Prisoners center denounces banning of liberated prisoners from going for Hajj

The Palestinian Center for Prisoners’ Studies denounced the Israeli racist practices where IOA prevented a number of Palestinian prisoners’ families in addition to a number of liberated detainees from crossing the Karama Bridge to go to perform the pilgrimage (Hajj).

The center stated that these Israeli criminal practices came in light of the Israeli pressures practiced against the prisoners and families and as retaliation to prisoners’ victories achieved in recent months through their individual and collective hunger strikes that forced the occupation to release a number of them.

The Center said that the occupation prevented 14 citizens, including five liberated prisoners, four of them had gone on individual hunger strikes and succeeded in imposing their will on the occupation and forced it to release them. The five banned liberated prisoners were Sheikh Khader Adnan, Bilal Diab, Thaer Halahlah, and Jafar Azzedine, as well as the female liberated prisoner Ramiya Abu Samra.

In addition, the Israeli authorities prevented a number of families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails from going to Hajj.

The center pointed out that this ban is not the first where IOA prevented each year the prisoners’ families and defenders of prisoners’ issue from traveling to perform Hajj or participate in international conferences related to the prisoners’ cause.

The center called on international institutions to intervene to stop the excesses of the Israeli occupation against the liberated prisoners and detainees’ families, where it prevents them from exercising their right to travel and perform the Hajj, without reasons, and to stop the collective punishment policy used by the occupation authorities against the Palestinian people.