The Israeli Supreme Court on Wednesday turned down a petition lodged by an NGO requesting the release from administrative detention of Palestinian hunger-striker Muhammad Al-Qeaq. “The court rejected a petition submitted by the Palestinian Prisoners Society requesting my client’s release,” Al-Qeq’s lawyer, Ashraf Abu Sneineh, said.
According to the lawyer, the court has postponed its ruling on Al-Qeq’s release and had decided to keep him in administrative detention while monitoring his health.
Read: Muhammad Al-Qeq reportedly close to death
“The court wants to issue its verdict based on Al-Qeeq’s health condition; it’s gambling with my client’s life,” he said.
On Wednesday, the detained Palestinian journalist’s hunger strike entered its 64th day. Originally from the West Bank city of Hebron (Al-Khalil), Al-Qeeq, 32, had lived in Ramallah, where he had worked for Al-Majd TV, a popular Arabic-language satellite television channel.
Also read: Israel passes bill to force-feed prisoners
Al-Qeeq began his hunger strike on November 24 of last year – three days after being arrested by the Israeli authorities for alleged “incitement” – to protest his ongoing detention without trial.
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
