“My husband is dying inside an Israeli jail. The world should make sure I am able to see him. And it should pressure the Israeli government to release him before it’s too late.”
– Randa Adnan, 13.2.2012
(from an email wrote to friends while in Europe))
i haven’t been posting about Khader Adnan, a Palestinian political prisoner who entered his 59th! day of hunger strike today because, to my shame, i felt overwhelmed, i had no idea how to stir any reaction in you, how to make you understand that a man is dying, how outrageous this is. it felt so insufficient to just keep writing some emails that you probably won’t read, although every day, I receive several calls for action and emails and posts about his condition and the widespread protest against his detention that activists have been staging in support while governments, supposedly relevant organizations and mainstream media continue to do nothing.
how do we explain the reality of immense abuse, murder, massacres etc of people in our area in any way that might reach so many people who have been told for too long that this has nothing to do with them, that this is “unfortunate”, that “these things happen”? if it was the reality that was dumped upon your sister, you would likely scream in outrage. but exasperatingly, there is this wrong feeling that these things won’t happen to “us” – a feeling that is based on a very shitty perception of all victims of these crimes as somehow “others” – they are not us, they live in a different world with different rules and different standards, we cannot identify. and these feelings of “this has nothing to do with us” and the reality that, if a fragment of this did happen to any of “us”, you WOULD feel and express outrage are only possible because there is somewhere the notion that your rights don’t apply to “them”, or maybe, they are less than, less human, or maybe they must have done SOMEthing to deserve it? Because how can these things happen?
i am aware that i am attacking you in this condescending and presumptuous way. i am despairing, i don’t know how to make you react – forget react, for one moment, how to make you REALIZE, ACKNOWLEDGE, FEEL – any more.
but i am trying, if only in this cynical way:
Khader Adnan is entering his 59th day of hunger strike to protest his “administrative detention” (meaning they imprisoned for an arbitrarily extendable period of time him without informing either him or his lawyer of their reasons, without bringing any charges against him and, hence, without the prospect of a trial) and the outrageous treatment he has been receiving at the hands of the Israeli military legal system and its executives (torture, denial of rights, humiliation, etc.).
since it is difficult to image what 59 days of hunger strike mean, let me tell you that i am afraid to find out he has died as I’m writing this. Khalder Adnan is in very critical condition, in hospital, chained to his bed, still denied all kinds of rights.
yesterday, an Israeli court finally heard an appeal against the decision to keep Khader in prison until at least May 8 (after having postponed the original date for the hearing). And in spite of Khader’s condition, the court rejected the appeal, affirming that HE WILL REMAIN IMPRISONED UNTIL At LEAST MAY 8.
THIS IS A DEATH SENTENCE. since day 45 of his hunger strike, Khader could die at any moment. the judge furthermore argued that it is ADNAN WHO IS TO BLAME FOR HIS SITUATION.
please inform yourself and others and choose whatever action suits you best (call/fax/write to Israeli responsibles (see bottom of this link) or political representatives of your area, join or organize protests, print signs/messages, etc.).
disrupt your routines and those of other’s! make sure we won’t have the blood of yet another man on our hands.