Israel votes in favor of controversial bill to force-feed hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners — RT News

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  • Israel votes in favor of controversial bill to force-feed hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners —
    RT News - Published time: July 07, 2015
    http://rt.com/news/272137-force-feeding-prisoners-israel

    Israeli politicians have voted to continue work on a bill to allow hunger-striking Palestinian prisoners to be force-fed. Opponents argue it’s meant to silence convicts through torture similar to the force-feeding in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

    The vote Monday night at the Knesset plenum passed with 53 in favor and 50 opposed. The controversial bill, which could be soon fast-tracked into law, would allow Israeli prisons commissioners to ask a court for an official permission to force-feed a prisoner when a doctor recommends doing so, should there be a risk of a grave deterioration in the prisoner’s health. The court in its turn will have to thoroughly analyze the prisoner’s mental state, the dangers of force-feeding via an enteral tube, as well as the prisoner’s stance on the matter, among other issues. If the request is given the green light by the court, the prisoner can be fed against his will, while a prison guard is allowed to resort to physical force to feed the prisoner.

    The Israel Medical Association (IMA) has been strongly opposing the controversial bill, along with the American Medical Association, the British Medical Association, and the International Committee of the Red Cross, just to name a few.

    “Force-feeding of hunger strikers is considered to be a form of torture,” the IMA says, stating that the World Medical Association’s (WMA) 1975 Tokyo Declaration prohibiting the participation of doctors in the practice of torture also prohibits doctors’ involvement in force-feeding.