 Today, April 17th is the Palestinian Prisoner's Day. This day is to commemorate the thousands of Palestinians who are currently being held in Israeli prisons, their struggles, and raise awareness to their plight. So we are joined by Charlotte Cates, who's the international coordinator of the Samy Dune Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. Thank you so much, Charlotte, for joining us. Thank you for inviting me to speak with people's dispatch today. Great. To start off, we wanted to kind of talk about an issue that's pressing for incarcerated people across the world, which is the fact that the COVID pandemic has put the incarcerated population not only in the Israeli prisons, but across the world in a very vulnerable situation. A lot of human rights organizations and prisoner support groups have been calling for the humanitarian release of prisoners amid the pandemic to contain the spread of the virus. So we're wondering, what is the current state? What are the conditions in these prisons? What has been happening with the spread of the virus in Israeli prisons? And what is the resistance of the Palestinian prisoners amid this outbreak? Thank you for asking me. Right now, the situation around COVID-19 in Israeli prisons for Palestinian prisoners is one that is very vulnerable and one that is very worrying, because just like incarcerated people elsewhere in the world, Palestinian prisoners are incredibly vulnerable should COVID-19 enter the prisons, and especially because of the systematic policy of Israeli medical neglect and negligence directed towards Palestinian prisoners. This isn't simply a situation related to COVID-19. This didn't start with the beginning of this pandemic. For years, Palestinian lives have been at risk, and Palestinian lives have been lost due to Israeli medical neglect. Over 200 Palestinian prisoners have lost their lives inside Israeli jails, including over 67, due to confirmed cases of medical negligence and neglect. So this is not something that's just become a concern due to COVID-19. In fact, access to independent doctors, access to independent health care, being given proper tests and treatment, being given medicine instead of simply painkillers when Palestinian prisoners complain about their injuries and illnesses has been a long-term demand of the Palestinian prisoners' movements and various hunger strikes and campaigns that have taken place within the prisons. There are hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who are ill, including over 200 that have chronic conditions or who are very sick with cancer and other diseases. This is a population that is incredibly vulnerable to COVID-19. There are prisoners who are as much as 80 years old inside Israeli jails. And the Israeli system has refused to release them again and again and again, whether on legal, compassionate, humanitarian, or political grounds. These are 5,000 Palestinians who are essentially being held as hostages by the Israeli state because they represent the Palestinian liberation movement because they represent the Palestinian resistance and because they represent the legitimate leadership of the Palestinian people that has been locked away. And so when we look at the situation of COVID-19, what we do see is, once again, the perpetuation of Israeli negligence and abuse. So far, there has not yet been a case of COVID-19 detected in the prisons. But if it's there, we wouldn't know because they're not testing the prisoners. And the prisoners are demanding access to test kits. They can't even 140 different items, including sanitation products, were withdrawn from the canteen. The prison store, where prisoners are actually forced to purchase these goods to clean their cells and areas themselves, were withdrawn after the pandemic began because there was demand for them in the Israeli market. And so once again, we have this systematic colonial neglect and abuse of Palestinian prisoners behind Israeli bars. If COVID-19 is spreading within Israeli prisons, we wouldn't know if their voices are being silenced and because they're not receiving the medical care. They're not receiving testing. They're not receiving treatment. We do know that one Palestinian prisoner, Noura al-Din Sassour, was diagnosed with COVID-19 after being released. He was held in interrogation for approximately two weeks before being released. During that time, he was held in interrogation and he was held in Ulfer Prison, which is one of the largest prisons housing Palestinian prisoners, including administrative detainees who are held without charge or trial, as well as child prisoners. Despite the fact that he interacted with many other Palestinian prisoners during that time, the Israeli prison service has not provided COVID-19 testing for other prisoners, even in Ulfer Prison. We also know that in almost in all of these cases where there has been some kind of exposure documented, that there's been an Israeli study Palestinian prisoners who was later diagnosed with COVID-19, interrogators who were diagnosed with COVID-19. And these are all people that have been in contact with Palestinian prisoners. Israel is still going on night raids and invading homes. They're not testing soldiers. Soldiers are still going out there and presenting a huge threat to the entire Palestinian population, not even just to individual prisoners, but to the population. And so what we're seeing here is kind of this systematic medical neglect and negligence against the Palestinian population, especially against Palestinian prisoners. And Palestine is not in silent in response. They have been organizing. They've shut down the sections in several prisons to protest against the situation. They have demanded the return of cleaning products and other sanitation products. They've returned their meals. They're continuing to organize and they're continuing to resist, even at a time when due to the lockdown, what we're seeing is the kind of support that these prisoners would usually be seeing on the Palestinian street instead has to be mobilized online. And so even that is a further element of difficulty that's added to these prisoner situations. And another thing that I wanted to raise about this issue is the fact that Palestinian prisoners are being denied the opportunity to even tell their stories. So because ostensibly of the threat of COVID-19, family visits have been banned. Legal visits have been banned. These visits, family visits, for example, even normally take place behind glass. So at the same time when Israel introduced visits behind glass for Israeli criminal prisoners, they banned family visits for Palestinian prisoners. And so Palestinian prisoners are also having only very limited, if any, access of all to call their lawyers and only certain prisoners are being allowed to have a legal consultation at all. And even then, they're only allowed to have one. So if there is a situation with illness developing inside the prison, how will the prisoners even get their story out? How will they be able to demand treatment and accountability? And this is something that's a huge concern, first and foremost, to anyone around the world who cares for human rights and social justice and human dignity, and who supports the Palestinian people's right to live free of colonization and oppression. But of course, to the families of these prisoners, that even that sense of worry, of fear, of not knowing what is happening to their imprisoned loved ones, to their mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and cousins and uncles, what is happening to these people, this is another form of collective punishment and collective torture being directed against the Palestinian people. And I also do want to note that these same policies are being directed to child prisoners. So child prisoners are being denied visits from their parents. Child prisoners are being subjected to the same measures as all of the other Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails right now. And a number of organizations within Palestine and internationally have joined the call for the humanitarian relief. Has there been any response from the Israeli government? Have they addressed this in a formal way or just ignored this? If anything, what we've just seen is more and more repression. And one of the things that's really concerning, and this is of course something that we're also seeing elsewhere in the world, where right wing and racist and fascist governments are using the COVID-19 pandemic not to invest resources in society to support public health, not to provide relief for the marginalized populations who are at the greatest risk of contracting this disease, but instead to beef up surveillance, beef up systems of repression, beef up policing systems that are constantly being used against the poor, the oppressed, the marginalized and working class people. And it's very much the same thing that we are seeing in occupied Palestine. So there's been something called the Erdan Commission. It's a commission that was headed by the Minister of Public Security, Gilad Erdan, who interestingly also holds the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which is known as the Globalist Ministry, responsible for kind of these international campaigns smearing Palestinian human rights activists to defend Palestinian prisoners' rights and the rights of the Palestinian people overall, and Palestine solidarity activism as terrorism as something that should be banned by governments. And so the same ministry, the same person who is in charge of the Israel Prison Service is also in charge of this ministry going around the world to smear human rights advocates. Now, of course, this doesn't mean it's an individual issue. It's not a one-person concern. It's not like if you replaced Gilad Erdan, then the prison system would become just and humane. But this is an example of the Zionist system, the racist system, the apartheid settler colonial system of the Israeli state carrying out a concerted program of attack against the Palestinian prisoners. What was so-called the Erdan Commission issued a set of recommendations that were designed to worsen the lives and the worst in the conditions of Palestinian prisoners. These recommendations were meant to roll back the gains that had been achieved through decades of struggle behind bars and by the Palestinian people on the ground through struggle, through strikes, through protests through first and foremost the sacrifices in the bodies and lives of Palestinian prisoners who engaged in hunger strikes and other struggles within the prisons on the front lines to demand their rights. So this has been an attempt to, for example, roll back access to the amount of food prisoners can get, deny family visits, deny access even to the ability to have telephone calls with their family members. They've been implementing increased surveillance programs, security cameras everywhere inside the women's prisons so that women no longer even feel comfortable going out for a walk in the recreation yard because they know that male prison guards are gonna be reviewing the footage. So there's been this overwhelming attack on the rights of Palestinian prisoners for the past several years. And this is what a number of hunger strikes and organizing efforts within the prison have come in response to. So when we see what's being done in the name of COVID-19 and we see that it actually doesn't mirror the actions that are being taken towards Israeli criminal prisoners under the same system, we can see that it's not just a matter of attempting to protect people from COVID-19. After all, there doesn't seem to be any concern about protecting Palestinian prisoners from guards, jailers, and interrogators who may have COVID-19. Instead, it's only an attempt to once again silence Palestinian prisoners and isolate them. And it's worth noting that when there has been a notice that there has been some, an interrogator or someone else who has been infected that the prisoners are placed in quarantine. Well, what does quarantine mean in this context? It actually means being thrown into the dirty isolation cells, solitary confinement cells which are known for being infested with vermin and insects. The toilet is inside the room. These are there in unsanitary conditions with old, smelly, rotten blankets and mattresses. This is the conditions into which someone is being placed while they're supposedly in quarantine to watch for COVID-19 and they're not given any testing during this time. So really, what we're not seeing is any attempt to protect prisoners from the pandemic. Instead, what we're seeing is the escalation of repressive measures targeting Palestinian prisoners as part of a continuing and systematic policy. And this time it's using COVID-19 as the excuse and tomorrow it will be using security again as the excuse. And so one last question I wanted to ask is that we've been seeing over the past, you know, a couple of months, past year that there's been, seems like an escalation of the amount of hunger strikes that are taking place. A lot of organized resistance from within prisons against administrative detention, against all other repressive practices that have been of course consistent throughout the apartheid regime and the colonial occupation. But wondering has that, you mentioned before that this has also been in response to the kind of intensification of those same repressive measures, but has this had any impact on the Israeli prison system? What are the gains that have come out of this resistance? Well, I mean, certainly over the years these hunger strikes have had a major impact on the way that Palestinian prisoners live, despite the fact that they still live deprived of fundamental human rights. You know, so over the years, over the decades, the Palestinian prisoners movement has been leading not only in fighting to change conditions inside the prisons, but really in fighting for the liberation of the Palestinian people. So when you talk to and listen to what Palestinians have to say about the prisoners, what you hear is that the prisoners bring Palestinians together because they represent those who are on the front lines, sacrificing and living for the struggle of the Palestinian people to be free of occupation. So the freedom of the prisoners and their efforts to uphold the dignity of the Palestinian people are something that is very individually, like very human, and it is also very symbolic of the struggle of the Palestinian people to break free of the chains of occupation, apartheid, and settler colonialism. Now, with that being said, within the prisons has always been a center of organizing. Palestinians have called the prisons revolutionary schools for this reason. And of course, this isn't alone in the Palestinian movement around the world. We see that political prisoners have organized and have organized among other people who have been in prison who are poor and marginalized to build revolutionary movements. And so Palestinians have been locked behind bars and have gone through courses of reading and education and self-organized education because even when the rate to education is denied Palestinians by the Israeli occupation, they've worked to create that education for themselves. And so within the prisons, being on the front lines of struggle has often meant prisoners using their bodies as the only tool they have to fight for, not just to change their conditions, but for their freedom and for the freedom of the Palestinian people as a whole and for the liberation of Palestinian land. And so we have seen, over the decades, there's a lengthy history of hunger strikes. And so everything from the right not to be used as labor for Israeli industries and Israeli military industries, the ability of prisoners to cook their own food, the ability to engage in some kinds of educational activities, the ability to have family visits and lawyers, all of those things have been obtained through struggle not because the Israeli state wanted to set up a system that had some kinds of humanitarian protections for Palestinians. And so what we're seeing is that there's a constant attempt by the colonial state to take back all of the gains that Palestinian prisoners have obtained over the years and also to make their situation more and more difficult. Of course, Palestinian prisoners also represent the Palestinian people, resistance in multiple forms from armed struggle to organizing in communities and organizing as students and building collective organizations of students and women and workers. So this is, this breadth of Palestinian resistance is reflected in the Palestinian prisoners movement and Israel doesn't want that to exist. The Israeli state wants to stop that from happening. And so therefore we see attack after attack against the prisoners in the attempt to make their lives so difficult to bear that people will stop joining the resistance and stop fighting for the freedom of their people because life as a prisoner is so difficult to bear. And the prisoners refuse to accept this framework and the Palestinian people refuse to accept this framework. And so that's why we see amid a pandemic, prisoners continuing to resist invasions and ransacking of their rooms by guards. We see prisoners going on hunger strike to demand decent food and to demand cleanliness and to demand freedom, especially for children and women and elderly prisoners in their 70s and 80s who have been behind bars for decades and who are being denied release simply because Israel wants to use them as an example to stop Palestinians from resisting and struggling for their freedom. And so what we do see, we do see these incremental gains that are gained by the prisoners movement. We see, you know, in some prisons, public phones have been installed as a result of the hunger strike. We see people have gotten out of isolation, Palestinian leaders, like Ahmed Saddat, the general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, he was in prison for three years and it was a mass hunger strike that won his release from solitary confinement. So we see that the hunger strikes do obtain these material benefits, but more than anything, what they show is that Palestinian prisoners will to resist, to organize and to fight back against the colonial state that has tried to deny that everything continues to live and continues to thrive despite everything and no attempt to take away their rights will ever stop that from happening and that they're going to continue to struggle in all circumstances and by all means. Thank you so much for sharing. I think that's all we have time for now. And yeah, keep watching People's Dispatch and thank you for joining us.