Between The Lines - Saher Francis: Palestinian Prison Hunger Strike (Week Ending June 8, 2012)

Award-winning Investigative Journalist Robert Parry (1949-2018)

Award-winning investigative journalist and founder/editor of ConsortiumNews.com, Robert Parry has passed away. His ground-breaking work uncovering Reagan-era dirty wars in Central America and many other illegal and immoral policies conducted by successive administrations and U.S. intelligence agencies, stands as an inspiration to all in journalists working in the public interest.

Robert had been a regular guest on our Between The Lines and Counterpoint radio shows -- and many other progressive outlets across the U.S. over four decades.

His penetrating analysis of U.S. foreign policy and international conflicts will be sorely missed, and not easily replaced. His son Nat Parry writes a tribute to his father: Robert Parry’s Legacy and the Future of Consortiumnews.

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The Resistance Starts Now!

Between The Lines' coverage and resource compilation of the Resistance Movement

"The man who predicted Trump presidential win now says Trump impeachment could happen," AM Joy with Joy Reid, MSNBC, Jan. 21, 2018
"Sketchy Kazakh money finds its way into Trump dealings," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Red flags seen in many Trump real estate deals," The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC, Jan. 15, 2018
"Secret Money: How Trump Made Millions Selling Condos To Unknown Buyers," BuzzFeed, Jan. 12, 2018
"The Scandals of Donald Trump: Presidential Edition," The Atlantic, May 15, 2017
"Here's what we know so far about Team Trump's ties to Russian interests," Washington Post's ongoing compilation
"What Comey Was Investigating, Explained," The Moscow Project, Center for American Progress

"Donald Trump's Financial Ties to Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters Detailed In Explosive New Documentary from the Netherlands," Dutch TV documentary, Alternet.org, May 12, 2017
Ongoing compilation of Trump's creeping authoritarianism," MotherJones.com
Full resource list ...

SPECIAL REPORT: "The Resistance - Women's March 2018 - Hartford, Connecticut" Jan. 20, 2018

Selected speeches from the Women's March in Hartford, Connecticut 2018, recorded and produced by Scott Harris

SPECIAL REPORT: "No Fracking Waste in CT!" Jan. 14, 2018

Jen Siskind Jennifer Siskind, local coordinator for Food and Water Watch, describes the campaign to stop fracking waste in Connecticut, which so far has led to fracking waste bans in 34 towns around the state. Interviewed by Richard Hill on Mic Check, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT

SPECIAL REPORT: "Resistance Round Table: The Unraveling Continues..." Jan. 13, 2018

Lindsay Kanaly The panel discusses Trump's long history of racism and the Republican voter suppression juggernaut confronting Democrats leading up to the 2018 elections. Special guest: Lindsay Kanaly, a lead organizer of the Women's Marches planned for Jan. 20, 2018. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill on Resistance Roundtable, WPKN Radio, Bridgeport, CT.

SPECIAL REPORT: "Capitalism to the ash heap?" Richard Wolff, Jan. 2, 2018

Richard Wolff, Economics professor Richard Wolff declares U.S. capitalism to be beyond repair and suggests the need for a radical alternative. Interviewed by Richard Hill

SPECIAL REPORT: Maryn McKenna, author of "Big Chicken", Dec. 7, 2017

Maryn McKenna, investigative journalist and author of Big Chicken, talks about the widespread use and dangers of antibiotics in commercial poultry, beef and fruit production. Interview by Bill Duesing, Richard Hill and Guy Beardsly on WPKN's Organic Farm Stand.

SPECIAL REPORT: Nina Turner's address, Working Families Party Awards Banquet, Dec. 14, 2017

Nina Turner, president of Our Revolution, talks about the fight ahead for progressives as she receives the Working Families Organization Award for Exceptional Leadership Towards Advancing Progress. The event was held in Meriden, CT. Produced by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Dec. 12, 2017

Working Families Party of CT talks strategy and issues for 2018.
Lindsay Farrell, executive director of the Working Families Party of Connecticut, discusses the state's electoral landscape and lays out the issues and strategies that could lead to progressive victories in 2018. Interviewed by Richard Hill.

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Dec. 9, 2017

Disturbing developments in the Trump/Republican Agenda
Focus on the tax bill, destruction of our public lands, North Korea and Trump's private CIA. Panel: Scott Harris, Ruthanne Baumgartner and Richard Hill. Special guest: Jo Macallero of Rise and Resist.

SPECIAL REPORT: On Tyranny - one year later, Nov. 28, 2017

Professor Timothy Snyder, author of the highly acclaimed resistance manual On Tyranny, discusses his book and offers a fresh assessment of the state of our beleaguered republic. Timothy Snyder, history professor at Yale, is introduced by Stanley Heller, administrator of Promoting Enduring Peace, a Connecticut-based organization that sponsored this event at the United Church Parish House in New Haven on Nov. 28. A brief interview with Snyder conducted by WPKN radio producer, Richard Hill, follows his talk.

SPECIAL REPORT: Mic Check, Nov. 12, 2017

Lynne Ide, director of program and policy with the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut, talks about the current state of health care coverage in Connecticut. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resistance Roundtable, Nov. 11, 2017

Focus on the Republican tax plan, the just-released autopsy on the Democratic Party, and Internet censorship by Google, Facebook and Youtube. Including an interview with Hilary Grant, a lead organizer with Action Together Connecticut, who discusses the local results of the recent election, with hosts Richard Hill, Scott Harris and Ruth Baumgartner WPKN producers

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Two leaders from Redneck Revolt, an anti-racist, anti-capitalist movement, talk about their work organizing with white working class people in Suffolk County, New York. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Rainy Day Radio, Nov. 7, 2017

Bruce Gagnon, coordinator for the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space, describes the extent of -- and motives underlying -- the vast US network of military bases around the globe. Interviewed by Richard Hill, WPKN radio producer

SPECIAL REPORT: Resisting U.S. JeJu Island military base in South Korea, Oct. 24, 2017

Joyakol, South Korean peace activist and singer, discusses the crisis on the Korean peninsula and focuses on the resistance to the U.S. huge military base being constructed on Jeju Island. The event was sponsored by the Greater New Haven Peace Council and this audio was recorded by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.
Joyakol discusses Americans' biggest misconceptions about the conflict between North and South Korea and the U.S., Interview by Richard Hill, WPKN producer.

SPECIAL REPORT: John Allen, Out in New Haven

John Allen, founding director of the New Haven Pride Center, Connecticut, talks about his new LGBTQ television show, Out in New Haven, which presents a range of political and cultural issues to the community. Interviewed by Richard Hill on WPKN's Rainy Day Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018.

2017 Gandhi Peace Awards

Promoting Enduring Peace presented its Gandhi Peace Award jointly to renowned consumer advocate Ralph Nader and BDS founder Omar Barghouti on April 23, 2017.

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THANK YOU TO EVERYONE...

who helped make our 25th anniversary with Jeremy Scahill a success!

For those who missed the event, or were there and really wanted to fully absorb its import, here it is in video

Jeremy Scahill keynote speech, part 1 from PROUDEYEMEDIA on Vimeo.

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Between The Lines Presentation at the Left Forum 2016

"How Do We Build A Mass Movement to Reverse Runaway Inequality?" with Les Leopold, author of "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice,"May 22, 2016, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, The City University of New York, 860 11th Ave. (Between 58th and 59th), New York City. Between The Lines' Scott Harris and Richard Hill moderated this workshop. Listen to the audio/slideshows and more from this workshop.

Listen to audio of the plenary sessions from the weekend.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker "Dirty Wars"

Listen to the full interview (30:33) with Jeremy Scahill, an award-winning investigative journalist with the Nation Magazine, correspondent for Democracy Now! and author of the bestselling book, "Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army," about America's outsourcing of its military. In an exclusive interview with Counterpoint's Scott Harris on Sept. 16, 2013, Scahill talks about his latest book, "Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield," also made into a documentary film under the same title, and was nominated Dec. 5, 2013 for an Academy Award in the Best Documentary Feature category.

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Jailed Palestinian Hunger Strikers Win Concessions from Israelis on Improved Prison Conditions

RealAudio MP3

Posted May 30, 2012

Interview with Saher Francis, human rights lawyer and director of Addameer, a prisoner support and human rights association based in the West Bank, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

Hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners held in administrative detention inside Israel are nothing new, but extended hunger strikes undertaken in 2011 and 2012 this year have garnered more media coverage in the U.S. than previous prison campaigns. The latest hunger strikes were undertaken to demand an end to harsh restrictions put in place after Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was taken prisoner in 2006 by members of Hamas and held in Gaza for five years.

But even after a deal was struck last October for Shalit’s release, in exchange for the freeing of 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, the onerous conditions in Israeli prisons remained in place. Restrictions included the prolonged isolation of prisoners, a ban on visits from family members from Gaza and some from the West Bank, and the exclusion of reading and academic study materials. Hunger strikers also demanded an end to administrative detention, where many Palestinian prisoners were held without charge or trial for a set period, often to be re-arrested upon their release. Risking damage to their health and even death, individuals carried out hunger strikes ranging from 66 to 77 days. Many now face severe health challenges as they recover. All told, 1,500 prisoners participated in the hunger strike from early spring to mid-May. An agreement between the hunger strikers and Israeli authorities was announced on May 14.

Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Saher Francis, a human rights lawyer and director of Addameer, a prisoner support and human rights association, based in Ramallah in the West Bank. She describes what concessions were won by the hunger strikers and the effectiveness of nonviolent resistance to the Israeli occupation.

SAHER FRANCIS: Of course, the prisoners, they were using all the time – since the beginning of the occupation – the hunger strike as one tool of their resistance inside the prison when (prison administrators) fail to guarantee their basic rights through negotiation with the prison authorities. And it was their method in the past to guarantee the basic rights they have as prisoners. Actually, in the last years, since the beginning of the Second Intifada (2000), we can say, there's a big retreat in all these rights. The prison authorities started to impose more restrictions and commit more violations against the prisoners, 'til the arrest of Shalit, and then things were deteriorating seriously. And this is what led the prisoners in this time, to demand, firstly, not the political demands that they were always putting there, connecting it to the end of the occupation and their release. But this time, they were concentrating more on the humanitarian aspect of their imprisonment, the daily conditions and their dignity in the prison.

And of course, it doesn't mean that they forget or undermine the main issue, because as well the local civil society action that was supporting the prisoners' acts was all the time putting this issue of the prisoners with the big context of the occupation – that the release of all the prisoners should come with the end of the occupation, of course. The issue of the prisoners is part of the question of the occupation and you cannot do negotiations, for example, without solving the issue of the prisoners. So, I think it's a very important part of the civil society movement and in the public struggle against occupation. It was joined as well with, for example, activism against the wall and the settlements. In most of the weekly demonstrations that take place in villages that are affected by the wall, they were supporting the prisoners' case in the time of the hunger strike and they were requesting to respect the demands of the prisoners and to free all the political prisoners.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Sahar Francis, was there a demand to get rid of administrative detention altogether? Was that ever on the table?

SAHER FRANCIS: Actually, this was a complicated problematic issue, because in the agreement we never get a document of the written agreement. In the end, it was an agreement between the Egyptian mediators and the Israeli side, and the Egyptian mediator told the prisoners' committee that was composed of nine members from all the political parties – Palestinian political parties – that the administrative detention issue was there in the agreement. It was not ending the whole use of administrative detention, but rather limiting and using administrative detention just in very serious security issues, and not to extend the detention if they don't have very serious information – because you know that administrative detention is built on secret information, and Israel is using it in a very wide way – and this is why we claim that this is arbitrary detention. It's not illegal according to international law, of course; the Fourth Geneva Convention gives some space for the occupiers to use administrative detention, or arrest without trial, but there's lots of restrictions in international law that Israel is not limiting itself to it when practicing the administrative detention. This was what actually was discussed in the agreement, but unfortunately, in the last two weeks, there's been tens of detainees, their detention was extended and new detainees, they were transferred for administrative detention. So we are not sure that Israel really is restricting the use of administrative detention as it was agreed in the agreement in the hunger strike time.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Do the Palestinian prisoners, and does your organization, Addameer, that supports these prisoners' rights, consider this latest hunger strike a success?

SAHER FRANCIS: It was a good result, and we look at it as a good achievement for the prisoners' movement, but still, as I said before, we have to monitor and to be following closely how this agreement would be implemented, because we can't trust fully the Israeli side that they will fulfill all the demands without any problems, and this is why we are still monitoring closely what's going on.

For more information, visit Addameer at www.addameer.org.