Sixty-eight Bangladeshi women rights activists have condemned the silence and complicity of mainstream western feminists over sexual abuse and torture of Palestinians in Israeli prisons.
‘We strongly condemn the silence and complicity of the many mainstream western feminists over the documented rape, sexual abuse and torture of Palestinian prisoners committed primarily by members of the Israel Defence Forces, Israel Prison Service guards, and other security personnel operating in detention facilities,’ said a statement sent to the media by writer Rahnuma Ahmed and journalist Saydia Gulrukh on Sunday.
Reports from international human rights organisations, legal advocates and journalists have made it clear that women, men and also children, have been subjected to systematic rape and sexual torture, dehumanisation and humiliation in Israeli prisons, mentioned the statement.
Investigations commissioned by the United Nations and others conducted by B’Tselem, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, and Physicians for Human Rights contain victim testimonies that provide irrefutable evidence of Palestinians being kept in cage-like enclosures, stripped naked, the filming of acts of sexual humiliation, of being tied to beds, deprived of food, water, sleep, and medical care, and being subjected to rape, gang rape, sexual assault, electrocution of the genitals, cigarette burns, dog attacks, waterboarding, suspension by limbs, and loud music until the ears of the prisoners bleed, it described.
The statement said that many mainstream western feminist organisations, public figures and their allies had chosen to remain silent despite several reports from various sources regarding such sexual abuse and torture.
The continued refusal of mainstream western feminists to condemn Israel’s state-sanctioned rape and sexual torture because the victims are Palestinian exposed the racialised hierarchy of their politics, it said.
‘A feminism that speaks loudly about gender-based violence elsewhere but refuses to acknowledge Israeli crimes is not feminism. It is complicity,’ the statement mentioned.
Condemning such silence, those Bangladeshi activists in the statement also strongly condemned Israeli sexual torture and state violence.
‘We stand firmly with the Palestinian people and demand accountability for every act of torture, rape, and abuse committed under Israeli detention. Silence is nothing else but condoning the execution of war crimes,’ it ended.
Signatories to the statement included Nijera Kori coordinator Khushi Kabir, Dhaka University teachers Gitiara Nasreen, Samina Luthfa and Moshahida Sultana, politicians Taslima Akhter and Shima Dutta, singer Farzana Wahid Shayan, University Press Limited managing director Mahrukh Mohiuddin, ethnic minority rights activist Monty Chakma, human rights defender Rozyna Begum and activist Marzia Prova.
