11 October 2010 | Stella, International Solidarity Movement
The international activists that were arrested at the demo on Saturday witnessed a 25 years old Palestinian, with mental problems, while he was extorted the confession that he was throwing stones. However he had been arrested at the very beginning of the demonstration when no one was throwing stones yet.
The other three Palestinians, all minors, were treated very violently: they had plastic restraints so tightly around their wrists that their hands were swollen. They were blindfolded and forced to kneel down and one of the younger ones was violently pushed with his head against the wall.
The international activists repeatedly asked for a doctor but the soldiers refused to call one and said the effect of the spray only would last 20 minutes. Since the effects only get worst with water, the four international activists asked to have some milk do clean themselves but the soldiers arrogantly answered that they had no cows there.
Then they were separated to be interrogated. One of the questions that the peace activists had to answer was “Why are you here?”.
One of them said that she was taking pictures of the occupation. The soldiers answered back that there is no occupation because all Palestine is part of Israel.
Three of the internationals came back late at night after ten hours in a prison. One of them, the Irish activist, was not released and had to face a trial on the 10th, in Jerusalem. The trial was quite fast as the judge just decided that the Irish activist would stay in jail till the 12th when he would have to go back to court. It seems that he had admitted that he had broken the condition they had given to him when they arrested him a couple of weeks ago at another demonstration in Beit Ummar. In fact he was supposed to stay at least 200 meters away from the settlements.
On the 12th he was moved to a detention center near Tel Aviv waiting to be deported the day after.