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Moroccan human rights worker stresses "international" issue of Palestinian prisoners

February 8, 2014 at 3:01 pm

The President of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, Khadija Riadi, has stressed her belief that the struggle for human rights is a universal struggle, and that Palestinian prisoners are part of this struggle. As such, the issue should attract the necessary sense of importance and urgency from everyone.


In a statement to Quds Press, Ms. Riadi called on the international community to prosecute the Israelis for the way that they deal with Palestinian prisoners. “For all of us in the Moroccan Association for Human Rights, the struggle for human rights is a universal struggle,” she said. “We believe that the Palestinian prisoners are the victims of serious violations at the hands of the Israeli authorities, and we demand that the world community prosecutes the criminals responsible for these violations in an international court of law.” Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, she added, is an occasion to denounce the attacks by Israel against Palestinian prisoners, denounce Israel’s detention of children under the legal age of majority, as well as its detention of women and the violence exercised against them. “These are prisoners who are being detained for their involvement in peaceful resistance of the kind that is permitted by international laws and conventions.”

On the position of Moroccan civil society on the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, Ms. Riadi said, “Almost a year ago, Morocco hosted an international debate on the status of Palestinian prisoners, and there are human rights and civil associations which specialise in Palestinian affairs and they always take the initiative to appeal for solidarity with the Palestinian People.” Her own organisation, she pointed out, deals with human rights’ affair as a universal struggle. “We oppose Zionism and consider it to be an aggressive, colonial movement that we reject in all its forms and manifestations.”