Mahmoud al-Sarsak

[smithdown]

Palestinian hunger strike footballer 'at risk of death'

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18348198

 

 

Human rights groups have warned that a Palestinian footballer who has been on hunger strike for 80 days in an Israeli prison faces imminent danger of death.

 

Mahmoud al-Sarsak, who was once a star player in the Palestinian national team, was arrested as he left the Gaza Strip en route to a match in 2009.

 

Mr Sarsak has since been held without trial or charge.

 

He is one of a handful of Palestinian prisoners who have rejected a deal that ended a mass hunger strike on 14 May.

 

Under the deal, Israel agreed to end solitary confinement for 19 prisoners - held in isolation for up to 10 years - and lifted a ban on family visits for prisoners from Gaza.

 

Mr Sarsak has not eaten solid food since mid-March. Although he has taken fluids and some vitamin supplements, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel said on Wednesday that he could die at any time.

 

"Despite the urgency of his condition, the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) has denied Mahmoud access to independent doctors from PHR-Israel until today," a statement said.

 

"The IPS also refuses to transfer him to a civilian hospital for proper treatment."

 

PHR-Israel said Mr Sarsak had lost 33% of his body weight, and suffers from frequent incidents of fainting and loss of consciousness, in addition to lapses in memory.

 

An Israeli government official told the BBC Israel "does not wish to see any prisoners have their health put at risk. This is precisely why we made huge efforts to end the recent strike, with the co-operation in terms agreed with the prisoners themselves, the Palestinian Authority and other organisations.

 

"Sadly, Sarsak chose to exclude himself from this agreement, preferring to put his own life at risk. We are providing him with all required medical treatment, but hope he will join his fellow prisoners and end his strike."

 

The 25-year-old footballer was once regarded as a star player in the Palestine national side.

 

For three years he has been held under Israel's so-called "Unlawful Combatants Law", which allows for Palestinians from Gaza to be detained for an unlimited time without charge or trial.

Amnesty International issued a new report strongly condemning administrative detention.

 

 

Israel says many of the Palestinian prisoners are suspected of being members of militant groups

The human rights group said administrative detainees had been "subjected to violations such as the use of torture and other ill-treatment during interrogation, as well as cruel and degrading treatment during their detention, sometimes as punishment for hunger strikes or other protests".

 

Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said administrative detention was only used as a last resort, and to help avoid retribution.

 

"If we get information from someone whose neighbour is making explosives for suicide bombers and that evidence is presented in court, then terror groups will take violent action against him and his family," Mr Regev said, quoted by the Associated Press news agency.

 

"Administrative detention is specifically allowed under international law, and it is factually incorrect to say otherwise," he said.

 

As of the end of April there were at least 308 Palestinian administrative detainees, among them 24 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Amnesty said.

 

Israel says that many of 4,500 Palestinian prisoners in its jails are suspected of being members of Palestinian militant groups

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=493053

 

Al-Sarsak, who has been a witness to many tragedies, is now becoming one.

 

The 25-year old had once hoped to push the ranking of his national team back to a reasonable standing. If Palestinians ever deserve to be called ‘fanatics’, it would be in reference to soccer.

 

As a child growing up in Gaza, I remember playing soccer in few minute increments, braving Israeli military curfews, risking arrests, injury and even death. Somehow, in a very crowded refugee camp, soccer becomes tantamount to freedom.

 

Palestine's soccer ranking at 164th in the world is testament not to any lack of passion for the game, but to the constant Israeli attempts at destroying even that national aspiration.

 

The examples of Israeli war on Palestinian soccer are too many to count, although most of them receive little or no media coverage whatsoever.

 

In 2004 Israel blocked several essential players from accompanying the national team out of Gaza for a second match against Chinese Taipei. (Palestine had won the first match 8-0.)

 

The obstacles culminated in the March 2006 bombing of the Palestinian Football Stadium in Gaza, which reduced the grass field to a massive crater. Then, in the 2008 war on Gaza, things turned bloody as Israel killed three national soccer players: Ayman Alkurd, Shadi Sbakhe and Wajeh Moshtahe. It also bombed their stadium again.

 

Al-Sarsak was a promising new face of Palestinian soccer. In times of Palestinian disunity and factionalism, it was the national team that kept a symbolic unity between Gaza and the West Bank – and indeed Palestinians everywhere.

 

These young men exemplify hope that better times are ahead. But Sarsak’s star is now fading, as is his life. His mother, who hasn’t seen him since his arrest, told Ma'an that she thinks of him every minute of each day. "Why is there no one moving to save his life?" she asked.

 

Writing in the Nation on May 10, Dave Zirin wrote, "Imagine if a member of Team USA Basketball—let’s say Kobe Bryant—had been traveling to an international tournament only to be seized by a foreign government and held in prison for three years without trial or even hearing the charges for which he was imprisoned ... Chances are all the powerful international sports organizations—the IOC, FIFA—would treat the jailing nation as a pariah until Kobe was free. And chances are that even Laker-haters would wear buttons that read, ‘Free Kobe.'"

 

Al-Sarsak is the Bryant of his people. But ask any political commentator and he will tell you why Mahmoud al-Sarsak is not Kobe Bryant, and why al-Rekhawi is not Chen. It is the same prevalent logic of a powerful Washington-based pro-Israel lobby and all the rest.

 

Even if the logic was founded, why are international sports institutions not standing in complete solidarity with the dying al-Sarsak? Why don't soccer matches include a moment of solidarity with killed Palestinian players, and the dying young man aching to join his teammates on the field once more?

 

Why is Israel not fully and comprehensively boycotted by every international sports organization?

 

"As long as al-Sarsak remains indefinitely detained and as long as Israel targets sport and athletes as legitimate targets of war, they have no business being rewarded by FIFA or the UEFA, let alone even being a part of the community of international sports," wrote Zirin.

 

It would be a belated step, but an unequivocally urgent one, for Palestinian sportsmen are literally dying.

[Hassony]

f*** off Israel

[smithdown]

f*** off Israel

 

 

and f*ck off FIFA

[Coyler]

If we get information from someone whose neighbour is making explosives for suicide bombers and that evidence is presented in court, then terror groups will take violent action against him and his family. Administrative detention is specifically allowed under international law, and it is factually incorrect to say otherwise.

Been a while since I've read any statements from this snake. As odious and slippery as ever.

[smithdown]

FIFPro: release Mahmoud Sarsak from prison

 

 

FIFPro, the voice of all professional footballers in the world, demands that Mahmoud Sarsak be released from prison. The Palestinian national team player has been imprisoned by the Israeli government for three years without any trial.

 

On 22 July 2009 Sarsak - who lives in Rafah in the Gaza Strip - was arrested at a checkpoint when he was on his way to the West Bank for a match with his national team. He was interrogated for thirty days and then imprisoned without any trial or a precise legal charge. Family and friends are not allowed to visit him. They do not know why he is being detained for already nearly three years.

 

According to the Israeli government he is an illegal combatant and therefore they can imprison him indefinitely.

 

To protest against his condition and lack of civil liberties, Sarsak currently is on a hunger strike. The 25-year old footballer has not eaten for 85 days and has lost approximately thirty kilos in weight. According to human rights organisation Addameer the situation of Mahmoud is critical.

 

FIFPro is deeply concerned about Sarsak’s health and about his imprisonment and therefore asks for his release from jail.

 

FIFPro is also very concerned about the situation of many other professional footballers in Palestine. Sarsak is not the only player who is suffering from the actions of the Israeli government. There are stories of other players who have been harassed, arrested or even killed.

 

For many players in Palestine, there is no real freedom of movement.

 

‘The freedom of movement is a fundamental right of every citizen’, says Philippe Piat, FIFPro’s vice-president and president of FIFPro Division Europe. ‘It is also written down in the FIFA Regulations that players must be allowed to play for the national team of their country.’

 

‘But actually for some footballers it is impossible to defend the colours of their country. They cannot cross the border. They cannot visit their family. They are locked up. This is an injustice.’

 

Last year FIFPro paid two visits to Palestine to visit the footballers, to talk about their problems and to talk about the establishment of a professional footballers’ association in Palestine.

 

http://www.fifpro.org/news/news_details/1954

 

never heard of FIFPro before, mind

[smithdown]

RAMALLAH, West Bank -- A member of the Palestinian national soccer team, imprisoned by Israel for nearly three years, agreed Monday to end a hunger strike of more than three months in exchange for his release July 10, his lawyer said.

 

The deal to free Mahmoud Sarsak would end the longest hunger strike ever launched by a Palestinian prisoner held by Israel. In a symbolic act, Sarsak, who has shed nearly half his normal weight, ate a small piece of chocolate on Monday evening to show the strike was over.

 

Israel has accused Sarsak of being active in the violent group Islamic Jihad, a claim he has denied. He was arrested in July 2009 at a crossing between his native Gaza and Israel on his way to the West Bank for a football match. He has been imprisoned since then without formal charges or trial.

 

In March, he launched a hunger strike to press demands for his release.

 

As his condition deteriorated, prominent figures in the sports world came to his support. FIFA's president asked Israel's football federation to urgently intercede on Sarsak's behalf with the Israeli authorities and FIFPro, an international organization of professional footballers, called for his release. Former Manchester United great Eric Cantona, British filmmaker Ken Loach and others signed a petition calling for freedom for the player.

 

Meanwhile, Palestine soccer officials, citing Sarsak's ordeal, asked UEFA to remove Israel as the host of the 2013 European Under-21 Championship.

 

In a letter released late Monday by Israel's football association, UEFA President Michel Platini said the tournament would be held in Israel "despite a certain amount of pressure being put on us."

 

Sarsak's lawyer, Mohammed Jabareen, said the agreement to release his client was reached with Israel's Prisons Authority.

 

As part of the arrangement he will be transferred from a prison clinic to a civilian hospital on Tuesday to help him recover from the long fast, the lawyer said. On July 10, the 25-year-old Sarsak is to be released and sent to Gaza, Jabareen added.

 

Israel's Prisons Authority spokeswoman Sivan Weizman declined comment Monday.

 

Earlier this month, independent doctors who examined Sarsak said he suffered from fainting spells, memory lapses and dangerous pulse disruptions. Six days ago, as negotiations on a release deal moved ahead, Sarsak agreed to drink vitamin-infused milk, and he has gained five kilograms, or 11 pounds, since then, Jabareen said.

 

Hundreds of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel have staged hunger strikes this year, but none have generated as much international support as Sarsak, who kept going when the others stopped.

 

Israel portrayed Sarsak as a dangerous activist in the violent Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad, which has killed scores of Israelis in bombings and shootings. Israel's Shin Bet security service has alleged that Sarsak once planted a bomb that injured an Israeli soldier but acknowledged in a statement that "there is no evidence available to try him for criminal activity."

 

Palestinians have hailed hunger strikes as the first effective means in years of exerting pressure on Israel. The protests, which brought several prisoners close to death, Sarsak among them, have also drawn attention to Israel's practice of holding Palestinians without charges or trial, in so-called administrative detention.

 

Among those held without trial or charges, Sarsak is a special case. Israel has imprisoned him as an "unlawful combatant," a status with even fewer legal rights than those of administrative detainees, according to the Israeli rights group B'Tselem. There's a legal review every six months, but the burden proof is on the prisoner to show he is no longer dangerous, the group said.

 

The designation of "unlawful combatant" is used for detainees from abroad, and Israel places Gaza in that category. Israel says it cut all ties with Gaza when it withdrew in 2005, after 38 years of occupation. After the takeover of Gaza by the Islamic militant Hamas, Israel declared the territory a "hostile entity."

 

Sarsak is currently the only "unlawful combatant" held in Israel, according to the Israel Prisons Authority.

 

He was arrested on July 22, 2009, at a crossing between Gaza and Israel. At the time, he was en route to the West Bank, on the other side of Israel, for a game against a West Bank club.

 

http://espn.go.com/sports/soccer/story/_/id/8066898/palestinian-mahmoud-sarsak-agrees-end-hunger-strike-go-free

[Atticus Finch]

f*** off Israel

Wish a few western governments shared that sentiment