The Palestine Center for Prisoner Studies said today, Monday, that there is a state of severe tension among the prisoners in Gilboa Prison, after the announcement of the infection of 12 prisoners in Section 3 with the Corona virus, and expectations of an increase in the number of infected persons after the examination results appeared. For contacts.
The center added, in a press statement to him, that the conditions in the prison are dangerous, as the wounded prisoners had contact with most of their colleagues in the department, which numbered about 90 prisoners, for more than a week before the discovery of the injuries, noting that the prison administration had been stalling since last week in taking samples for them after they appeared They have some symptoms.
The director of the center, Riad Al-Ashqar, accused the occupation authorities and the management of their prisons of facilitating the arrival and spread of the Corona virus in Gilboa Prison and other prisons, for not taking adequate measures to prevent its arrival, and recklessly applying all preventive and safety measures to preserve the lives of the prisoners.
Al-Ashqar said, "The prison administration deliberately does not apply protection measures, whether through widespread mixing in the wards, or when going out to the prison clinic or the courts, and direct contact with the administration´s personnel who have been found to have transmitted the disease into the prison, and not sterilizing the sections, procrastinating and delaying urgent examinations of those They show similar symptoms, and the arrests continue on a daily basis. "
He pointed out that the number of prisoners infected with Coronavirus has increased since last March, to 43 prisoners, including two freed prisoners who were found infected one day after their release from the occupation prisons, pointing out that the door is still open to the increase in the number of prisoners as a result of the occupation’s continued disdain for their lives, and the presence of a number A large number of the prisoners who had contact with them had not been tested until now.
Al-Ashqar held the occupation fully responsible for the lives and safety of the prisoners, calling on the World Health Organization to send a medical committee to prisons to examine the reality of the conditions and the real numbers of the wounded prisoners, and to work to protect them before it is too late.
He renewed his call for the international community to put pressure on the occupation to release the groups most affected by the virus, namely the sick, the elderly, children and women, as the epidemic continues to spread inside prisons, in order to preserve their lives.
