Tibi visits hunger-striking Palestinian journalist

Joint List MK Ahmad Tibi visits Palestinian journalist Mohammed al-Qiq, who has been on hunger strike for 79 days to protest his detention by Israel.

Tibi says Qiq is in “poor health” and calls for his release.

Qiq, a 33-year-old father of two and a correspondent for Saudi Arabia’s Almajd TV network, was arrested on November 21 at his home in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

He is being held under Israel’s controversial administrative detention law, which allows the state to hold suspects for renewable six-month periods without trial.

He has been refusing food since November 25 in protest against the “torture and ill treatment that he was subjected to during interrogation,” according to Addameer, a Palestinian human rights organization.

Qiq was jailed for a month in 2003 and then for 13 months in 2004 for Hamas-related activities.

In 2008, he was sentenced to 16 months on charges linked to his activities on the student council at the West Bank’s Birzeit University.

Palestinian prisoner Mohammed Allan, 31, ended a two-month hunger strike in August last year after his detention was suspended.