The more than 100 prisoners in the Acre jail who have been arrested for illegal entry into Palestine, today entered upon their third day of hunger striking, making the strike complete by rejecting even water.
The strike, undertaken as a protest against protracted delays in their trials, is attracting tremendous attention throughout the country. Newspaper offices are besieged by crowds demanding action on the part of the Jewish Agency, the representative Jewish body. The judicial committee of the Jewish Community Council is also bombarded with demands by Jewish crowds that action be taken with the government to end the unlawful prolongation of imprisonment of those under arrest and thus end the hunger strike.
PETITION WAUCHOPE
Several Jewish delegations today visited the authorities at Acre and at Jerusalem. A delegation of Jewish leaders is also intervening with the High Commissioner for Justice for the striking prisoners.
The Palestine press devotes long articles to descriptions of the tragedy of the prisoners, who have been held for a long time without trial. The newspapers accuse the Palestine authorities of acting unlawfully by keeping in prison even such immigrants as have been recommended by the court to be permitted to remain in the country.
Many of the prisoners who are still in jail have long served the terms to which they have been sentenced for illegal entry. The government cannot deport them, however, because they entered the country without passports and refuse to disclose the lands of their origin, to which they would have to be deported. The majority are men without countries, holding documents which would not permit them to re-enter any country.
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