Center for the Defence of the Individual - Israeli human rights organizations in a joint call to the Knesset members: vote against the law allowing force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
29.07.2015

Israeli human rights organizations in a joint call to the Knesset members: vote against the law allowing force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike


No to force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike

Vote against the law!



We, the human rights and civil society organizations in Israel, call on the Knesset members to vote against the force-feeding bill promoted by the government. This legislation seeks only to break the body and spirit of administrative detainees and prisoners practicing nonviolent protest, while trampling the Patient Rights Law and human dignity.

The Government of Israel has other means available for coping with the demands of the hunger strikers – from ending their administrative detention to lifting the ban on family visits and significantly improving the medical care offered to them and its availability. Instead, the Government of Israel chooses to address the situation by encouraging and soliciting the medical profession to perform an ethical offence of the greatest severity.

Force feeding hunger strikers is unacceptable in every respect, and is immoral and unethical by medical standards. The bill sets to legalize an act which constitutes torture, in blatant violation of international conventions and declarations. The legislator does not seek to save the lives of prisoners, but to subjugate them. This is proved by the fact that until now no one in Israel has died as a result of a hunger strike, but four prisoners on hunger strike have died from complications of force feeding.

Do not support this draconian law. Protect the prisoners and strengthen the medical community in opposition to this law.

Signed by: Amnesty International-Israel, The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, B’Tselem – the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yesh Din – Volunteers for Human Rights

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