Pregnant Palestinian detainee urges international intervention to free her

Palestinian Anhar Al-Deek, who is nine months pregnant, has appealed for international intervention to release her from Israeli jail so she can have her baby at home.

Twenty-five-year-old Al-Deek from the Kafr Ni’ma town west of Ramallah has sent a letter to her family urging them to call on the international community to help secure her freedom.

“What should I do if I give birth far from you? I am tied up, how can I give birth via caesarean section when I am alone in prison?” Anhar wrote in her letter to her family, adding: “I am exhausted, and I had severe pains in the pelvis and severe pain in my legs due to sleeping on the prison beds. I do not know how I want to sleep on it after my delivery operation.”

“How do I want to take my first steps after the operation, and how the warden holds my hands in disgust.”

“Israeli prison administration still want to put me in isolation, my son and me,” she warned.

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Anhar has been imprisoned for five months on charges of attempting to carry out a stabbing attack near an illegal settlement outpost, however no verdict has yet been issued against her yet.

The Israeli prison authorities allowed her husband to visit her only once since her arrest.

Anhar’s mother, Aisha Al-Deek, told Anadolu that her daughter is living in a difficult psychological state, and there are real fears for her life during the birth.

Anhar has been diagnosed with depression and is fretting over her baby being delivered in squalid and dirty conditions, she added.

“We have contacted all the competent human rights and official bodies, consuls and embassies. We do not want anything but to allow Anhar to deliver her baby outside the prison,” Anhar’s mother said.

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