A Palestinian private institution concerned with the prisoners, its first nucleus crystallized inside Occupation prisons The Israeli, as it was launched by a group of prisoners in 1992, then evolved and saw the light in 1993, and was officially recorded in 1996 with the foundation Palestinian National Authority.
Idea and establishment
The idea of establishing the Palestinian Prisoner Club started a group of prisoners of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah) in the Israeli Junaid prison in the city Nablus North West Bank In 1992, in conjunction with the preparation for a strike with the aim of achieving demands related to improving the conditions of detention.
In his article on the club’s website, the former prisoner Amjad Al -Najjar says that he was a witness to the establishment of the club when he was a prisoner in Junaid Central Prison, indicating that the beginning was to exchange messages in the leadership row. For the Fatah movement Inside and outside the prison on the idea of establishing an institution concerned with prisoners’ affairs.
He adds that the captive movement began in 1992 to mobilize for an open -ended hunger strike on September 27, 1993 with the participation of most prisons, and after weeks he succeeded in achieving most of its goals, including the closure of the insulation department in Ramla prison and the cessation of the naked inspection and the ability to buy cans and beverages from the prison store.
After the success of the strike – according to Al -Najjar’s article – the actual preparation of the establishment of a mass institution incubating the cause of the prisoners began, so the Association of the Prisoner Club was the first institution established by the prisoners themselves in prisons, which earned it distinctiveness, credibility and deep dimensions in Palestinian awareness and institutional work. “
He says that the club started with simple capabilities and self -efforts for volunteers in defense of the prisoner’s issue and to move them in front of international public opinion and expose the violations of the occupation and its crimes against the prisoners.
Later, after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, the club obtained a license in 1996 from the Palestinian Ministry of Interior as a civil association, and announced that he would continue his work until the departure of the occupation.
Administrative structure
The club’s board of directors is chosen by election. His elections took place 8 times between 1996 and 2024.
The club’s articles of association stipulate the meeting of the Board of Directors once a month to follow up on work plans, and among the most prominent club presidents: Issa Qaraqa And the brightness of Faris and Abdullah Al -Zaghari.
The club has several offices and volunteers in the Palestinian provinces, but it is forbidden to open an office in a city JerusalemAnd if it is with individual efforts to follow the case of the city’s prisoners.
As for the members, they are from the prisoners detained in Israeli prisons Among the freed prisoners, and the membership of the membership is open to every Palestinian prisoner or prisoner inside and outside the prisons, the conditions of the membership stipulated in the club’s internal system are met.
Other institutions are followed by the club, most notably the martyr Abu Jihad College for Vocational Training, Radio Station and Amwaj TV.
Objectives and activities
The Prisoner Club has become one of the largest and most prominent institutions that fight in defense of the rights of Palestinian and Arab prisoners who are in detention centers and the Israeli investigation centers, regardless of their political orientations and organizational attitudes.
The club also looks at the prisoners and detainees as “militants for freedom, and legitimate fighters applied to the international covenants of the prisoners of freedom”, as well as its relentless follow -up and documented data from their files from the moment of detention until the release.
The club’s effort is based on the need to provide human and legal protection for the prisoners, and to reveal and confront Israeli violations against them, with the permanent call for the application of international and humanitarian laws and laws, Geneva Conventions On the Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli prisons.
The Prisoner Club links coordination and consulting relations with the relevant local and international human rights institutions. Among his goals according to his internal system:
- Follow -up of prisoners’ affairs inside prisons, detention centers, detention centers and Israeli investigation.
- Support the freed prisoners and help them rehabilitate and integrate into society.
- Supporting the families of the prisoners and their children from the social, economic, health and educational aspects.
- Legal and judicial follow -up of prisoners’ files and female prisoners in Israeli courts.
- Raising public opinion on Israeli violations committed against prisoners at the local and international levels.
- Spreading and documenting the intellectual, cultural and creative heritage of prisoners inside prisons as part of the Palestinian militant heritage.
- Issuing reporting reports and bulletins on the conditions of detainees inside Israeli prisons.
- Organizing activities and participating in conferences that support prisoners’ rights and recruit public opinion to protect the prisoner and safeguard his human rights.
- Cooperation and coordination with human rights and humanitarian institutions that sponsor prisoners ’affairs locally and internationally.
- Holding local and international mass conferences and festivals to highlight the crimes committed against prisoners and female prisoners in prisons Israeli occupation.
- Holding human rights conferences for prisoners’ rights at the local and international levels.
- Organizing intellectual, cultural, sports and artistic activities in support of the issue of prisoners such as: competitions, seminars, exhibitions, theatrical performances, and others.
- Establishing vocational training centers for prisoners and freedoms in order to integrate them into society and rehabilitate them to practice their career and engage in the process of building and community development.
In 2001, the club established a legal unit to provide legal support to the prisoners, which contributed to preparing the law of prisoners and editors, which obliges the Palestinian Authority to sponsor many of their rights.
Challenges and difficulties
On July 25, 2020, the club’s board of directors decided to close all its branches in the West Bank governorates except for my subcontractor Ramallah And Qalqiliya By virtue of having buildings in them.
The decision came as a result of a financial crisis that he suffers from since 2018 after the Palestinian Authority stopped disbursing the budget allocated to it.
In an article on the club’s website, its former president, Issa Qaraqa, said, “We at the Prisoner Club and the Prisoners Authority (was its president) endured what no one (…) the club’s services developed and became part of regulations and regulations (…) without discrimination, and we refused and still politicized the issue of the prisoners or its partisan in favor of a certain group, considering the issue of the prisoners, a national and national issue.”
The captive club differs from Prisoners Affairs Authority That started with a ministry in the Palestinian Authority, then turned into a subsidiary institution For the Palestine Liberation Organization It was founded in 1998, and its most prominent goals are to take care of the affairs of prisoners, editors and their families.