Rights group: Striking prisoner’s health in critical condition

Prisoner Ayman al-Sharawneh, who has been on hunger strike for 57 days, is in an extremely critical condition, said Al-Dameer Association for Human Rights on Thursday. Al-Dameer said, according to Sharawneh’s lawyer, that an Israeli officer in Soroko Hospital, where Sharawneh is receiving treatment, sent a letter from the prisons' administration to the military committee at Ofer Prison, which Sharawneh will appear before on the 18th of this month, saying that Sharawneh is in critical condition and moving him to Ofer Israeli military court may put his life in real danger. The lawyer said that a medical report is attached to the letter stating that in addition to Sharawneh’s dramatic weight loss, his nervous system is deteriorating and he has lost feeling in his left leg, therefore, the prison’s administration requested to undertake the legal procedures at the hospital to protect his life. Thirty six-year-old Sharawneh, from Hebron, started his hunger strike on July 1st, 2012 in protest of his re-arrest, which was in accordance to article 186 of the military order 1651 that allows the military committee to cancel early release of prisoners that will be released in exchange deals, which means in the case of Sharawneh that he will have to serve 28 more years in prison. Sharawneh had ended his strike in December 2012 after he was manipulated by the prisons' administration which promised to release him but didn’t, so he resumed his strike on January 17, 2013.