Israel puts feminist Palestinian MP in admin detention

By Haggai Matar April 5, 2015 | Edit

Less than a week after she was arrested by Israeli soldiers, PLC member Khalida Jarrar was placed under administrative detention for six months.

Khalida Jarrar, a Palestinian feminist activist and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), will be placed under six months of administrative detention. The order, which was approved by a military court on Sunday, comes less than a week after Jarrar was arrested by Israeli soldiers in her home outside Ramallah.

Administrative detention is detention without charge or trial that is authorized by administrative order rather than by judicial decree.

Khalida Jarrar, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and a leader in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, poses for a photo showing an internal expulsion order given to her by Israeli soldiers who invaded her home in Ramallah in the early hours of August 20, Ramallah, West Bank, August 27, 2014. (Activestills.org)

After six months, the military will be able to extend her detention as many times as it deems fit. Under administrative detention, Jarrar is neither indicted nor sentenced by a court. In effect, she is being indefinitely detained without the ability to defend herself against non-existent charges.

The IDF Spokesperson told Ma’an News Agency that Jarrar, who is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), is involved in terror activity, and that her arrest is also connected to her refusal to comply with an internal expulsion order that forced her to move to Jericho in August.

According to Addameer, a Palestinian NGO that works to support Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli and Palestinian prisons, Khalida’s attorney, Mahmoud Hassan, visited her in Hasharon Prison. Hassan reported that she is in good health and is taking her medicine regularly.

According to the Alternative Information Center, Jarrar is joining 16 other members of the PLC who are currently serving time in Israeli prisons, which means that more than 10 percent of Palestinian lawmakers are currently in Israeli prisons. Nine of those members — including Hamas member Aziz Dweik — are in administrative detention, and have not stood trial nor been sentenced. The PLC is comprised of 132 members who were elected in the last democratic elections held in the PA in 2006.

Correction:
A previous version of this article stated that Jarrar was ordered to four months of administrative detention. The order was for six months.

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TEST TEST GAL Our team has been devastated by the horrific events of this latest war. The world is reeling from Israel’s unprecedented onslaught on Gaza, inflicting mass devastation and death upon besieged Palestinians, as well as the atrocious attack and kidnappings by Hamas in Israel on October 7. Our hearts are with all the people and communities facing this violence. We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The bloodshed has reached extreme levels of brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank, backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to intensify their attacks on Palestinians. The most far-right government in Israel’s history is ramping up its policing of dissent, using the cover of war to silence Palestinian citizens and left-wing Jews who object to its policies. This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the past 14 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and militarism, entrenched occupation and apartheid, and a normalized siege on Gaza. We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the fight of their lives. Can we count on your support? +972 Magazine is a leading media voice of this movement, a desperately needed platform where Palestinian and Israeli journalists, activists, and thinkers can report on and analyze what is happening, guided by humanism, equality, and justice. Join us.

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