The art of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners
By Lauren Gelfond Feldinger
Haaretz Daily Newspaper
►http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/the-art-of-solidarity-with-palestinian-prisoners.premium-1.515947
When Israeli artist Rafram Chaddad was held without charge for 170 days in solitary confinement in a Libyan jail in 2010, he spent the long and lonely hours building a chess set from the cardboard boxes used to deliver his meals.
Now, in solidarity with a Palestinian political cartoonist in Israeli custody since February, the former prisoner is exhibiting his prison artwork in the Israeli online art magazine Erev Rav, together with the works of 75 other Israeli artists.
The artists initially protested cartoonist Mohammad Sabaneh’s being denied due process. The Israeli military later said it arrested Sabaneh because of contact with “enemy elements” in Jordan, but many of the artists continue to believe that the real reason for his arrest was his drawings about Israel’s treatment of Palestinian prisoners. His imprisonment coincides with growing Palestinian clashes and prisoner hunger strikes protesting Israel’s detention policies.
