Inhumane and unethical treatment was practiced against detainee Baraa Odah

الموقع الاخباري الرسمي لمنظمة التحرير الفلسطينية

Inhumane and unethical treatment was practiced against detainee Baraa Odah

April 21, 2024

The advocate of the Commission of Detainee’ Affairs stated that detainee Baraa Odah, 34, from Bethlehem, was exposed to unethical and inhumane treatment since her detention on March 5, 2024, as they attacked and assaulted her without taking into account her privacy as a woman.

The Commission emphasized that she was arrested on the Jordanian-Palestinian crossing border while she was coming back to homeland. She was moved to a military camp near Jericho and then to Ofer prison and then to Damoun prison, where she has been subjected to intense beat, as bruises appeared on her body. They left her in a room after confiscating some of her clothes and they gave her a thin mattress and a light cover with a smell of urine, and she was prevented from using the restroom for nine hours. They confiscated the room belongings under the pretext of cleaning the, but they didn’t clean and the goal was to punish her, and she was forced to naked inspection and exposed to sexual harassment.

Odah said: “the conditions of all women detainees are miserable, as we got handcuffed and blindfolded whenever they transfer us between sections. Jailers intend to mock and provoke us. We remain 23 hours in the rooms, and allowed to one hour in the prison’s courtyard. They serve bad food on quantity and quality, especially on Fridays and Saturdays. The rooms are overcrowded and there is a lack in clothes and underwears, which force us to wash what we wear and wait until it dries out. Sick detainees got treated with painkillers, the situation is very difficult and the conditions of detention are deadly and distressing.”

She added: “the German consul visited me, being married from a german nationality, I explained what I have gone through and informed him of health and life conditions in prison and I asked him to intervene and save us from this hell”.
 It is worth mentioning that the detainee Odah works as project coordinator with the German government, and she was sentenced to three months of administrative detention.