On Prisoners' Day, Malaysia Listens To A Palestinian Who Was Inside

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A freed Palestinian prisoner will be among the speakers at an online seminar held in conjunction with Palestinian Prisoners’ Day on Friday (17 April).

Abu Munir — whose full name is Abdulatif Hamada — was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to 12 life sentences plus 20 years, one of the heaviest sentences handed to a Palestinian detainee, before being released on 25 January, 2025, as part of the ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal that followed the 7 October attacks.

He holds a Master’s Degree in Islamic Studies from the College of Da’wah Islamic Studies in Beirut, Lebanon, and spent 23 years in Israeli detention — emerging, by his own account, with his convictions intact and his resolve unbroken.

The seminar is organised by the Legal Coalition for Support Al-Quds and Palestine – Malaysia, together with the Centre for Human Rights Research and Advocacy (Centhra) and the Justice Forum Against Genocide, based in Istanbul, Turkiye.

Other speakers include Perikatan Nasional’s (PN) Kapar MP and Deputy Chair of the International Relations Committee in Parliament, Dr Halimah Ali, Palestinian Centre of Excellence Executive Director, Professor Emeritus Dr Awaludin Mohamed Shaharoun, Qatar University Assistant Professor (Department of International Affairs) Dr Adeeb Ziyada, and Malaysian Consultative Council of Islamic Organisations (MAPIM) president Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid.

As of April, Israel holds approximately 10,400 Palestinians in prisons, including 8,032 detained on security grounds.

That number now carries a darker weight: on 30 March, Israel’s Knesset passed a law mandating the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of terrorism, approved 62 votes to 48 and backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a move that drew immediate condemnation from human rights groups and triggered protests in Gaza on the very day it was signed.

Every year on 17 April, Palestinians and their supporters around the world mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day — a reminder that behind the conflict’s bigger headlines, thousands of men, women and children remain locked in Israeli prisons.

The day has been observed since 1974, not as a symbolic gesture, but as a sustained push to expose detention conditions and hold Israel accountable under international law.

Friday’s seminar will dig into three of the sharpest pressure points: the situation at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the treatment of Palestinian women in detention, and how imprisonment is used as a tool to break civilian resolve.

Malaysia has long stood on the right side of this issue — but solidarity means more when it’s informed.

Most Malaysians know the headlines; fewer know what happens behind the walls of Israeli detention facilities.

On Friday, from 9 pm to 11 pm, a man who was actually inside one will speak online directly to a Malaysian audience.

He will be joined by a sitting MP, academics and human rights lawyers who have spent years documenting what the mainstream news cycle rarely covers in full.

This is not a protest or a petition — it is two hours of testimony, legal analysis and firsthand account, open to anyone with an internet connection.

That kind of access doesn’t come around often.

Registration is open at https://forms.gle/ZNBt2E1pxrE5S9n6A.

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