AMMAN, 24 August 2004 — Asma Abdul Razaq, a Palestinian woman editor who spent nearly a year in an Israeli detention center without trial, has described the experience as “hell.” In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, she said, “Torture and humiliation are the hallmarks of Israeli prisons.”
She told appalling stories of torture endured by Palestinian women in Israeli jail. She was finally released in January this year as part of a prisoner swap between the Jewish state and Hezbollah.
The Israeli police put her in jail in an attempt to force her husband to surrender. She was deported to Jordan after her release.
According to Asma, more than 300 Palestinian women have been imprisoned since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa intifada in 2000. Of that number, 200 have been released with the remaining 100 still in prisons. The prisoners included 22 married women as well as 16 teenagers aged 15 to 19.
Asma said she was arrested after 20 Israeli soldiers, accompanied by sniffer dogs, raided her house in Ramallah. “They put me into a narrow cell after six hours of interrogation,” she said.
The Israeli authorities did not allow her to meet her relatives for more than six months. They tried her four times, but without allowing her a lawyer. They also denied her a translator and the court proceedings were all in Hebrew.
“Throughout the detention period, they tortured me with beatings and humiliations and threatening sexual assault,” Asma told the Arabic daily. She was also forced to listen to sounds of torture as well as loud music. “They took me into an isolated room and switched on a cassette recorder with the voice of a prisoner calling for help as she was being tortured,” she explained. Asma said she and the other women prisoners were given low-quality, poorly-cooked food. She added, “Sick prisoners were not allowed to see doctors.”
Lack of cleanliness is another feature of Israeli jails, Asma said, pointing out that they are full of cockroaches and rats. “All the prison windows were closed to keep out air and sunshine. As a result, prisoners suffer a number of diseases.”
A few weeks before her release, the Israeli authorities appointed a new prison director who, she said, was very strict. He did not allow workers to bring in food and handicraft materials for prisoners and made changes in the visitors’ room, thus making it difficult for prisoners to see and hear their relatives.
The new chief also restricted the number of visits. Referring to a strike by prisoners in which she had taken part, Asma said the authorities suppressed the strike brutally. They prevented the entry of food and clothes and banned prisoners’ movements within the prison.
