Irish People Show Solidarity with Palestinian Hunger Striker

Rasa - The Irish people joined global anti-Israeli protests and took to the streets of Dublin to condemn Israel's continued detention of Bilal Kayed, a Palestinian prisoner who is on his 70th day of hunger strike.

News ID: 422900

Date: 23 August 2016 - 22:18

RNA - Several dozens of Irish people took part in an hour long protest organized by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) in a show of solidarity with Bilal.

Kayed was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 14 and a half years in prison for crimes related to his affiliation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Immediately upon his nominal release on June 15, he was placed in administrative detention.

Despite London's traditional alliance and support for the Israeli regime, a growing number of people in the commonwealth of nations are coming out in support of the Palestinian cause.

People in England, Scotland and Wales have displayed their solidarity with the Palestinians contrary to the pro-Israel policies adopted by London, extending growing support for the BDS (Boycot-Divestment-Sanction) movement against the Israeli occupiers.

In a recent move, fans of the Scottish Celtic Football Club waved Palestinian flags during an international playoff game for qualification for the UEFA Champions League tournament against the Israeli Hapoel Beersheba club in August.

Entire sections of Celtic supporters brought Palestinian flags to the Celtic Park stadium in Glasgow, in spite of threats of arrest by Scottish police should it deem that flags and banners displayed at the match constitute “criminality”, Ma’an reported.

“When someone is representing Israeli institutions, it is sadly never merely a game,” a statement by the group Celtic Fans for Palestine, which organized the event on social media, read ahead of the game.

“Football, UEFA and Celtic FC are being used to whitewash Israel's true nature and give this rogue state an air of normality and acceptance it should not and cannot enjoy until its impunity ends and it is answerable to international law and faces sanctions for the countless UN resolutions it had breached.”

“Until there is end to the brutal occupation and medieval siege of the West Bank and Gaza, until the Palestinian citizens of current day Israel have the chains of apartheid lifted from them and until all Palestinian refugees are allowed to return to their homeland, we will always be visually and openly in support of the Palestinians and opposed to their Israeli colonizers and oppressors,” the statement added.

“We are with you Palestine. You will never walk alone.”

Kayed's case is a part of a recent trend of other cases of Palestinian prisoners who served their jail terms, were due to be released, but were instead shifted to administrative detention by Israel.

Administrative detention involves judicial proceedings without standard trial and evidentiary procedures, with only the judge overseeing the case getting to see all of the classified evidence and the defendant receiving a mere paraphrase.

Most of the world criticizes such proceedings as failing to give the detainees a fair chance to defend themselves.

A UN official denounced Israel’s holding of the Palestinian hunger striker while in administrative detention as “egregious.”

“I am deeply concerned about the deteriorating health of Palestinian detainee Bilal Kayed, after 67 days of a hunger strike protesting his detention without charge or trial,” Robert Piper, the UN’s resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a statement on Saturday.

According to his doctors, Kayed is currently suffering deterioration of his health: he suffers from chest, kidney, eye, ear and leg pain as well as headache. His vision is blurred, his body is numb and he has lost hair; his skin is yellow and peeling.

He was told by a doctor following his case that he is entering a very critical stage due to loss of fluids and salts and is suffering from dehydration.

In another case, which has not been publicized in the Israeli media, Iyad Alharimi of Bethlehem in the West Bank, who had served 14 years in prison, was rearrested based on an administrative detention order. He began a hunger strike on July 13 and is being held in the medical infirmary at the Ramle prison.

In a third case, Sufian Abdu of the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabal Mukkaber was rearrested days after having completed a 14-year jail sentence.

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