Ailing detainee needs dentist, deprived from medical attention

By Saed Bannoura

Tulkarem, 2008 June 25, IMEMC/Agencies

The Palestinian Popular Committees reported on Tuesday that a Palestinian detainee from the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem is gradually losing weight as his teeth are falling with more than half of his lower teeth and some of his grinders were totally removed.

The Committees stated the detainee, identified as Thabit, is imprisoned at the Ramon Israeli prison since April 4, 2004. He was sentenced to 25 years.

He currently cannot talk well, and his health condition is sharply deteriorating due to malnutrition while the prison administration still rejects to allow a dentist to examine him.

Moreover, Mithqal Al Najjar, one of the leaders of the Popular Committees voiced an appeal to different human rights groups and the Red Cross to intervene for the release of detainee Hani Abu Reeda, who is also sick and need medical attention.

Al Najjar slammed the prison administration for its ongoing humiliation against the detainees, and its policies that are leading to the lack of food and clothes.

Also, Azmi Shiokhy, secretary-general of the committees, stated that every detainee has the right to medical attention and treatment and that this right is guaranteed by the international law and all international human rights agreements.

Shiokhy added that prison hospitals lack the basic equipment and that medical treatments is always delayed which is causing further health complications and threatening the lives of the detainees.

He said that the administration is trying to break the will of the detainees by barring them from medical treatment and considered this policy as a policy of slow death against the detainees .

Al Shiokhy appealed the international community to intervene an end the suffering of the detainees in Israeli prisons by liberating them without any preconditions.

He stated that he intends to send a detailed report to president Mahmud Abbas, the Ministerial Council, and the Minister of Detainees in order to elaborate on the condition of Thabit who “needs to be saved before it is too late”.