Freed Palestinian politician Khalida Jarrar details time in Israel detention

Palestinian parliamentarian and activist Khalida Jarrar has revealed details of her time in Israeli detention, in an interview with the National.

Jarrar was recently released following 20 months in jail without charge or trial.

According to the paper, Jarrar was kept in Damon prison, “a maximum-security complex” where the parliamentarian was “sent to solitary confinement, barred from showering and left without the means to cook her own food” as a punishment for “teaching fellow inmates their rights”.

Jarrar’s administrative detention was extended three times by an Israeli military court, which she suspects was due to her work during detention.

In another example, “after rebelling against the constant camera surveillance”, the National reported, Jarrar “organised a 63-day protest in which inmates refused to leave their rooms until the authorities removed the cameras she said were infringing on the privacy of inmates”.

READ: Israel is afraid of Khalida Jarrar because she shatters its false democratic image

“The Israeli authorities did not give in and the protest ended when she and the other protesting inmates were transferred from HaSharon Prison to Damon Prison in Haifa,” the report added.

In Damon, Jarrar’s family “were allowed to visit twice a month for 45-minutes to speak to her by phone through bulletproof glass”. The long-time activist was also “forced to shower in public, her books were confiscated and, at times, she was left in solitary confinement for days on end”.