Ibrahim Hamid was born and raised in the West Bank village of Silwad, north-east of Ramallah.
He obtained a BSc degree in political science from Birzeit University and worked as a researcher at the Centre for Refugee Studies. He has written and published several papers on the depopulated Palestinian villages.
Name: Imad Mohammad al-Ashhab
Event: Administrative Detention
Place of residence: Hebron, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Date of arrest: 21 February 2010
Charge: No charge
Place of detention: Ofer Prison, Occupied Palestinian Territory
Date of issue: 4 January 2011
Background information
At around 7:30am, on 21 February 2010, 17-year-old Imad was travelling to work with his father in the occupied West Bank. Father and son had to pass through an Israeli army checkpoint like every morning. 'When we reached the container checkpoint,' recalls Imad, 'soldiers would usually examine our permits.' However, on this morning, two soldiers grabbed Imad and dragged him into a small room. 'What did he do?' shouted Imad's father, but there was no response. After being thoroughly searched, Imad reports that his hands were handcuffed behind his back and his feet were shackled. 'They also placed a black mask over my face and it smelled like urine,' recalls Imad. 'The smell was very strong and I told one of the soldiers but he didn't take it off, but said, "shut-up, or I'll hit you."' Imad reports that he was held in the small room for around six hours during which time he was not given anything to eat or drink, and was prevented from using the toilet.
"To see my children is tastier than food, and being with other human beings is more stimulating than drink"
Abdullah al-Barghouti is on hunger-strike to obtain a mere fraction the rights he is entitled to as a human being and as a father. He has been prohibited from seeing his family since he was arrested over ten years ago and has remained in solitary confinement for the same duration.
Nelson Mandela and Aung Suu Kyi are known worldwide as prisoners of conscience who have spent lengthy periods in prison for standing up for their beliefs. South African political prisoner and later President Mandela spent 27 years in prison, many of them in solitary confinement; Aung San Suu Kyi, a political prisoner in Burma, spent almost 15 years under house arrest. Their time imprisoned was well publicised over the years and an international movement of supporters campaigned endlessly for their release.
In stark contrast, there is near silence from the international community on the 133 Palestinian political prisoners who have been held in Israeli jails for two decades or more. They have endured unjust trials and harsh prison conditions; they receive inadequate medical and psychological care, and many are in solitary confinement. Most of these prisoners were detained as young boys and young men and have reached their late 30s and 40s having spent their entire adult life in prison, with little or no contact with their loved ones and the outside world.
Ahmad Sa'adat is the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. He was born in the West Bank town of Al Bireh in 1953, the son of a refugee family who were expelled from their home in the village of Deir Tarif, near Ramleh, in 1948.
Mr Sa'adat is a math teacher by training and the father of four children. He has been involved in the Palestinian national movement since 1967, when he became active in the student movement. Prior to his detention in 2006, he was held as political prisoner in Israeli jails on numerous occasions which total a period of ten years in all.
Born on 23 October 1957, Nael Al Barghouthi has spent 33 years in prison. He was arrested on 4 April 1978 after carrying out a commando operation in which one Israeli was killed. Al Barghouthi was subjected to extreme torture and has survived at least one attempt on his life during interrogation.
Throughout his long years of incarceration, he has faced his interrogators and jailers with incredible strength and determination, as they moved him from one prison to another.
Inside the prison, he has been a source of inspiration, knowledge and training. He has raised generations of prisoners, some have left and others are still behind bars.
It is almost two weeks since Palestinian prisoners began their hunger strike for dignity and freedom. Hundreds are held without charge or trial, and scores have been locked in solitary confinement for years, some more than ten years. By waging this 'battle of empty stomachs', they seek to draw to the attention of the international community the utterly degrading and inhumane treatment meted out to Palestinian prisoners in Israel's prisons. Two-thirds all those held are ordinary labourers and bread-winners for families subjected to more than four decades of military occupation. In this series, MEMO features the profiles of the prisoners held in solitary confinement.
