Ahmad Gharabli/Getty. All rights reserved.Last week Palestinian journalist Mohammed Al Qiq ended a record 94-day hunger strike protesting his so-called administrative detention in an Israeli jail.
Administrative detention is a misnomer for a procedure used to hold Palestinian activists in military confinement without charges or due process. The six-month administrative order can be extended indefinitely without informing the detainee of the charges or affording them or their counsel the right to examine the evidence against them.
It is just one oppressive Israeli occupation instrument that drives the civil movement underground and transforms it to violent resistance. Under international law, administrative detention can be permissible under exceptional circumstances. It comes, however, with rigid restrictions on its application. In the case of Israel, the exception is the norm.
