Palestinian girls nurture 'Flower' magazine behind bars
Two years ago, a small group of teenage Palestinian girls created a secret magazine inside their Israeli prison. Now, they hope to revive it.
Despite tight controls and risk of heavy punishment, a group of Palestinian girls in Israel’s Hasharon Prison managed to publish a magazine to tell their story from behind bars, and they now hope to revive it.
The magazine was the brainchild of Mona Qa’adan, a now-released prisoner from Jenin. “I came up with the idea of a magazine when I noticed that some of the minor prisoners have a talent for writing and drawing,” she told Al-Monitor. When she approached them with the idea, the girls agreed to write about their opinions, feelings, what they faced during their arrests and how they spend their time in prison. Qa’adan was released before its first edition came out, but the inmates managed to smuggle out a copy and give it to her. She still holds on to this prized possession two years later.
They decided to call the magazine “Zahrat,” which means "flower" in Arabic; it is the name given to girls in Israeli prisons. They have managed to produce 15 hand-written issues. The first issue, dated Sept. 22, 2016, was 12 pages long. The last, with 34 pages, came out on Dec. 29, 2017. Eight copies were smuggled out of central Israel's Hasharon Prison, recently in the news because Ahem Tamimi, the Palestinian teen who slapped an Israeli soldier, was jailed there.
Even now, the team is secretive about how they smuggled the copies out of the prison. “We have several successful ways to do so,” Qa’adan told Al-Monitor.
