Year: 2012 - Page 73 - International Solidarity Movement

Palestinian activist to judge: I do not recognize your rules

20 February 2012 | Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Bassem Tamimi from Nabi Saleh testified yesterday as part of the defense’s case in the ongoing trial against him. Tamimi, suspected of protest related charges, was arrested on March last year, and remains in detention since.

After 11 months in an Israeli jail, Bassem Tamimi, a prominent Palestinian activist from Nabi Saleh, was given a chance to plead his case before the military court in regards to the allegations against him, denying them in full while owning up to his and his village’s struggle against the Occupation and the theft of their lands. Tamimi, who was recognized by the European Union as a human rights defender last year, said, “International law gives us the right to peaceful protest, to demonstrate our refusal of the policies that hurt us, our daily life and the future of our children”.

Media contact: Jonathan Pollak +972-54-632-7736

Tamimi began his testimony by telling of his past experience in Israeli prisons and interrogation rooms. He recounted how he was tortured so badly by the Israeli Shin Bet in 1993 that he suffered a severe Intracranial hemorrhage which left him unconscious for a week and partially paralyzed.

He then continued to explain the reason behind the Nabi Saleh protests, saying “I do not know and do not care if they are permitted by your law, as it was enacted by an authority I do not recognize”. He narrated how the settlers from the nearby Halamish continuously took over lands belonging to his village since the 1970s abetted by the army and how, when villagers tried to prevent the latest attempts to seize their lands, the Israeli army exerted repression tactics against them. “Every time we try to help them work the land, before we reach it, they disperse us using rubber bullets, tear gas and using excessive force. This is what happens every Friday”, he said.

Based on coerced statements extracted unlawfully by the Israeli police from two minors, Tamimi is charged with organizing his village of 500 people in a formation of 11 battalions and assigning them different roles during the demonstrations. When asked of his reply to the charges against him Tamimi answered:

This is ridiculous and makes no sense, how stupid would I be to try and organize a 500 people village in 11 battalions […] If indeed there were such battalions how come the Shin Bet or anyone else did not continue the investigation and arrests after mine was carried out? No one continued to look into this issue to try and dismantle this ‘army’ of mine…True justice would not have me stand here before this court at all, let alone while I am imprisoned and shackled. This case is baseless and made up with the sole goal of putting me behind bars…

During the course of Tamimi’s trial, new evidence has emerged, including proof of systematic violations of Palestinian minors’ rights during police interrogations (see video below) as well as first hand verification given by a military commander of disproportional use of force by the army in response to peaceful demonstrations.

Legal background

On March 24th, 2011, a massive contingent of Israeli Soldiers raided the Tamimi home at around noon, only minutes after he entered the house to prepare for a meeting with a European diplomat. He was arrested and subsequently charged.

The main evidence in Tamimi’s case is the testimony of 14 year-old Islam Dar Ayyoub, also from Nabi Saleh, who was taken from his bed at gunpoint on the night of January 23rd. In his interrogation the morning after his arrest, Islam alleged that Bassem and Naji Tamimi organized groups of youth into “brigades”, charged with different responsibilities during the demonstrations: some were allegedly in charge of stone-throwing, others of blocking roads, etc.

During a trial-within-a-trial procedure in Islam’s trial, motioning for his testimony to be ruled inadmissible, it was proven that his interrogation was fundamentally flawed and violated the rights set forth in the Israeli Youth Law in the following ways:

The boy was arrested at gunpoint in the dead of night, during a violent military raid on his house.
Despite being a minor, he was denied sleep in the period between his arrest and questioning, which began the following morning and lasted over 5 hours.
Despite being told he would be allowed to see a lawyer, he was denied legal counsel, although his lawyer appeared at the police station requesting to see him.
He was denied his right to have a parent present during his questioning. The testimony of one of his interrogators before the court suggests that he believes Palestinian minors do not enjoy this right.
He was not informed of his right to remain silent, and was even told by his interrogators that he “must tell of everything that happened.”
Only one of four interrogators who participated in the questioning was a qualified youth interrogator.

The audio-visual recording of another central witness against Tamimi, 15 year-old Mo’atasem Tamimi, proves that he too was questioned in a similarly unlawful manner.

The audio-visual recording of another central witness against Tamimi, 15 year-old Mo’atasem Tamimi, proves that he too was questioned in a similarly unlawful manner and was led to believe that implicating others, may earn him a more lenient treatment. The boy was told, numerous times,

Tell us what happened […] and who in the village incited youto throw stones. […] (shouting) you were incited! You…. you are a young boy, Incited by people. Grownups, we know. It’s the grownups who incite you, right?

Since the beginning of the village’s struggle against settler takeover of their lands in December of 2009, the army has conducted more than 80 protest related arrests. As the entire village numbers just over 500 residents, the number constitutes approximately 10% of its population.

Tamimi’s arrest corresponds to the systematic arrest of civil protest leaders all around the West Bank, as in the case of the villages Bil’in and Ni’ilin.

In a recent, nearly identical case, the Military Court of Appeals has aggravated the sentence of Abdallah Abu Rahmah from the village of Bilin, sending him to 16 months imprisonment on charges of incitement and organizing illegal demonstrations. Abu Rahmah was released on March 2011.

The arrest and trial of Abu Rahmah has been widely condemned by the international community, most notably by Britain and EU foreign minister, Catherin Ashton. Harsh criticism of the arrest has also been offered by leading human rights organizations in Israel and around the world, among them B’tselem, ACRI, as well as Human Rights Watch, whichdeclared Abu Rahmah’s trial unfair, and Amnesty International, which declared Abu Rahmah a prisoner of conscience.

Personal Background
Bassem Tamimi is a veteran Palestinian grassroots activist from the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, north of Ramallah. He is married to Nariman Tamimi, with whom he fathers four children – Wa’ed (14), Ahed (10), Mohammed (8) and Salam (5).

As a veteran activist, Tamimi has been arrested by the Israeli army 11 times to date, though he was never convicted of any offense. Tamimi spent roughly three years in administrative detention, with no charges brought against him. Furthermore, his attorney and he were denied access to “secret evidence” brought against him.

In 1993, Tamimi was falsely arrested on suspicion of having murdered an Israeli settler in Beit El – an allegation of which he was cleared of entirely. During his weeks-long interrogation, he was severely tortured by the Israeli Shin Bet in order to draw a coerced confession from him. During his interrogation, and as a result of the torture he underwent, Tamimi collapsed and had to be evacuated to a hospital, where he laid unconscious for seven days. As a result of the wounds caused by torture, Tamimi was partially paralyzed for several months after his release from the hospital.

At the opening of his trial on June 5th, Tamimi pleaded “not guilty” to all charges against him, but proudly owned up to organizing protest in the village. In a defiant speech before the court he said, “I organized these peaceful demonstrations to defend our land and our people.” Tamimi also challenged the legitimacy of the very system which trys him, saying that “Despite claiming to be the only democracy in the Middle East you are trying me under military laws […] that are enacted by authorities which I haven’t elected and do not represent me.” (See here for Tamimi’s full statement).

The indictment against Tamimi is based on questionable and coerced confessions of youth from the village. He is charged with’ incitement’, ‘organizing and participating in unauthorized processions’,’ solicitation to stone-throwing’, ‘failure to attend legal summons’, and a scandalous charge of ‘disruption of legal proceedings’, for allegedly giving youth advice on how to act during police interrogation in the event that they are arrested.

The transcript of Tamimi’s police interrogation further demonstrates the police and Military Prosecution’s political motivation and disregard for suspects’ rights. During his questioning, Tamimi was accused by his interrogator of “consulting lawyers and foreigners to prepare for his interrogation”, an act that is clearly protected under the right to seek legal counsel.

As one of the organizers of the Nabi Saleh protests and coordinator of the village’s popular committee, Tamimi has been the target of harsh treatment by the Israeli army. Since demonstrations began in the village, his house has been raided and ransacked numerous times, his wife was twice arrested and two of his sons were injured; Wa’ed, 14, was hospitalized for five days when a rubber-coated bullet penetrated his leg and Mohammed, 8, was injured by a tear-gas projectile that was shot directly at him and hit him in the shoulder. Shortly after demonstrations in the village began, the Israeli Civil Administration served ten demolition orders to structures located in Area C, Tamimi’s house was one of them, despite the fact that part of the house was built in 1965 and the rest in 2005.

Closed shops, empty pockets: Israel’s policy of economic strangulation in Hebron

by Paige L

20 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

Walking down Shuhada Street in occupied Hebron (al-Khalil) is an eerie experience even during peek commercial hours in the rest of the city. Nearly empty streets are framed by rows of closed Palestinian shops, doors welded shut under Israeli military orders. Armed religious settlers walk freely through the streets, while Palestinian vehicular and pedestrian access is severely restricted. Signs in English and Hebrew assert a purely Jewish heritage in Hebron, telling a narrative that simultaneously erases the Palestinian history and rightful ownership, in an attempt to forge Israel’s illegal settlement in city center.

Palestinian shops have been forcefully closed by Israeli military due to illegal settler presence in Hebron.

The sight of closed shops is also common in the old city, as is the sound of young Palestinian children asking five shekels for the small tourist items they are selling from small plastic bags; perhaps beaded bracelets the color of the Palestinian flag or packs of chewing gum. Some are not selling anything but ask passersby to “give me one shekel.” Palestinians are a proud people, so the occurrence of begging, especially in the economic center of the southern West Bank, illustrates the extent of the economic devastation caused by Israeli policies.

Hebron is the largest city in the West Bank with a population of approximately 170,000 people. Known for its limestone, shoes, leather, dairy products, and glass blowing industry, Hebron is responsible for around one third of the West Bank’s GDP. Despite its reputation as a commercial hub, the city center of Hebron has suffered severe economic consequences since the closing of its main commercial artery, Shuhada Street in 1994. The closure followed the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre, when a far-right settler from the nearby illegal settlement of Kiryat Arba opened fire on a group of Palestinian Muslims at prayer, killing 29.

Since the Hebron Protocol of 1997, the city has been divided into two sections, H1, which is home to 140,000 Palestinians and under the control of the Palestinian Authority, and H2, inhabited by 30 ,000 Palestinians and 500 illegal Israeli settlers and under the control of the Israeli military. The H2 area includes Shuhada street, the Ibrahimi mosque, and the historic old city of Hebron.

Palestinian movement and economic activity is severely restricted in this area under an Israeli regime based on the “separation principle” – a policy of legal and physical separation for the benefit of the Israeli settlers at the expense of the Palestinian majority. These policies include the imposition of a number of permanent and temporary checkpoints, and the creation of a strip of road in the city center on which the movement of Palestinian vehicles is forbidden. Along Shuhada street Palestinian pedestrian access is forbidden as well. The closing of Shuhahda street is therefore a microcosm of a larger Israeli policy.

The economic consequences of closure have been devastating. A 2011 report by the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that more than 1,000 Palestinian homes in the city center had been vacated and over 1,800 commercial businesses shut down. According to a 2009 study by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), 77 percent of the Palestinians in Hebron’s Old City live below the poverty line. Though many shops were closed by military orders, a significant number have closed because the Israeli separation regime makes economic activity impossible.

Nawal Slemiah and her sister Leihla run a shop in the old city called the “Women in Hebron Cooperative” selling keffiyehs, and hand-embroidered dresses and bags made by local women from nearby villages to a dwindling number of foreign visitors. Though the store has managed to stay open despite crippling Israeli policies, being a shop-owner in the old city proves extremely difficult. Leihla points out that her customers have only one route open to them to reach her store, and must pass through checkpoints in order to shop there. Last year the military told her she must close her shop in 5 minutes for “security” reasons or she would be arrested. During the annual campaign to open Shuhada street, the Israeli military closed 3 shops, and threatened to close all shops near Bab al Baladia, the opening of the old city market. “If you support the demonstrations” she says, “they will close your shop.”

As the 2012 Open Shuhada Street campaign begins, it is important to remember the fight to re-open Shuhada is not about one street, but a larger Israeli policy of separation and the collective economic punishment of the residents of H2. It is about the right to live, work and move freely in the city center, basic human rights that have been routinely denied to Palestinians.

Paige L. is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Jewish settlers and policemen defile Aqsa Mosque, clash with Muslim worshipers

19 February 2012 | Palestine Information Center

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)– A group of Palestinian worshipers holding a vigil inside the Aqsa Mosque have fended off dozens of fanatic Jewish settlers who tried on Sunday morning to desecrate the Islamic holy site, and clashed with their police escorts.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GoxdHdIFzI&version=3&hl=en_US

The Israeli occupation policemen spread extensively throughout the Mosque and attempted to secure the settlers’ provocative entry. Three Israeli armed policemen were injured during the clashes with Palestinian worshipers.

According to news reports, violent confrontations are still ongoing between the Palestinians who attempt to protect the Mosque and the Israeli assailants.

The reports also said that dozens of Jewish settlers and policemen gathered near Al-Maghariba Gate, one of the Mosque’s doors, in an attempt to storm it.

Other Israeli soldiers were seen preventing the Palestinian young men and women under age 45 from entering the Aqsa Mosque to help their brothers under attack.

Several extremist Jewish groups spearheaded by a movement called the temple trustees incited recently their followers to storm the Aqsa Mosque to strengthen what they claimed to be the status of the temple.

In this regard, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum strongly denounced the repeated Jewish attacks on the Aqsa Mosque and the malicious intents to demolish it to establish an alleged temple on its ruins.

He added in a press release that Israel is waging a religious war on the Islamic holy sites in the occupied Palestinian land and this war is supported by the US which is the cause of all pains and sufferings inflicted on the occupied Palestinian people.

Barhoum urged the Muslim nation all over the world to rise and revolt for occupied Jerusalem and the Aqsa Mosque and move to confront the Jewish extremists’ attempts to harm the holy Mosque.

Kufr Qaddoum: 5 people injured in demonstration

by Veronica

17 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

In advance of last week’s regular demonstration in Kufr Qaddoum the Israeli military attempted to prevent it by turning off the electricity supply to the village from 4AM that morning. But it did not deter about 150 Palestinians from the village from marching up the road towards Qadumim. This week, the lights were on, and again the villagers were out in large numbers to make their peaceful protest, with international and Israeli solidarity activists marching alongside them.

Perseverance and resistance in Kufr Qaddoum - Click here for more images

The main focus of the protest is the opening of the road – a direct route that goes through the Qadumim settlement. Since this road was closed to villagers in 2003, they have had to drive or walk much further around the settlement. As well as taking more time and costing more, this road closure may also have caused fatalities – three people have died in ambulances denied permission to take the direct route to hospital in Nablus. There are other issues affecting the village too, including the theft of land by settlers.

Palestinian flags flew in the cold wind as the demonstration made its way through the village towards the line of Israeli soldiers. It was not long before the teargas started with the soldiers shooting it straight at the crowd at chest height. As people ran, several were injured due to being hit by tear gas canisters or from falls – not knowing whether to face the soldiers and watch for the tear gas being shot at them or to turn and run with their backs to it.

Thus began a running battle, with one side armed with tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and sound bombs and the other merely with their voices and stones from the ground. At one point the soldiers retreated right back to the illegal settlement, and the demonstrators made their way far down the road towards them, burning tyres and flying Palestinian flags. But shouts from lookouts indicated the soldiers were back and there was a sudden rush back into the village as the tear gas started again. This time the Israeli soldiers came right into the village using all the tools at their disposal to disperse the crowd.

At least five people were hit with tear gas canisters or steel coated rubber bullets, including one Israeli solidarity activist.

Afterwards, Murad Shtewi, a member of the organizing committee in Kufr Qaddoum, explained how the whole village is behind this and will not be intimidated by the Israelis.

They have been demonstrating every Friday since July 2011. Since then Israeli forces have raided the village almost every day and night and 11 young men between the ages of 18 and 33 have been arrested – merely for demonstrating.

“But,” he says “we will not stop our demonstrations until we fulfill our goal of opening the road. And we will do more demonstrations if the Israelis try to steal more of our land, as they did last week.”

Veronica is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).

Women Studies Center of Nablus: Women’s rights are Palestinian rights

by Jonas Weber

18 February 2012 | International Solidarity Movement, West Bank

“We rented this house since a year back,” says Randa Bashir as she looked around in the brightly lit meeting room at the Women Studies Centre in Nablus. Like most Palestinian houses it is designed to keep cool during the warmer time of the year rather than keeping warm during the winter and we keep our jackets on throughout the meeting.

Bashir, with a background as social worker and speech therapist, is the director of the Nablus branch of the Women Studies Centre. She has been active in the Palestinian womens movement since the 70’s and in 1977 she was sentenced to eight years in prison for her activism.

The Womens Studies Centre was founded by the organization Union of Women Action in 1978 with a branch in Jerusalem that to this day is the headquarter of the Centre with 10 employees. Except for the branches in Jerusalem and Nablus there is also a centre in Al Khalil (Hebron) with 2 employees. The activity is growing as Bashir stated:

Soon we will have a women’s library here. Many say that the national struggle most come first and that women’s struggle comes second. Here believe that the relation is more dialectic, that the struggles most be fought together. We have been an avante-garde for women’s rights in Palestine since the 70’s, many of our programs have eventually been implemented in broader society. At the same time we haven’t recieved any financial support from governments or institutions, except for the Swedish organization Woman to Woman.

“We are trying to build a female leadership within the Palestinian resistance movement.” said Randa Bashir as she went on to explain the four main programmes of the Women’s Studies Centre.

Through the programmes of the centre runs a thread of self organization and grass roots thinking. The people receiving help from
the centre often go on to help other people, and all programs are focused on empowering the ones in the most need of empowerment.

Through volontary work the centre funds the marginalized and poor students to empower children and adolescents on how
to protect themselves against sexual assault.

“We believe that young people play an important part in the process of achieving democracy. In Egypt and Tunisia the young took to the streets,” she said

Living under occupation means that the women of Palestine are subject o a combined opression, both as women and as Palestinians. To deal with this the centre offer trauma support for women who have been detained or who have lost loved ones to the Israeli occupation. The women who partake in these programs then go on to lead their own therapy groups.

The centre has also produced a series of books for children where classical gender roles are challenged. It can be something as simple as a coloring book with motives where girls are playing basketball or a scene where a father is cooking while his wife is reading a book. In a western society this might not seem very radical, but in a society were girls and boys go to separate schools the impact is obvious.

“Going to a mixed school made me a stronger woman,” said Bashir. “I learned not to be afraid of the boys and that they weren’t worth any more than me. In the Middle East we still have a lot of separation and discrimination between the sexes.”

When we asked about how it works to do this kind of radical work in such a conservative society Bashir lowered her voice and leaned forward.

“People are getting much more conservative since the first Intifada. They are afraid for the sake of their children and turn to religion
for answers. “

Before the first Intifada it was much more rare to see women wearing the hijab in Palestine then it is today, Randa explained. Even though the womens movement keeps gaining ground for their issues the movement has been taken in a religious context. Bashir went onto explain the cultural context of the hijab versus a religious one, promoting the ideal that women in the end, should always make their own choices without pressure.

Meanwhile many victories are being won by the Palestinian women’s movement. Over the years the taboo on speaking up about sexual assault has been lifted, and today it’s becoming more common to bring cases of rape and sexual violence to court. But there are no statistics as to how common these crimes are, and women face legal difficulty in seeking equality to men. For many years it has been less punishable to take the life of a cheating wife than a cheating man.

Randa Bashir proudly shows us the coloring books the centre has produced over the years. She seems incapable of ceasing to smile while she talks about her work. To keep up a never ending optimism through over 60 years of occupation is something that seems common for the people of Palestine. Laughter and smiles are never far away, even if repression is tightening or the tear gas canisters are hailing from the sky. Laughter kills the fear and in Randa Bashir I see a fearless and relentless human rights activist.

Jonas Wber is a volunteer with International Solidarity Movement (name has been changed).