The Palestinian Prisoners Club announced today a deal has been reached over the case Palestinian journalist, Mohammed al Qiq, who went into three-month hunger strike against the administrative detention slapped on him by the Israeli authorities.
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The 33-year-old television reporter started his fast on November 25 in protest at the “torture and ill treatment that he was subjected to during interrogation”, according to Addameer, a Palestinian rights organisation.
Qiq’s family and lawyers said he will remain in hospital to recover and will be freed at the end of his detention term on May 21 and it will not be renewed. Israel has never produced specific charges against him.
Earlier this month the Israeli Supreme court suspended Qiq’s detention order saying that due to his medical condition he posed no imminent threat.
The court rejected his request to be transferred from Afula in Israel to Ramallah in the West Bank for treatment.
Head of the Detainees’ Committee Issa Qaraqe said al-Qeeq’s will, and determination, overcame Israel’s policies of death, and that he managed to challenge Israel’s illegal Administrative Detention policies, that enable Israel to hold hundreds of Palestinians indefinitely captive, without charges.
It has become common for Israel to extend the six-month period of detention for many Palestinians. Aspart of the deal, the state will not renew his detention unless new evidence warrants it.
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Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, the equivalent of Britain’s MI5, said al-Qiq, a Hamas supporter, had been involved in “terror activities”.
