Summary
The West Bank baker and Islamic Jihad member whose sixty-six-day hunger strike against administrative detention in early 2012 opens Falk’s Part 3, “Prison Resistance”, and is the subject of its first two posts (Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, PDF p.93-103).
Details
- As Falk gives him: a member of Islamic Jihad, thirty-three years old, father of two young daughters, a baker by profession in his small West Bank town of Arraba, viewed with respect and affection by his neighbours, with no accusations implicating him in violence against civilians and a history of imprisonment associated with past activism (PDF p.96, p.101-102). He has most often been described in recent years, Falk says, as a spokesperson for Islamic Jihad (PDF p.101).
- His arrest as Falk presents it: scores of soldiers at night, blindfolding, cuffing and physical roughness “the presence of his wife and young daughters” [as printed] (PDF p.94), followed by administrative detention “without trial, without charges, and without any indication of the evidence against him” (PDF p.94). Falk quotes his later account of interrogation humiliations, including dust from soldiers’ shoes on his moustache and his picture put on the floor and stepped on (PDF p.133).
- The strike: entering its sixty-third day on February 18, 2012 (PDF p.94), it ended after sixty-six days with an agreement to release him on April 17, without Israel reviewing the other administrative detainees or conceding the practice (PDF p.98-99). Its sixty-six days are “the exact length of Bobby Sands’s hunger strike in 1981” (PDF p.102).
- A fellow prisoner, Abu Maria: “He is showing his commitment and resistance in the only way he can right now, with his body.” (PDF p.96) His father contrasted his case with Gilad Shalit’s (PDF p.95).
- His open letter, quoted by Falk, calls on readers to stand for justice and to continue “exposing this occupation, boycotting and isolating it internationally” (PDF p.110).
- Dating conflict in the book: the Part 3 headnote says Adnan struck “in early 2011” (PDF p.93); a later post says his strike action started “at the end of 2011” (PDF p.109). Both stand as printed; see Open questions on the source page.
Related pages
Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, Administrative Detention, Hunger Strikes, Hana Shalabi, Islamic Jihad, Addameer