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Ammon News - by Zain Khasawneh | The Jordan Times

AMMAN — With both his legs tied together and an ankle and wrist cuffed to the bed, guards search and ransack his bathroom before he is allowed to use it.

This treatment, worthy of the most dangerous criminal, is how Jordanian prisoner Abdullah Barghouthi is treated by Israeli forces inside his hospital room turned prison cell, according to an advocate group.

The manner in which Barghouthi, who has now been on hunger strike for over three months, is being treated in the Israeli hospital is incompatible with international agreements on human rights, said Fedaa, the media team supporting Jordanian prisoners incarcerated in Israel.

In an e-mail sent to The Jordan Times, the group explained the conditions in which Barghouthi is being held following a recent visit by lawyers from the Mandela Foundation and the Committee of Prisoners and Freedom made to the Israeli hospital.

“The hospital room has been transformed into a small prison cell with hospital walls, full of guards, and strict and unfair measures,” the lawyers reported, as quoted in the e-mail.

With details of the permanent handcuffs that Barghouthi is forced to wear, they painted a picture of despair and a lack of human rights.

The 42-year-old Barghouthi told the visiting lawyers that even trying to get permission to use the bathroom requires a lengthy procedure. The prison authority must first approve the request before a detailed search of the toilet is conducted. Only then may the prisoner have some privacy and use the bathroom, the lawyers added.

A second thorough search must then be made when the prisoner is ready to return to his bedroom, the e-mail added, noting that the prisoner is re-cuffed to his bed immediately after using the bathroom, giving him barely more than a minute of relative freedom.

“Despite the tough and discouraging conditions Barghouthi is living in, he has not given up the hope that he and his fellow prisoners may be released from Israeli incarceration,” the lawyers e-mail read.

President of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights Abdul Karim Shraideh told The Jordan Times in a phone interview that the conditions in which Barghouthi is being held violate all rules and agreements on the treatment of prisoners, foremost of which is the International Declaration for Human Rights.

It is globally acknowledged, Shraideh added, that prison guards should only have a presence outside of a prisoner’s hospital room so that an ill patient can get rest.

As a result of his conditions, Barghouthi’s health is “continuously deteriorating”, Fedaa spokesperson Shereen Nafe told The Jordan Times.

“He is suffering from kidney and liver atrophy, as well as vein blockage in his left arm which is hindering his movement significantly.”

On July 9, well into his hunger strike, Barghouthi’s body began rejecting glucose. Now living solely on water, his veins have effectively “dried up”, Nafe added.

Barghouthi has been incarcerated inside an Israeli prison for 10 years after he was arrested by Israeli authorities upon entering the West Bank to visit relatives, according to Nafe.

He currently holds 67 life sentences, the longest prison sentence in the history of the Israeli prison system, the spokesperson noted.

Barghouthi is one of five Jordanian prisoners who are on hunger strike seeking their freedom, or spending the rest of their terms in Jordanian prisons.