Last update - 13:50 20/04/2005
Prisons Service relaxes solitary for pro-Palestinian activist Fahima
By Yuval Azoulay, Haaretz Correspondent
The Prisons Service said Wednesday that it has relaxed the terms of solitary confinement for pro-Palestinian activist Tali Fahima, allowing her to meet other prisoners for two hours a day.
Prisons Service officials told the Ramle Magistrate's Court that they had also decided to allow Fahima, who has been in complete isolation in the Neve Tirze women's prison in the city, to see her mother and her lawyer, Dina Smadar Ben-Natan, without a glass divider between them.
Fahima was arrested on August 10 on suspicion of involvement with the military arm of Fatah in Jenin, after having spent time in the company of Zakharia Zubeidi, commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the northern West Bank city.
The decision to ease Fahima's prison conditions was made before a formal discussion of her lawyer's request to take her out of solitary confinement.
A hearing will be held in late June on Fahima's request to use telephones.
"I hope very much that there won't be any need for another deliberation at the end of June and that Tali will receive everything she requested," said Ben-Natan. "She is very pleased about the alleviation [in the terms of her confinement] and feels well."
Last month Fahima asked Tel Aviv District Court to bar the Prisons Service commissioners from granting any information about her to the media, saying that her privacy and dignity were being harmed.
Fahima said in her appeal that the media had reported that she told the wardens "Itbah al-yahud," Arabic for "Slaughter the Jews."
Fahima requested that disciplinary measures be taken against those responsible.