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Israel extends detention without trial for female Palestinian legislator

Tuesday, 02 January 2018 2:01 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 02 January 2018 2:49 PM ]

Prominent Palestinian lawmaker, Khalida Jarrar, flashes the sign for victory as she is lifted up by supporters at the Jubara checkpoint near the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem, following her release from an Israeli jail on June 3, 2016, after serving a 15-month sentence. (Photo by AFP)

Israeli authorities have extended the detention without trial of prominent Palestinian legislator and senior member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Khalida Jarrar, for another six months.

On December 24, the detention was extended by another six months “after security personnel found she still poses a substantial threat,” the Israeli army said on Tuesday.

“The decision to hold Jarrar under administrative detention was made as a last resort, after the military official who signed the arrest warrant was displayed confidential information that clearly substantiates the threat posed by Jarrar,” the army said in a statement.

A large number of Israeli troopers raided Jarrar’s home in the central West Bank city of Ramallah, located 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of Jerusalem al-Quds, on July 2 last year, and arrested her.

Her husband, Ghassan, said Israeli forces seized computers during the raid.

Israel's internal spy agency, Shin Bet, later announced in a statement that Jarrar was arrested along with a Palestinian activist for “promoting terror activities,” without providing any further information.

Jarrar is one of the most outspoken critics of the Israeli occupation and has repeatedly slammed the Tel Aviv regime’s atrocities against Palestinians.

The Israeli regime has been denying the lawmaker the right to travel outside the occupied Palestinian territories since 1988. She campaigned for months in 2010 before receiving the permission to travel to Jordan for medical treatment.

In August 2014, Jarrar received a “special supervision order” from the Israeli military, instructing her to leave Ramallah to the West Bank city of Ariha (Jericho).

However, she set up a protest tent outside the Palestinian Legislative Council in Ramallah, where she lived and worked, until the controversial order was overturned later in September that year.

Israeli forces last arrested the Palestinian lawmaker on April 2, 2015 after storming her house in Ramallah. She was released from prison on June 3, 2016 on a suspended sentence of 12 months within a five-year period.

According to reports, a total of 13 Palestinian lawmakers are currently imprisoned in Israeli detention facilities. Nine of them are being held without trial under the so-called administrative detention, which is a policy according to which Palestinian inmates are kept in Israeli detention facilities without trial or charge. Some Palestinian prisoners have been held in administrative detention for up to 11 years.

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