Agricultural engineers protest in solidarity with Jordanian jailed in Israel

AMMAN — The Jordan Agricultural Engineers Association (JAEA) on Thursday picketed the Foreign Ministry in solidarity with Shaheen Merie, who has been on hunger strike near the ministry for 12 consecutive days, an activist said on Sunday.

Shaheen started the strike on November 9, calling on officials to arrange for him to visit his brother Muneer, a Jordanian prisoner in Israel, who had been reportedly attacked by prison guards.

JAEA President Mahmoud Abu Ghneimah, along with 50 other association members and activists, participated in the Thursday sit-in, said Anas Abu Khdeir, head of the media team supporting Jordanian prisoners in Israel, Fedaa.

“The president called on the ministry to pay more attention to Jordanians abroad, condemned the attack on Muneer and denounced the Jordanian embassy’s [in Tel Aviv] failure to send staff to visit the prisoner or take any procedure in response to the attack on Muneer,” Abu Khdeir told The Jordan Times.

The assault on Muneer took place when prison guards implemented an inspection on his cell before dawn, violating a “deal” with prisoners to carry out such a procedure during the day, Shaheen told The Jordan Times earlier.

He noted that guards at the Jalbou Prison, near Bisan in northern Israel, took Muneer out of the cell to another room and hit him severely until he fainted.

Abu Khdeir added that the JAEA president, during the sit-in, also highlighted families’ right to visit their imprisoned relatives in Israel.

“Shaheen’s health condition deteriorated on the sixth day of the strike, so ministry staff called an ambulance that treated him on site,” said the Fedaa member, noting that Shaheen suffered symptoms such as vertigo, a drop in blood sugar levels and weight loss.

Abu Khdeir noted that other family members threatened to join Shaheen on his strike on Monday or Tuesday if the Foreign Ministry did not report positive progress related to securing a visit to Muneer.

Foreign Ministry officials were not available for comment on Sunday.

Muneer was arrested in April 2003, and serves five life sentences on charges related to dispatching some men to carry out attacks in Adora settlement in the West Bank’s Hebron city.