Brother of Jordanian prisoner in Israel on hunger strike to secure visit after ‘detainee assaulted by prison guards’

AMMAN — Shaheen Merie’s hunger strike near the Foreign Ministry entered its fourth day on Sunday, as he urged officials to secure a visit to his brother Muneer, a prisoner in Israel, who was recently “attacked by prison guards”.

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, said Anas Abu Khdeir, head of the media team supporting Jordanian prisoners in Israel, Fedaa.

“Shaheen’s strike is aimed at securing a visit for three family members to see Muneer and check on his health condition after the incident,” Abu Khdeir told The Jordan Times, adding that ministry officials have agreed to allow one person to visit the prisoner.

Muneer was arrested in April 2003, and is serving five life sentences on charges related to dispatching some men to carry out attacks in Adora settlement in the West Bank’s Hebron, according to a Fedaa statement.

The prisoner, along with other imprisoned Jordanians, had gone on a hunger strike for more than 100 days, calling for seeing members of their families, but his parents died before he saw them.

Shaheen said 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.

The Jordan Engineers Association’s freedoms committee denounced the incident, and called on the government to shoulder its responsibility towards Jordanian prisoners in Israel, according to a statement released by the syndicate.

Shaheen added that he met on Sunday morning with head of the consulate department in the Foreign Ministry, Mohammad Quraan, who asked him to apply for a visa through the website of the Israeli embassy in Amman.

“I applied for a visa online and gave the application number to the consulate department for follow up,” he said, noting that there is no specified date for issuing the visa.

He commended the cooperation shown by Quraan, who asked him to stop the strike, but Shaheen refused.

“I didn’t halt the strike because the situation reminds of a similar incident some two years ago, when families protested near the ministry to call for visits to their imprisoned relatives in Israel, and officials promised to meet their demands but they are yet to honour their pledge,” he said.