Request: Allow prisoners minyan on Yom Kippur

Tuesday, October 8, 2019 13:59 On Tuesday, October 8, a matter of hours before the start of Yom Kippur, Honenu Attorney Adi Keidar sent an urgent letter to the acting chief of the Israel Prison Service, Commissioner Asher Vaknin, requesting that he intervene and allow Amiram Ben Uliel, who has been detained in connection with the Kfar Duma case, and an additional Jewish security prisoner to pray with a minyan and in a synagogue on Yom Kippur.
“The prisoner and the detainee (henceforth “the prisoners”) are classified as security prisoners and are imprisoned in high-security wings in isolation. Today, on the eve of Yom Kippur, I was informed that the prisoners are not expected to pray in a minyan on Yom Kippur, will not be able to hear the Torah reading, and will not be allowed access to a synagogue on the most holy day of the year. They are expected to remain in solitary on Yom Kippur,” wrote Keidar to Commissioner Vaknin.
Keidar concluded: “There is no need to go into detail about the importance and sanctity of Yom Kippur, and the genuine need to allow the prisoners to leave [their solitary cells] and go to synagogue to pray in a minyan. In light of the above, I request your urgent intervention in the matter.”
Ben Uliel (see here and here for details about his case) and the additional prisoner are imprisoned in solitary cells in a high-security wing of the Sharon Prison. The prisoners do not have access to a telephone, are not permitted to pray in a minyan and are allowed to leave their cells for only one hour every day, to walk in the prison yard while they are still isolated from every other prisoner. Honenu would like to point out that these are the most stringent prison conditions which prisoners receive in the Israel Prison Service.