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It was an honour to share this panel today with Dr. Saeb Shaath and my old comrade and friend former hunger striker Tommy McKearney.
Saeb's knowledge of Irish history was inspiring. He spoke without notes and had everyone in the room hanging on to his every word.
Listening to Saeb, I occasionally glanced down at my own written contribution sitting on the table in front of me hoping that a fire alarm would ring before my turn came.
The section below was written by conference chair Patricia Campbell:
Organised by the Peadar O'Donnell Socialist Republican Forum, at the Rath Mor Centre, Derry, the conference highlighted the appalling, brutal and inhumane treatment being meted out to Palestinian prisoners/hostages held in Israeli torture camps and prisons.
It is important to note that the vast majority of those currently imprisoned in Palestine have not been charged with any offences but are essentially being held as political hostages.
Speakers included:
Gaza-born Dr. Saeb Shaath, Middle Eastern political expert, author, and international activist addressed the conference to speak about the history of imperialism in both Palestine and Ireland.
Derry born Thomas Dixie Elliott, arrested in 1976, joined the Blanket Protest in the notorious H Blocks on being sentenced to 12 years imprisonment in 1977. Dixie Elliott shared a prison cell with Bobby Sands who died on hunger strike in 1981, he earlier shared a cell with Thomas McElwee, who also died on hunger strike in 1981.
Having endured British torture techniques used against Irish political prisoners, Dixie Elliot spoke about the Irish experience and highlighted how the same torture techniques were exported by the British to the Middle East.
One of the conference organisers, Tommy McKearney, former H Block prisoner and hunger striker, author and political activist, was in attendance along with former H Block prisoner comrades and families.
A live link with speakers from Palestine was included:
Abdullah Al-Zaghari President of Palestinian Society Prisoners Club in the West Bank.
Arab Barghouti, son of Marwan Barghouti.
Marwan Barghouti is reported to be Palestine’s longest serving prisoner and a unifying force for the Palestinian people. He is described as "Palestine’s Nelson Mandela".
Since October last year, many thousands of Palestinian men, women and young people in Gaza and the West Bank have been arrested and detained by the Israeli state. The prisoners have been subjected to horrific treatment including torture, ill-treatment, beatings, mock executions, starvation and rape.
It is known that more than sixty prisoners have died during the past 12 months while being subjected to torture and ill-treatment.
For example, a senior doctor from Gaza was killed last November while under interrogation by the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service, according to Haaretz, one of Israel's leading newspapers. Dr Iyad Rantisi, 53, was the medical director of the maternity department within Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in the northern Gaza Strip. Rantisi was detained on 11 November 2023 at an Israeli army checkpoint and was declared dead six days later at Shikma Prison, which is home to a Shin Bet interrogation facility.
In June, the New York Times published a report which included accounts of torture at Israel's Sde Teiman interrogation centre where Israeli guards used electric chairs to shock detainees and anally raped them with hot, electrified metal rods. Thirty-six Palestinians from Gaza detained at Sde Teiman have also died, presumably as a result of such inhuman treatment and torture.
The conference was chaired by Patricia Campbell, long term socialist republican activist for prisoner and political rights.
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Thomas Dixie Elliot is a Derry artist and a former H Block Blanketman. Follow Dixie Elliot on Twitter @IsMise_Dixie |
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