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Israeli force-feeding law under fire

Opponents say the law could be considered torture.

By Ed Adamczyk

JERUSALEM, July 30 (UPI) -- A new Israeli law allowing force-feeding of prisoners has been likened to torture, its opponents claim.

The law pertains largely to Palestinian inmates on hunger strikes, a common form of protest in Israeli jails, that was passed despite warning from the United Nations and others it could be construed as a form of torture. Although Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said the law was necessary because "hunger strikes of terrorists in prisons have become a means to threaten Israel," others urge doctors to violate it.

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The Israeli Medical Association announced it would fight the law in court.

While Israel regards the law as a humanitarian effort to save dying prisoners, others consider it an attempt to end the tactic of using fasts to obtain political concessions.

Lital Grossman of the activist group Physicians for Human Rights in Israel called it a "shameful law, which reveals the real, anti-democratic face of its members. It pushes the medical community to severely violate medical ethics for political gains, as was done in other dark regimes in history."

Issa Qaraqi of the Palestinian Authority's Prisoners Commission noted Thursday the bill was "in violation of international laws and conventions" and warned force-feeding could lead to prisoner deaths, such as a 1989 incident in which three Palestinian inmates on hunger strikes died after authorities attempted to feed them by force. The Joint Arab List, the 13 Arab members of Israel's parliament, called the legislation "a law to torture Palestinian prisoners, aimed at uprooting their legitimate struggle."

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