Khalida Jarrar has spent a large part of her adult life being hauled in and out of Israeli prisons. Born in Nablus in 1963, she rose to prominence as a socialist, feminist and a politician with the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). For decades she has been a fierce advocate for Palestinian prisoners, heading the rights group Addameer while enduring the same system of administrative detention she campaigns against. Since the First Intifada (1988-93), Jarrar has been repeatedly imprisoned without charge or trial, spending nearly six years behind bars.
Her story is not only one of personal persecution but of collective punishment. ‘My targeting for imprisonment is part of a much wider, general targeting’ of the Palestinian population, she says, a system designed to make resistance, in any form, costly. During one spell in prison Jarrar was barred from attending the funeral of her youngest daughter Suha, who had died from a heart attack.
