Ammar Usually Ammar has a 100 watt smile but hates photos

Adeeb Adeeb always has a 100 watt smile and likes photos

Ahmed (left) Ahmed probably would have had a 100 watt smile but I didn't tell him I was taking the picture

Two other Birzeit students, Adeeb Ziyadi and Ahmed al-Atawneh, were detained in Jericho along with architecture student Ammar Al-Wahidi, and later joined him and the other Birzeit students and graduates in the Ramallah prison.

In Jericho, the treatment given to detainees is incomparable with the situation of those in the Ramallah Muqata. Here is what Ammar told me:

"We were interrogated in two stages. First we were beaten for an hour a day, usually at night, with heavy duty electrical cable 1-2 cm thick. This lasted for two weeks.

One prisoner was reported to have been given 150 lashes from an interrogator, until blood welled from his back.

After this, in the second stage, we were interrogated for four to five days by being made to stand outside in the rain, with our hands in the air for an hour at a time, while a policeman beat us every quarter of an hour. We were then interrogated continuously for between thirty and forty hours, with interrogators changing every six hours.

Adeeb became unconscious after being beaten on the back of his head towards the end of the second stage. He was taken to the hospital, where a shocked doctor saw the evidence of week-old lashes from the electric cable on his back and legs.

After being returned to the prison, Adeeb again fell unconscious during noon prayers and was again taken to the hospital briefly before being returned once more to the prison."

Bad Mudda

The Muda'ee or "Prosecutor" at Jericho, is also reported to have been interrogating prisoners. Various accounts abound of his beating prisoners with a hammer to make them admit to charges against them.

"Why are you giving the interrogators a hard time?" he reportedly shouted at one prisoner.

Another prisoner, who he allegedly beat on the side of the head, was smoking a cigarette after the incident when he noticed that smoke was coming out of one of his ears.

Documentation of this treatment of prisoners in PA detention continues to accumulate and although officials often admit mistreatment occurs, it is clear that nothing significant is being done about it.

Occasionally, one sees bizarre statements surfacing. During the hunger strike, one PA official interviewed on the Palestinian news stated that, "We do not have any political prisoners in detention." In the early stages, officials in the Ramallah Muqata'a would describe the prisoners as "guests" in a "hotel".