political prisoners – Engaging Peace

By Kathleen Malley-Morrison and Guest Author Sean Joseph Clancy

Federal Medical Center, Carswell
Image is in the public domain.

In our last post, we introduced the case of Anna Belen Montes, asking whether she should be considered a spy or a whistle blower because of passing information to the Cuban government concerning U.S. plans she considered dangerous to Cuba.

Ana is presently detained in a psychiatric ward in the Carswell Federal Medical Center, inside the military installations of the U.S. Marines Air Station at Fort Worth. This “medical center” has been called the “hospital of horrors” by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Texas. Being sent there, the ACLUTX tells us, can be a death sentence for the women housed there.

Today, Sean Joseph Clancy tells us how Ana has been treated since her conviction for spying for the Cuban government.

At Carswell, Ana is locked up with some of the most dangerous women in the U.S. prison system—e.g., a former housewife who strangled her pregnant neighbor because she wanted the child, a nurse who murdered four patients by injecting them with massive adrenaline overdoses, and the notorious “Shrill” Lynette Fromme, a follower of Charles Manson who tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford.

Among the harsh and cruel conditions of detention imposed on Ana:

*Contact restrictions to only her closest relatives

*A prohibition on inquiries about her health or the reasons for her detention in a center for the mentally ill, when she suffers no such condition.

*Prohibitions on receiving packages, associating with other inmates, making or receiving phone calls, reading newspapers and magazines, and watching TV.

Detainees at Carswell have suffered gross violations of their human and constitutional rights, including documented cases of police abuse, suspicious deaths, deaths due to the denial of basic medical attention, rape by guards, and exposure to toxic substances.

To me, her treatment is reminiscent of the use of psychiatric hospitals in the Soviet Union, where political prisoners were isolated from the rest of society, discredited for their ideas, and broken down physically and mentally. Are we really comfortable letting such treatment happen in the United States in 2016?

Kathie Malley-Morrison and Sean Joseph Clancy

Learn more about Sean Joseph Clancy athttp://en.escambray.cu/2013/the-irishman-who-dreams-with-the-cuban-five/

By guest author Dahlia Wasfi

In the early morning hours of December 12, 2012, Israeli forces raided the offices of three Palestinian civil society organizations in Ramallah in the West Bank, including the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association.

"Freedom for Palestine" protesters — Photo by Peter used under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Addameer is a non-governmental institution that works to support Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli and Palestinian jails. Israeli soldiers confiscated four computers, a hard drive, a video camera, and an unknown amount of files and documentation. Posters of prisoners and hunger strikers were ripped down from the walls and strewn on the floor.

Addameer’s last monthly report from November 1, 2012, listed 4,520 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 156 administrative detainees, 10 women, and shockingly, 164 children.

Addameer was likely targeted by occupation forces because of its efforts to document Israel’s violations of the rights of prisoners.

These violations include:

Systematic torture and ill-treatment
Unjust solitary confinement and isolation
Collective punishment
Medical negligence

Violations of the human rights of prisoners and detainees—many of whom are held indefinitely and without charge—have driven many of those behind bars to go on hunger strike.

Like Bobby Sands and his fellow imprisoned Irish Republicans who united in hunger strike against the UK government, Palestinian political prisoners are on hunger strike demanding respect for their human rights. Some prisoners are also striking for the broader cause of ending the illegal occupation of Palestine.

Two cases that have received international attention were the hunger strikes of Khader Adnan, who protested his detention without charge or trial, and Mahmoud Sarsak, who began his hunger strike after his detention was renewed for the sixth time, without charge or trial.

Israeli officials agreed to release Adnan on the 66th day of his strike. Sarsak—a gifted soccer player who was detained in 2009 while en route from his home in Gaza to play in the West Bank–was released after 96 days without food (See Truthout article).

Thousands more, however, continue to languish in Israeli jails. Addameer reports that Israel continues to arrest an average of 11 to 20 Palestinians every day, totaling around 7,000 new detainees each year. Arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial is an unacceptable practice, as is the harassment of Addameer’s human rights workers.

The United States should suspend aid to the Israeli military until the time that compliance with international humanitarian law becomes Israeli policy.

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi