Families urge gov’t to secure visits to Jordanians in Israeli prisons

AMMAN — Family members of Jordanian prisoners in Israel on Saturday called on the government to exert more efforts to secure regular visits to their captive relatives.

At a symposium organised by the Jordan Engineers Association’s (JEA) Freedoms Committee and the National Committee for Jordanian Prisoners and Missing Jordanians in Zionist Prisons, relatives condemned the lack of support to the prisoners’ issue.

The national number of Rafat Asous, who is serving his last five years of a 20-year sentence, was withdrawn after his detention, his father said.

MP Tamer Bino (Amman, 5th District) and lawyer Fatima Dabbas were present at the event, which was held to discuss issues related to Jordanians detained in Israel on the occasion of the Jordanian Prisoner Day, marked annually on October 20. 

Mohammad Nazzal, whose brother Ali is halfway through a 20-year term, criticised the limited efforts of successive Lower Houses in urging governments to address prisoners’ issues.

“The current Lower House has to make the prisoners’ issue its top priority,” Nazzal said, highlighting that prisoners go on hunger strikes for months without receiving any government support.

Anas Abu Khdeir, former prisoner in Israel and head of the media team supporting Jordanian prisoners in Israel, Fedaa, criticised the Foreign Ministry for not arranging visits for families to their imprisoned relatives in the last eight years.

Mazen Malasah, the head of the Freedoms Committee, said the panel contacted the Foreign Ministry several times to invite a representative to attend the event, but to no avail.

Bino pledged to discuss the matters tackled in the meeting with his colleagues in the Lower House’s Reform Bloc, and to invite prisoners’ relatives to present their demands, prior to discussing the issue under the Dome.

As for withdrawing national numbers, Dabbas said officials argue that those who are deprived of their national numbers have received Palestinian ID cards or lived in the West Bank when Jordan issued the resolution of disengagement from the West Bank.

She said that lawyers interested in prisoner issues try to contest decisions to withdraw national numbers, but such demands always fall on deaf ears.

“The Jordan Bar Association contacts officials to arrange visits for prisoners in Israel, and we hope the Foreign Ministry will succeed in securing such visits soon,” the lawyer noted.

Shakib Oudatallah, a JEA member, said the association follows up on prisoners’ issues, calling on all political parties and human rights organisations to support such causes.

There are currently 25 Jordanian prisoners in Israel, six of whom are serving life sentences.