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Al-Qeeq moved from hospital to prison

April 19, 2017 at 11:43 pm

Imprisoned Palestinian journalist Muhammad Al-Qeeq – who staged a months-long hunger strike in 2016 – was transferred to Ohalei Kedar prison today after having been held in the Ramla prison hospital since his latest hunger strike.

Al-Qeeq suspended a 33-day hunger strike in early March after reaching an agreement with Israeli authorities to be released in mid-April.

March 8

    Al-Qeeq was moved from an Israeli prison to hospital due to the serious deterioration of his health

However, Al-Qeeq’s wife, Fayhaa Shalash, told Ma’an that Israeli authorities would soon hold a trial for him after he was transferred to prison following the improvement of his health.

Al-Qeeq has staged two hunger strikes – the first one lasting a gruelling 94 days – to protest being held in administrative detention, Israel’s widely condemned policy of internment without charge or trial.

The 34-year-old journalist, who lives in Ramallah and is originally from Dura in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, was released from prison in May last year after his first hunger strike.

However, he was rearrested in mid-January after he participated in a protest in the occupied West Bank city of Bethlehem demanding the release of the bodies of slain Palestinians which Israel was detaining.

Some 1,500 Palestinian prisoners today entered their third day of an open-ended hunger strike led by Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi. The “Freedom and Dignity” strike is being undertaken in a collective move to denounce a number of abusive measures which violate international law but are used by Israeli prison authorities against Palestinian prisoners.