Although his wife died leaving his children without a parent, Israeli forces refused to release Sadiq Abdul Rahman Basharat from prison where he has been for three years as a member of Islamic Jihad. The northern West Bank man's health is seriously deteriorating as well as he lives handicapped under the difficult conditions of the prison.Basharat's lawyer demanded that he be released for three years served after several postponements of a trial in an Israeli military court.
His mother said, “These are the darkest days of my life. After several meetings and the postponement of a trial for my son several times, the last meeting was held where the lawyer demanded his release because he has already been in prison so long. He was injured which led to the amputation of his hands and is in urgent need of treatment that the prison administration refused to provide. He is the only breadwinner for his family and he has two children in dire need of a father.”
She told PNN that his sentence was unduly harsh. “The court did not heed the request and instead responded to the pressure of the prosecution and issued an arbitrary judgment, sentencing my son to eight years on charges of belonging to the Islamic Jihad movement and participating in what they referred to as 'activities hostile to the security of Israel.'”
Through information leaked from the prison, Basharat said that his sentence was in “utter disregard of all international norms and laws and comes within the framework of the slow death of prisoners.”
Basharat's mother asked, “Where are the human rights organizations, where is the justice? There is no law that allows Israel to exercise its policy of slowly killing our children! He is in prison and denied medication or treatment. He suffered a major blow losing his hands and also losing his wife and being deprived the right of raising his children. They broke into our home and took the weakest one without considering his medical condition, and put him in interrogation and then solitary confinement in Jalameh Prison where he cannot care for himself.”
Basharat said, “Their methods cause illness and disability and then they ensure that we will die in agony in order to stop our struggle to end the occupation. Without medical treatment I now have complications, but still there is no medicine or treatment.”
His mother is raising her grandchildren now and cries as she says that the worst part is watching her son's children wait for their father.
