Prisoners ministry calls for pressuring IOA to allow winter clothes to prisoners

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[ 12/12/2009 - 02:23 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- The ministry of prisoners in Gaza has asked the international human rights groups to pressure the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) to allow winter clothes to prisoners from the Gaza Strip.

Riyadh Al-Ashqar, the ministry's spokesman, said in a press release on Saturday that those 760 prisoners have been deprived of family visits for more than 30 months.

The IOA only allowed winter clothes for those prisoners twice, he said, adding that the ban was doubling the suffering of those prisoners in the harsh winter weather especially in desert prisons.

The IOA does not provide clothes to those captives and compels them to secure their needs either through their relatives or at the prison's canteen, where the prices are very high, Asqar said.

He noted that the Gaza prisoners used to secure their needs of clothes through relatives of their West Bank comrades but the IOA foiled the measure by limiting quantity of clothes to the West Bank prisoners.

The ministry appealed to the UN to pressure the IOA into allowing family visits to those prisoners in order to see their relatives and to secure their needs.