http://blogcritics.org/ A sinister cabal of superior bloggers on music, books, film, popular culture, politics, and technology - updated continuously. en Copyright 2005 by the authors Sun, 22 Aug 2004 18:43:43 EDT http://backend.userland.com/rss Blogcritics.org custom software http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/22/070733.php#comment-81005 "The Arab terrorist prisoners' hunger strike entered its second week today, and they have not yet reduced their astonishing list of demands. Public Security Minister Tzachi HaNegbi, who said at the beginning of the strike that as far as he's concerned, "they can starve until they die," said that he had not changed his stance. The Israel Prison Service and police sources explained that the imprisoned terrorists have arranged many terror attacks in the past, thus necessitating the many restrictions on the prisoners and their visitors. The terrorists, most of whom are imprisoned in Israel for murder and other terror crimes, disseminated their list of demands on the ADDAMEER Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association website. The list includes no fewer than 144 demands, divided into 15 sections. Excerpts: * To remove the glass/plastic barrier between prisoners and visitors * To allow all family members and relatives to visit * To bring in families to visit as soon as they arrive to the prison. No delays either at the prison or at checkpoints. * To allow prisoners to be in plain clothes during the visit and not restricted to uniforms of certain colors or design * To install pay phones or allow mobile phones in every cell or for every prisoner * To end all practices and policies accompanying counting the prisoners * To allow all those prisoners in isolation back to regular sections * To end all collective punishments * To allow prisoners to study at Palestinian, Arab, and International Universities * To allow all cells to have access to a computer and not only students * To restore recreation time to four hours a day * To allow university students to choose recreation time suitable for them * To allow having events, debates, celebrations in the recreation areas and yards as in the past * To install air conditioning in the cells and section * To provide an electric toaster, refrigerator and fruit knife for each cell * A small photocopier and cameras for group photos in each section * To end the practice of body search by hand and to restrict it to electronic scanning * To stop searching children 14 years old and under during visits * Not to handcuff prisoners during the search * To limit the overall general search to once every 6 months * To raise payment for workers * To allow prisoners in the upper beds not to step down at the morning count and to limit to them just raising themselves up in their beds * To change seats in the buses to more comfortable ones * To allow prisoners representatives to meet newly transferred prisoners at the bus as they arrive * To remove the darkened windows of the buses * To increase the number of allowed TV channels * To remove one bed in each cell * To end the use of the special classification of certain prisoners "prisoners sentenced for serious offences" and end all unjustified punishments against them and to allow them to be able to work at various facilities in the prisons." Uh huh. Maybe we should call Amnesty. 81005@blogcritics.org Sun, 22 Aug 2004 18:43:43 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/22/070733.php#comment-80957 Dear Marc, 1. Are we sure the photo was taken during the strike and not previously? 2. Is the strike the issue here? 80957@blogcritics.org Sun, 22 Aug 2004 09:33:07 EDT http://blogcritics.org/archives/2004/08/22/070733.php#comment-80956 Please.... sure I agree give them humane treatment.... but. How do you explain this. While hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are allegedly on a hunger strike. What is their "esteemed leader" <a href="http://backspin.typepad.com/backspin/2004/08/barghouti_chows.html" target="_blank">doing</a>?<blockquote>While hundreds of Palestinian prisoners were on a hunger strike, their ostensible leader, Marwan Barghouti, had himself a meal behind a curtain. The guards caught it on tape: Prison Services spokesman Ofer Lefler said Barghouti asked wardens for the food and ate without knowing that a camera was filming from a small hole in the wall. Israel wanted to show fasting prisoners how their leader was behaving, Lefler said. "I want to show the world and the Palestinians that we are dealing with terrorists," Lefler said. "Barghouti is sitting on a pot of meat and he sends his friends to die."</blockquote>Yea... let them starve... While he becomes an even bigger slob of a terrorist gorgeing himself like the pig his is. There is no better example of what is wrong with Palestine than this. 80956@blogcritics.org Sun, 22 Aug 2004 09:02:29 EDT