#political prisoner
#OTD in 1956 – Birth of Kevin Lynch, an Irish Republican hunger striker and member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) from Park near Dungiven, Co Derry.
#OTD in 1956 – Birth of Kevin Lynch, an Irish Republican hunger striker and member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) from Park near Dungiven, Co Derry.
Fuair siad bás ar son Saoirse na hÉireann.
Kevin Lynch was a republican hunger striker and member of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) from Park near Dungiven, Co Derry. The Dungiven Hurling team was renamed Kevin Lynch’s Hurling Club in his honour after his death.
Lynch’s older brother, Frank, was an amateur boxer and he also participated in the sport as well as Gaelic football and…
A Black Panther feeds his son at the “Free Huey” rally in Oakland, California. February 17, 1968.
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In these unfortunate times of this pandemic, new positive opportunities were available. One of these opportunities was the widespread and availability of virtual conferences and webinars. In the last couple of months, I attended a weekly private virtual conference with a group of Palestinians that are living in Palestine.
I had the chance to attend a talk by a former political detainee in “Israeli” dungeons. It was a she, and this suggested an additional level of complexities in her experience. I am not going to talk about her terrible experience in the detention. It is a subject that has been exposed and analyzed by many individuals that have better qualifications than me. However, what really caught my interest is two things:
- the stories she heard of how Palestinian women get in this situation and
- how they are treated once they get out.
Getting into the Dungeons?
There are a lot of women and girls that were detained because of their activism, actions, and resistance (i.e. administrative detention). However, there is a story that was repeated by several women in the detention centers. It seems like it is becoming a trend. Some young women were detained because they attacked an occupation soldier. The reason for the attack was to escape.
Escape from what exactly? It seems that these young women were usually abused in their houses, and they did not find the social support to overcome their situation. In addition, it was hard to go solo, independent because of the social constraints, the failure of the so-called authority, and of course, the occupation. Therefore, they decided to do a pseudo stabbing operation so they would get arrested and locked away from their painful reality. The problem is that they are escaping from one painful situation to another painful situation.
After Getting out of the Dungeons?
Once they get out, former detainees in general, and women in particular, are not treated as shown on the television screens. They are certainly celebrated. However, their personal life is changed, and this is not just because of the toll of detention, imprisonment, and physical and psychological torture on them. It is also due to how society perceives them after they get out. For instance, a former detainee will struggle immensely to find someone that will rent for him or her because the landlord will presume that the occupation forces would come any time and mess the house up. In addition, a former female detainee might find it very hard to get engaged because men won’t prefer her for the mere reason that she is a former detainee. She becomes a second, or maybe a last, choice.
This might not be true for all the cases; however, they exist to some extent. The Palestinian society has been under occupation for a long time, and this has hindered it on many levels. It is of course not an excuse for our society; it is just an explanation of why it is filled with sociological and psychological issues.
The first time I heard about these stories was during these conference calls. I was shocked because for us, Palestinians, the detainees are heroes. They are supposed to be treated with respect, and sometimes as saints. The existence of the so-called the Palestinian Authority played a vital role in switching people’s focus towards materialistic objectives in life, and therefore, marginalize the struggle against occupation from a societal-solidarity point of view.
There is a thorough analysis of this by Dr. Samah Jabr here.
Free Palestine!
The picture is a caricature drawn by the martyr Naji Al Ali who was assassinated in 1987.
