An Israeli military court decided last week to continue detaining Khalida Jarrar,
a member of the Palestinian parliament, who has been imprisoned by
Israel for the past two months. Jarrar was first arrested and put in administrative detention,
which in effect meant that she could be held indefinitely without being
charged or seeing trial. However, in the wake of a global campaign for
her release, the state decided to release her from administrative
detention and put her on trial.
Jarrar is not the only member of the Palestinian parliament, known as
the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), to be held by Israel. Israel
is currently imprisoning 12 other Palestinians parliamentarians, who
were elected in the last democratic elections to take place in the
Palestinian Authority in 2006. Some are in administrative detention,
which in the eyes of the international community makes them political
prisoners who are being held solely due to their political and social
activities...
Jarrar is a 52-year-old lawyer and a member of the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). She is one of the forces that led
the Palestinian Authority to join the International Criminal Court.
Before her election, she headed the Palestinian human rights
organization Addameer, which works to support Palestinian political
prisoners held in Israeli and Palestinian prisons. She also worked for
UNRWA as an activist for women’s rights in Palestine.
In 1998, Israeli forbade her to leave the West Bank, despite the fact
that until her current imprisonment, she had never been formally
charged with a crime. After PFLP leader Ahmad Sa’adat was imprisoned,
Jarrar became the organization’s third parliamentary member.
On August 2014 she was expelled from her home in al-Bireh to Jericho
by Israeli soldiers. However, Jarrar refused to sign the expulsion order
and returned to living in her home. In April 2015 she was arrested
overnight by a large force of Israeli soldiers and was placed in
administrative detention. She was eventually charged for being part of
the PFLP — the party she represents in the PLC — and a military court
decided to place her under house arrest. The state opposed the sentence,
claiming Jarrar constitutes a “security threat.” The court then decided
to keep her in prison until the end of court procedures.
Jarrar is married and has two daughters...
Sa’adat is 42 [really born 1953, should be 62] years old, the leader of the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist and a math teacher. Sa’adat was
arrested by the Palestinian Authority in 2002 under Israeli after being
accused of planning the assassination of Israeli Tourism Minister
Rehavam Ze’ev, and was held in difficult conditions in a Palestinian
prison. In 2006, Israeli soldiers kidnapped Sa’adat from the prison as
part of Operation Bringing Home the Goods.
He was interrogated at length by the Shin Bet, and in 2008 was
convicted by an Israeli military court of membership in a terrorist
organization and involvement in Ze’ev’s assassination. He was sentenced
to 30 years. In 2011 Sa’adat began a hunger strike along with hundreds
of other prisoners, most of them from the PFLP, which lasted 21 days but
bore no fruit.
Sa’adat is known for his outspoken support for the Palestinian right of return, and supports a one-state solution.
He is married and has four children.
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