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HUMAN RIGHTS ACTION PROJECT
PRESS RELEASE NO. 8/1998 2 DECEMBER 1998, 4:0 0 PM
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15 BIRZEIT UNIVERSITY STUDENTS INJURED DURING PROTEST
Students demonstrate for the release of
Palestinian political prisoners
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Birzeit - Today, 2 December 1998, approximately 200 Birzeit
University students held a demonstration near the Bet El
settlement near Ramallah calling for the release of all Palestinian
political prisoners held in Israeli jails. Fifteen students were
lightly
injured when clashes erupted with Israeli military authorities during
the demonstration after a car carrying an Israeli settler and an
Israeli soldier drove through the demonstration. The settler, who
was driving, abandoned the car to roll into the demonstration. The
Israeli soldier suffered light injuries before fleeing from
demonstrators. Injuries sustained by the fifteen students resulted
from rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas inhalation, and 3 injuries
from live ammunition.
The students were protesting Israel's lack of implementation of the
release of Palestinian political prisoners as agreed upon in the
Wye River Memorandum. According to the agreement, Israel
committed itself to release 750 Palestinian prisoners in three
phases over the next three months. However, in the first phase of
prisoner releases which occured 27 November 1998, 150 of the 250
Palestinian prisoners released were criminal rather than political
prisoners.
At present, 41 Birzeit University students are in Israeli prisons. In
the recent prisoner release after the Wye Agreement, two Birzeit
University students were released, one serving the last year of his
4 year sentence, and the other released after being held in
interrogation since 25 August. Arrest, detention, interrogation and
torture are daily realities of student life at Birzeit University. The
prisoner's issue is one that touches many students personally,
with over 40 percent of the student body having been arrested at
some point by the Israeli military authorities for their political
beliefs. In most cases, students are not charged, but undergo
interrogation and, in many cases, torture, and are released, or are
held without charge or trial under administrative detention.
For more information concerning planned solidarity activities with
Palestinian prisoners, or general information concerning human
rights violations as they relate Birzeit University community, please
contact the Human Rights Action Project of Birzeit University at
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[ENDS]
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