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Article in official PA daily claims Israeli prisons are “financial companies whose goal is to impoverish the prisoners,” which constitute “part of the occupation's colonialist economic project” and target Palestinian prisoners

Headline: "The occupation arrested 484 civilians in the month of August"

"The prisoner and human rights institutions (the Palestinian [PA-funded] Prisoners' Club, the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, and the [PLO] Commission of Prisoners' Affairs) [parentheses in source] noted as part of a fact sheet they published yesterday [Sept. 10, 2018] that… the total of what the PA pays for the prisoners’ purchases from the canteens in the prisons has reached approximately 2.7 million [Israeli] shekels per month, in other words, 400 shekels for each Palestinian prisoner. Most of the families are also forced to put additional sums into the accounts of their children in the prisons to fund their daily needs due to the terrible food and drink that the Israeli Prison Services provides them, in addition to the purchase of clothes, shoes, cigarettes, electrical appliances, and the like.
These large sums constitute an ongoing financial burden on the prisoners' families and the PA due to the high prices of the products in the canteens, which cost up to three or four times their original price outside the prison (sic., 20.22% higher on average according to an Addameer report; see note below). This is because the occupation state has turned the prisons into financial companies whose goal is to impoverish the prisoners and their families, and also the institutions that take care of their affairs and provide them with sums evaluated at tens of millions of shekels per month.
The prisons’ economy constitutes part of the occupation's colonialist economic project, due to the repercussions it causes to the male and female prisoners in particular, and to Palestinian society as a whole (Palestinian and Israeli prisoners pay the same prices according to Addameer; see note below -Ed.). This is as the occupation is attempting to create a rift between the prisoners and the rest of Palestinian society by turning the prisoners into a financial burden for which the local society has to bear responsibility."

The claims about canteen prices in Israeli prisons are apparently an embellishment of a 2016 report by the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, which notes that on average the prices in Israeli prison canteens are 20.22% higher than in the Palestinian market – not three or four times as high, and that Palestinian and Israeli prisoners pay the same prices in these canteens.

Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association – Palestinian civil organization affiliated with the terror organization Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and European funded. Addameer is based in Jerusalem, was established in 1992, and its stated goals are the support of Palestinian “political prisoners” held in Israeli and Palestinian prisons.
NGO Monitor has documented that Addameer is active in many campaigns against Israel, and demonizes Israel.


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