According to the Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners, there are 921 Palestinian prisoners in Palestinian detention centres. "In general," commented Institute Director Ahmed Al-Sayyad, "most of the Palestinian political detainees are not living in bad conditions. Yet, in terms of the law, they are illegally detained."
He and several other lawyers, supported by Birzeit University, submitted a petition on 21 May to the General Prosecutor in Ramallah, stating that ten of Birzeit student prisoners detained without charge or trial must be released.
The Human Rights Action Project at the university chose 10 students out of the sixteen Birzeit students in total, who had not been even interrogated once in connection with any supposed crime during their detention.
Interestingly, the two people named in the petition as responsible are Yasser Arafat (in his capacity as Minister of the Interior) and the Attourney General.
The 21 May submitting of the petition was only the first stage in an appeal to the Palestinian High Court and today, 26 June, the hearing was due. Were they confident? I had asked Ahmed Al-Sayyad at the time. "According to the articles of law," he said "they have to be released but we are waiting to see how they will deal with these articles!"
The prisoners had no real faith in the legal measures when the initial petition was submitted on 21 May. They did not expect relief from the Palestinian Council. They certainly had no faith that the press would raise their case.
Instead, they pointed to Israeli pressure on the PA to show results in the war against terrorism. "We are not here because of anything we have done," pointed out Zaher Subbah at the end of May, "Three times the Palestinian Legislative Council requested that all prisoners without charges are released. Our people have refused these measures but Arafat needs them." The Israeli elections were imminent.
"People keep telling us," sighed Zaher at the time, "that 'only Arafat can release you'." Now with Peres defeated and the very right-wing Benjamin Netanyahu as Israeli prime minister, the future looked even bleaker.
There was a joke going round the prison that the prisoners should write to Netanyahu and say, "Look, we were told we were being held in prison to get Peres reelected. Seeing as you got elected, can you do us a favour and let us out?"
Today, a three judge panel heard the petition in a packed court. Everyone was 'buzzing' as this was the first time anyone had done this in the West Bank.
"Come in, sit down," said one of the court guards excitedly, "they're taking Abu Ammar (Arafat) to court."
The case is expected to set a legal precident. After consulting briefly, the judges decided to accept the petition and gave the Attourney General and the Minister of Interior (Arafat) eight days to show cause for the detentions. This was bound to give the students in the Muqata'a some hope. I was due to see them on Friday.