Ras Mubarak wants Israeli Amb. summoned over detained pregnant Ghanaian woman

Kumbungu MP Ras Mubarak has made calls for the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana to be summoned over the detention of a pregnant Ghanaian woman in Israel.

The woman, Josephine Kwabiwaa, 32, is reported to have been in detention in Israel prisons for four months.

According to media reports, the woman has been in isolation for failing to be tested for tuberculosis.

She had expressed fears the test which includes X-rays may harm her unborn baby due to the radiation.

Speaking in an interview on Starr FM monitored by theghanareport.com, the minority MP said the Israeli Ambassador to Ghana, H. E. Shani Cooper has some questions to answer.

“The Israeli ambassador should be summoned to provide some explanations to this” the Member of Parliament said.

The Kumbungu MP believes the Israeli authorities have deliberately confined the pregnant woman in order to compel her to bow to their requests to have the test performed on her, describing the nation’s actions as unfair.

“This is the worst thing any nation can do to any vulnerable person. And that is why I implore the Ghanaian authorities to immediately intervene to have our Ambassador in Israel go and have the condition of the Ghanaian woman and to seek her immediate release from such inhumane treatment” he said.

The World Medical Association and the United Nations both condemn placing pregnant women in isolation due to the potential hurt to their physical and mental health as well as the foetus.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) has already demanded that Kwabiwaa be moved from isolation so she can receive proper medical care.

“For four months, no one on the Israel Prison Service’s medical staff who met Josephine alerted anyone about the harm that could be caused to her as a result of her isolation or demand that it end,” Anat Lidvin, Director of the Physicians for Human Rights’ Department for Prisoners said.

Lidvin also told Israeli newspaper, Haaretz that “this case shows how the Israel Prison Service violates the rights of prisoners and endangers their health and lives.