According to Amnesty International, the human rights defender has faced persistent harassment by the Israeli authorities since 2002, including action to revoke his Jerusalem residency status and ongoing administrative detention since 7th March 2022,  based on “secret information”.

As punishment for his 19-day hunger strike which began on 25th September 2022 alongside 29 other Palestinian detainees, he spent 15 days in solitary confinement in a dirty, small, pest-infested and windowless cell.

Since 2000, authorities have detained Salah Hammouri multiple times, including twice when he was placed under administrative detention – for five months in 2004 and for 13 months in 2017 and 2018.UN human rights experts say Israeli authorities have targeted Mr. Hammouri during the past 20 years with harassment, arbitrary arrest and detention, and other forms of abuse.

Acts of retaliation against him intensified after he became a human rights defender and lawyer defending and advocating for prisoners’ rights with Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, one of the six Palestinian civil society organisations that Israel has designated as “terrorist”.

According to Amnesty, Mr. Hammouri has faced pressure by Israeli prison officials, who told him that if he accepted to leave his hometown – Jerusalem – and go to France, this detention would end.

According to Addameer, as of 10 October 2022, there were around 800 Palestinian administrative detainees, including two women and six children.

Mark Seddon, former speech writer for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon & Al Jazeera English’s first UN Correspondent, is live with two very special guests: Francesca Albanese – United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. Leah Tsemel – Human Rights Lawyer and Legal Representative of Salah Hammouri.