Prisoner Mohammad Al-Arida still in solitary, now on 3rd day of hunger strike

By Al Mayadeen Net
Source: Agencies
15 Jan 2022 16:55

Prisoner Mohammad Al-Arida is still in solitary confinement, is on his third day of hunger strike, and says that his current demand also includes him being taken out of isolation.

Prisoner Mohammad Al-Arida, who is still in solitary confinement.

The Muhjat Al-Quds Foundation for Martyrs and Detainees asserted that isolated prisoner Mohammad Al-Arida is continuing his hunger strike for the third consecutive day in refusal of the punishment he's being forced to endure, and demanding an end to his confinement.

In a letter, of which the Muhjat Al-Quds received a copy, Al-Arida wrote that he decided to begin a dry hunger strike on Thursday, January 13, 2022, meaning that he will refrain from talking and ingesting food and water because of the Ashkelon prison authority's insistence on executing a new sentence against him, which was handed down on December 12, 2021, following his statement to the press in his previous court appearance.

The punishment included barring him from visits for two months, from the canteen for two months, from electrical appliance privileges for two months, and two weeks of solitary confinement. Before he began his hunger strike, he had been refusing meals in protest of the punitive measures forced upon him. Prison authorities had promised him numerous times that they will end the punishment but were merely stalling for time and not responding. The prisoner announced that his current demand isn't just against the punishment forced upon him, but also to be taken out of solitary confinement.

مهجة القدس: الأسير المعزول محمد العارضة مضرب عن الطعام والماء والكلام لليوم الثالث على التوالي بسبب استمرار إدارة سجن عسقلان في تنفيذ عقوبات جديدة بحقه. pic.twitter.com/91hQn6JHlJ
— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) January 15, 2022

On October 5, Karim Ajwa, the lawyer of the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees' Affairs, stated that prisoner Mohammed Al-Arida began an open hunger strike in protest of the harsh conditions of his detainment.

Ajwa pointed out in a statement that the Ashkelon Prison administration conducted an internal trial for Al-Arida and imposed more penalties on him. The prisoner is detained under harsh isolation conditions in a CCTV-monitored dirty, unventilated cell.

Prisoner Mohammad Al-Arida

Who is Al-Arida?

Prisoner Mohammad Al-Arida was born in the town of Arraba, Jenin District. He was arrested in an Israeli ambush on January 7, 2002, then released in mid-March 2002. On May 16, 2002, he was besieged and arrested in Ramallah and was sentenced to three life sentences and 20 years in prison for being a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and partaking in resistance operations against the Israeli occupation.

Al-Arida and his fellow prisoners Zakaria Al-Zubaidi, Munadel Yaqoub Nafi'at, Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri, Ayham Fouad Kamamji, and Mahmoud Abdullah Al-Arida, were able to secure their freedom by tunneling out of the Gilboa maximum security prison on September 6, 2021.

Mahmoud Al-Arida and Yaqoub Qadri were re-arrested four days later, on September 10, 2021 in Al-Nasra. Zakaria Al-Zubaidi and Mohammad Al-Arida were re-arrested the next day, and Ayham Kamamji and Mundadel Nafi'at on Sunday the 19th, after the house they had barricaded themselves in, east of Jenin, was surrounded.

Al Mayadeen had chosen the heroes of the "freedom tunnel" as 2021's "Person of the Year," for their inspiration and ingenuity in the pursuit of freedom and their will to live.