Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) strongly condemned the Israeli calls to extend the solitary confinement of the prominent prisoner sheikh Raed Salah for another six months.
Such a step indicates the willingness of the occupation authorities to further violate his rights, abuse him, and terrorize all Palestinian figures rejecting the occupation.
According to special sources of the organisation, the demands to extend the solitary confinement submitted by the Israeli Prison Authorities earlier this week, came with instructions of the highest levels of the occupation government aiming to inflict physical and psychological harm on sheikh Raed Salah, using arbitrary measures that might put his life at risk.
The solitary confinement is a punishment in itself that should be used rarely and temporarily. Using it now against Sheikh Raed Salah is an unacceptable act of revenge.
Arrest the thoughts
Relying on the sheikh’s ability to influence masses as a pretext to persuade the court to extend his solitary confinement is a new kind of repression, which points out to the attempts of the occupation forces to restrict his right to freedom of opinion and expression.
For decades, the occupation authorities have been arresting and detaining sheikh Raed Salah, restricting his freedom, harassing and weakening him, and now it seeks to impose more restrictions on him.
Sheikh Raed Salah is serving a 28-month prison sentence after he was sentenced last February by the Israeli Magistrate’s Court in Haifa on charges of what is known as the “file of fundamentals”.
He had already spent 11 months in pretrial detention before he was released and placed under house arrest, after which he got re-arrested in August 2020.
Since then he has been held in solitary confinement, both in Jalameh Prison and Ohli Kedar Prison in the Negev, to which he was transferred on Monday.
A Humanity Advocate
AOHR UK strongly denounced the Israeli practices and its ongoing violations against Sheikh Raed Salah, stressing that this is a violation of the basic rights guaranteed to prisoners in international laws, including detention in adequate conditions and allowing him to communicate regularly with his family, which the Israeli authorities deny him.
Sheikh Raed Salah did not commit any crime punishable by law, as he is a defender of Al-Aqsa Mosque and has exposed many projects aiming to demolish it and build the so-called Temple. For this reason Salah was subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse, as well as facing my attempts by Israel to assassinate him on several occasions.
His ideas revolve around defending the rights of the Palestinian people under occupation in general and Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular.
AOHR UK called on the international community, all relevant institutions and international bodies to intervene immediately to stop the reprisals against Sheikh Raed Salah and ensure that he enjoys all his rights.
