bedbugs. I cried all night. Cockroaches covered my face and body. The marks are still there.

She explains that she was later taken back to the Russian Compound, and fainted multiple times from the cold.

‘For 90 days Farah was completely alone, without even a lawyer’

According to Abbadi, Abu Ayyash has also been blindfolded and strip searched 12 times since being arrested. After 55 days she was moved to Damon women’s prison, where she remains today.

He says:

I am so angry. I met her in prison, 90 days after she was arrested. Until then, she was completely alone, and did not even have a lawyer. No journalists, not even in Palestine, wrote about her. She told me people only talk about prisoners when they have died or have been released. Everyone forgets the prisoners who are surviving there. Farah does not want people to wait until she is killed before they talk about her, but to speak now, while she is alive.

Abbadi last visited Abu Ayyash on November 26 in Damon women’s prison, where she was moved 55 days after being arrested, and remains today. Of the 52 women of all ages in Damon — children and grandmothers alike — more than 40 are held under administrative detention, with no charge or trial. No family visits are allowed, and the conditions are dire.

Abbadi says:

These women have their hijabs taken away. They do not go outside at all, and see no sun. In Farah’s cell there are seven prisoners but only six beds, so one of them always must sleep on the ground.

There are no menstrual supplies, and they only have one set of clothes and underwear. Some of them don’t get to change their clothes for seven months, and because of all this, they become sick with scabies.

Disillusionment with ‘human rights’

After spending years working as a lawyer and legal adviser with various human rights organisations, Hassan Abbadi says he has now “divorced all of them,” and works only with “God, my wife and myself”.

He tells us last year on Human Rights Day, December 10, his seven year old granddaughter was crying.

She asked me if I knew there were children killed in Gaza. It made me think about the double standards all over the world, when it comes to human rights. From that day, I have said I don’t believe any more in these human rights organisations. Not at all!

Abbadi spends his days as a volunteer lawyer, visiting Palestinian political prisoners, who are detained by the Israeli occupation. Every week he visits three prisons, and spends time with the inmates. He says he has met up with around 700 prisoners, often travelling around four hours each way to meet them.

“But I’m glad I’m doing this. I believe in what I am doing. I know it’s good for them, and also for me, to talk about all of this”.

Many thousands of Palestinian prisoners suffer in silence

Abbadi is quick to point out that he “knows a lot of Farah’s”, and emphasises her situation is in no way unique.

He said:

There are more than 11,000 Palestinian prisoners who are in the same position as her, and many cannot afford a lawyer. I have met around 20 Palestinian journalists, and some have been imprisoned for 25 years — no one talks about them.

Abu Ayyash has struggled with her difficult situation, but talking with her lawyer has made things easier. Abbadi speaks out to shed light on her story, warning that silence can be as harmful as the Israeli occupation’s prison walls that conceal the truth.

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