By Adam Hanieh
On 25 August, Palestinian prisoner Imad Sabi negotiated a "release" with the Israeli Security Service (Shabak). Imad Sabi agreed to four years of exile in exchange for his release from continued administrative detention (detention without charge or trial).
Among the 4000 Palestinian political prisoners still languishing in Israeli jails, 280 are held without trial or under administrative detention orders. The orders to detain them are renewed every six months without explanation.
Most have been subjected to torture and prevented from seeing family members. Their correspondence is heavily censored. Forty per cent of the administrative detainees have spent more than a year in prison, and 50 have been imprisoned for two years or more.
According to Allegra Pacheco, an advocate working for the release of the administrative detainees, in the August 8 edition of News From Within:
"Many of the Palestinian administrative detainees are among the influential political activists who openly oppose Israel's continued occupation and emerging apartheid, now legitimised by the Oslo Accords ... the Shabak knows full well that the administrative detainees are an alternative leadership ... [who] would not defer to Israeli hegemony as Arafat has. The Israeli Shabak is also well aware that some of these detainees are the future partners with Israeli anti-Zionists in the struggle for democracy and equal rights in all of Palestine — a movement that will challenge Shabak's own existence."
The release of Sabi was greeted with approval by the international media, but most avoided reporting that his release was not an acquittal but an alternative punishment to administrative detention. This punishment, like administrative detention, has been imposed without charge or trial.
Sabi will be allowed to study overseas. However, he is forbidden from returning to Palestine and is not allowed to engage in political work. His 400 fellow administrative detainees now, at best, face the choice between two punishments — continued long-term imprisonment without trial or exile for many years.
The case of administrative detainees recently caused a stir internationally and within Israel when Israeli army officer Yuval Lotem refused to serve in Megiddo Prison, a notorious institution which houses many of the detainees.
Lotem wrote, "There is no good jailer when the prisoner is jailed without justification". Because of his stand, Lotem was imprisoned for several months.
In addition, four prominent Israeli authors issued a statement in a leading Israeli newspaper calling for the release of administrative detainees.
Ahmad Qatamesh, the longest serving administrative detainee, wrote an unpublished letter to Lotem in which he praised the latter's courageous stand. Qatamesh was arrested on September 1, 1992, and interrogated for 100 days. He was tortured and faced many court hearings.
Finally, the court decided he should be released because the only charge against him was having a false ID, which carries a maximum sentence of a few months in prison. After six months in jail, as he was about to be released, he received an administrative detention order and has now been imprisoned for five years. He has been prohibited from seeing his wife for nine months.
Because of the political opposition which they represent, administrative detainees have been largely ignored by the Palestinian negotiating team throughout the Oslo process.
Suha Barghouti, Qatamesh's wife, said recently: "The detainees are mainly from the opposition [left and Islamic], and they are in fact hostages to ensure that this process [Oslo] goes on. The authorities feel that this process is very weak, and they don't want the people to interfere with it."