Asia Pacific Report
New Zealand protesters in Tamaki Makaurau today heralded a global demand for the freedom of thousands of Palestinians who have been unlawfully imprisoned by Israel in its illegal occupation of Palestine.
Today is the Red Ribbon Campaign’s global day of solidarity for Palestinian hostages or political prisoners.
It is the culmination of the Red Ribbon campaign that has been running globally for several weeks.
- READ MORE: Red Ribbon Day 31 January 2026
- Israel kills 29, including several children, in new Gaza ceasefire breach
- Other Gaza reports
At the time of the so-called Gaza “ceasefire” declared on October 10, Israel was reported to be holding a record 11,100 Palestinians hostage, mostly innocent and without charge or due process.
In exchange for the final 20 Israeli hostages still alive held by Hamas and other resistance groups at the time of the ceasefire, almost 2000 Palestinian prisoners were freed by Israel.
This leaves more than 9100 prisoners — 400 of them children and 3544 of them held under “administrative detention” — yet to be freed.
Speaking at the solidarity rally in Ta Komititanga Square today, Palestinian academic and theatre practitioner Associate Professor Rand Hazou highlighted how Israel was the only country in the world to detain children under military law and military courts.
Denied access to parents, lawyers
“According to UNICEF, Palestinian child detainees are denied access to their parents and lawyers. They are often arrested in the middle of the night, blindfolded and beaten, threatened with torture and denied food and sleep,” he said.
“Palestinian detainees, including children, are forcibly transferred outside the occupied the Palestinian territory in contravention of Article 4 of the Geneva Convention relative to the protection of children and civilian persons at the time of war.”
His comments were greeted with cries of “shame” by the crowd.
Dr Hazou also criticised the practice of mainstream media in referring to the Israeli prisoners being held by the Gaza resistance fighters as “hostages” while the Palestinians were described as “prisoners”.
This was a “quite deliberate” policy by the media to imply innocence of the Israeli hostages, while suggesting guilt by the Palestinian detainees — “who are also actually hostages”.
Former trade union advocate Mike Treen condemned the inhumane practice of administrative detention and blamed it on the British colonial administration for introducing it during the Palestine mandate prior to 1948.
Administrative detention means that those detainees have not been charged with an offence. Some of them have been detained for between one and two years, with the period of time extended repeatedly — and indefinitely — so that prisoners and their families never know when they will be freed.
Persecution of Palestinians
Amnesty International has found that Israel systematically uses administrative detention as a tool to persecute Palestinians.
Treen also condemned the global “billionaire classes” for their exploitation.
“Billionaires monopolise everything they can so that they can extort rents out of us at any price.
“The rich north countries are also the old imperialist countries and we are reverting back from the neocolonial pretence that it doesn’t exist to more open forms of it today.”
Speaking in her personal capacity, Red Ribbon campaigner Audrey van Ryn cited the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
“When people are found guilty of a crime, what usually happens is that they go to court for a trial and a judge will decide how they should be punished,” she said.
Prisoner rights
However, people who were who sent to prison for a crime had rights under the Universal Declaration, including:
Article 5: No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
Article 9: No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
Article 10: Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.
Article 11 (1): Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
“Some states abuse these rights of prisoners,” van Ryn said.
“Some states detain people who have not even been charged with an offence. One of these states is Israel.”
Illegal colonisation
According to a Spheres of Influence article about under reported crimes against humanity, “For 77 years, indigenous Palestinians have lived under Israel’s illegal colonisation of their own land, a regime that controls every aspect of their lives.
“One of the occupation’s most brutal tools of control is the mass abduction of Palestinians, where men, women, and children are taken hostage and imprisoned to shatter communities and crush their struggle for freedom.
“Human rights organisations describe these prisons as a ‘grave for the living’.
The first thing some of the recently released Palestinians said was a desperate plea:
“Save what remains of the hostages. If you die once a day, we die a thousand times.”
The article also alleged that since 1948, Israeli occupation forces (IDF) had arrested more than 1 million Palestinians.
“Almost every Palestinian family has lived through the trauma of a loved one kidnapped, interrogated, and disappeared into prison.”
Among high profile cases of injustice against Palestinians are:
- Marwan Barghouti, a popular leader regarded as “Palestine’s Mandela”, who was imprisoned by Israel in 2004 for life on trumped up charges.
- Dr Hussam Abu Safiya is a Palestinian paediiatrician who was born in Jabalia Refugee Camp and became director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza. His hospital was bombed in December 2024 and he was seized as a prisoner. He has been held without charge by Israel in Ofer Prison since then, assaulted and tortured.
Red Cross plea to visit jails
Calls have been made by the UN and human rights experts for the release of women, children, and elected representatives, detained for activities resisting the occupation.
Resolutions have also called for allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit prisons.
Earlier today, about 3000 people took part in a rally and march in central Auckland with the theme Toitū te Aroha, a celebration of cultural diversity and immigration.
This was a counter protest to one staged by the Destiny Church with 700 people in Victoria Park condemning immigration, but a police cordon prevented the protesters led by self-styled pastor Brian Tamaki marching on to Auckland Harbour Bridge.
