Category: Press Releases - Page 50 - International Solidarity Movement

South African educationist denied entry into Palestine

14th March 2013 Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Occupied Palestine

Well-known South African educationist and human rights activist, Dr Salim Vally, was today detained, interrogated and denied entry into Palestine by Israeli security forces when he attempted to enter the country from Jordan.

Dr Vally, director of the Centre for Education Rights and Transformation at the University of Johannesburg, was invited by the German foundation, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), to deliver a series of lectures in the West Bank focusing on the right to education and curriculum development.

He left Amman, Jordan, this morning on his way to Palestine but was stopped at the border and detained for five hours by Israeli border security. During this period he was interrogated, body-searched and humiliated before being ejected back to Jordan.

‘The most painful thing about the whole episode,’ said Vally, ‘was to witness the manner in which Palestinians returning to their homes – many older than my parents – were mistreated, harassed and humiliated by teenagers young enough to be their grandchildren. Even if I had wanted to, I could not prevent memories of the apartheid days overwhelming me with a vengeance.’

Salim said arrangements were being for him to deliver his lectures via video-conferencing from Amman over the next few days. ‘The Israelis do not realise that the spirit of Palestinian solidarity cannot be broken, just as the spirit of Palestinian resistance cannot be broken. Whether they deport us or imprison us, we will persevere. Palestinians call it sumud or steadfastness. It has sustained Palestinian resistance for six decades and it will see Palestinians being liberated from occupation, colonialism, apartheid and Zionist racist brutality. As we in South Africa know very well, no matter what obstacles the oppressors place in the way of the oppressed, they will make us more resolute and strengthen our commitment to make Israel a pariah state like apartheid South Africa was, through a campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS).’ Instead of demoralising him, Salim said, the experience only reminded him of infinitely worse plight that many Palestinians have to endure on a daily basis.

Salim is due to remain in Jordan for the period of his lecture tour, addressing Palestinian audiences from his Jordanian hotel room, and will return home to South Africa next week.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign condemns the deportation of Salim Vally but recognises that this simply reminds us of how Israel continually denies Palestinians freedom of movement, the right to education, the right to dignity and the right to return to their homes.

For more information, contact:
Dr Salim Vally – salimvally1@gmail.com
Tania Kassis Saadeh – +972 2 2982013 / 2982959
Mercia Andrews – 082 368 3429

ISM activist risks jail, pledges not to answer questions if stopped under Terror laws in the UK

11th March | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine

Tom Woodhead, an ISM activist who is currently being deported by Israeli immigration authorities, has pledged not to answer questions if British authorities attempt to misuse the Terrorism Act 2000 when he arrives at the airport in the UK. The British activist, is currently being deported by Israeli authorities after being arrested on the 1st of March by border police at a demonstration against Israel’s illegal colonial occupation of Palestinian land in Kafr Qaddum, a village in the West Bank.

Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act makes it an imprisonable offense in the UK not to provide information to the police if stopped at a port of entry and there is no right to representation by a lawyer. The act may only be used to ask questions with the aim of establishing whether a person is involved in terrorism or the preparation of acts of terrorism. However, two researchers from London based research organisation Corporate Watch were stopped under the act on their return from Palestine and questioned about their journalistic work, the work of the International Solidarity Movement and the international movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions.

The researchers were also questioned about their involvement with Smash EDO, an anti-arms trade campaign. Woodhead has also been involved in the campaign. He was part of a group of activists who broke into the Brighton factory of EDO-MBM Technology and, after barricading themselves inside, proceeded to damage around £200,000 worth of manufacturing equipment. Following a month-long trial in summer 2010, they were cleared of charges of criminal damage after satisfying the jury that they had lawful excuse to cause the damage because they were acting to prevent war crimes being carried out, as equipment manufactured by the company was then being used in the Israeli’s December 2008 to January 2009 shocking attack on the Gaza Strip.

Woodhead, in a statement given from Givon detention centre in Ramle, said that he would risk imprisonment by refusing to give information to the police if they attempt to misuse the act. He plans to say: “I have reasonable grounds to believe you only want to interrogate me about my involvement in political movements such as the International Solidarity Movement and various campaigns against the arms trade. None of these movements has any credible links to terrorism. I therefore believe the use of Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 is a gross misuse of police powers. I intend now to hold my silence in protest against such abuse of power.”

Is there Hope of Justice for a Palestinian family in Israel’s Courts?

Update on the 13th March 2013: The Supreme court will review the case of Ziad Jilani

After hearing an appeal presented on behalf of Moira Jilani, the widow of Ziad and their three daughters the Israeli Supreme Court Judges have decided that they wished to review all evidence in the case.

Ziad Jilani was killed by Israeli border policeman Maxim Vinogradov in 2010. According to eyewitnesses Maxim VInagrodov shot Ziad at point blank range in the head while Zaid had laying on the ground wounded after being shot in the back. Ziad was unarmed.

Family and friends holding posters in support of Ziad Jilani (Photo by ISM)

The State Prosecutor, who had previously not charged those who shot and killed Ziad, is now obliged to hand over all evidence to the Supreme Court by the 24^th of March. The Jilani family, was more optimistic after the hearing than they had been before.

Bilal Ziad’s brother stated said, “If the Israeli Supreme Court really looks at the evidence of this case, and if they still say there are no grounds to press charges against the officers who murdered Ziad, then it means Israel has no credibility at all. They rule by the law of the jungle.”

9th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Occupied Palestine

By ISM Media Office

On Wednesday (13 March) Moira Jilani and her three daughters will come face to face with their husband and father’s killer. Ziad Jilani’s widow and daughters seek justice for his killing by Israeli border policeman Maxim Vinogradov, for the third time.

“I am dreading facing them for my daughters”, says Moira, “I think I could face them myself but I’m afraid that when I see the pain in my daughters eyes it will kill me”. Her husband, Ziad, was killed three years ago by Maxim Vinogradov, an Israeli Magav (border police) officer who put his rifle to Ziad’s head and pulled the trigger three consecutive times while Ziad lay helplessly on the ground, having already been shot twice fleeing police shooting at him after he was involved in a car accident after a stone hit his truck.

Now, for the third time, the family is appealing to Israeli authorities to press charges against Ziad’s killer. On the 16th of January 2011 the case was closed by police internal investigations (Machash) for the first time, for “lack of evidence”.

In the following month, 15th of February 2011, the family submitted an appeal to then Israel Attorney General, Menachem Mazuz. Despite a confession by Vinogradov that he had shot Ziad at zero range when he was lying on the ground because of the initial gunshot wound, an autopsy report pointing to an a close range shooting, dozens of eyewitnesses who were also injured that day as a result of the incident and very clear changes in Vinogradov’s testimonies before and after the autopsy, Mazuz did not see fit to change. Machash’s decision to close the case.

With the help of the al-Mazaan Center for Human Rights, on January 4th 2012, the family submitted a second appeal. This time to the Israeli Supreme Court, demanding that the new state prosecutor, Yehuda Weinstein, bring criminal charges against Ziad’s murderers.

“After Weinstein [Israel’s current Attorney General] had all the evidence we had hope that he would press charges against the killers,” Moira recalls, “but after he decided not to do so for the third time, it is hard to have hope that the court will do justice.”

According to Yesh Din in 2012 the MPCID received 240 complaints and various reports of suspected crimes allegedly committed by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Out of these registered complaints, only 103- not even half- have yielded investigations. Not one single indictment has been served to date.

The organization commented on the findings: “The numerous defects in MPCID investigations of offenses against Palestinians and in the Military Advocate General Corps’ supervision of the investigations, result in the closure of the vast majority of the files and a minimal number of indictments being served. This creates a feeling of lawlessness on the ground, which may be a central contributing factor in the rise in the number of killings over recent weeks”.

Moira describes this sense of lawlessness, “I still have hope, but its hard when we see everything that’s happening around us,” she says, “my husband’s case is one of what seems to be a systematic sweeping under the rug of violent incidences of Israeli soldiers against the Palestinian population under their authority. We are not just going to court for Ziad Jilani. We are going to court for all the Palestinians killed before Ziad and those that will be killed thereafter.”

Palestinian protester dies of injury sustained on February 22

8th March 2013| Popular Struggle Coordination Committee

Muhammad Asfour, 23, was injured two weeks ago from rubber coated steel bullet in his head during a protest. His Funeral will take place after Friday noon prayer in Aboud. Since the beginning of 2013, six Palestinians were killed from soldiers’ shooting.

The medical staff of Echilov hospital declared today the death of Muhammad Asfour, 23, resident of the village of Aboud West of Ramallah, of injury sustained two weeks ago, after he was shot by Israeli soldiers during clashes that erupted during a protest at Aboud in support of Palestinian prisoners on hunger striker.

Mohammad Asfour — Funeral of Muhammad Asfour March 8th 2013 (Photo by: Oren Ziv/Activestills.org)

Asfour was shot on February 22^nd, with a rubber coated steel bullet in the head which settled in the brain. He was evacuated to Salfit hospital and then to Rafidya Hospital in Nablus. Few days later he was transferred to Echilov hospital in Tel Aviv in critical condition.

Asfour was 4^th year Physical Education student at Alquds University in Abu Dis and played football in the village’s team. Born on 9.3.1990, Asfour dies two days before celebrating his 23^rd birthday.

Asfour is the sixth Palestinian to die from Israeli soldiers shooting in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, (see B’Tselem report here), in addition to prisoner Arafat Jaradat who died two weeks ago in the Israeli prison “Megiddo”, six days after his arrest:

11 January 2013: Anwar al-Mamluk, 20, of a-Shuja’iyeh neighborhood, Gaza City, fatally shot by soldiers near the Gaza military perimeter fence

12 January 2013: ‘Udai Darwish, 21, of Dura, Hebron District, fatally shot by soldiers after crossing the Separation Barrier into Israel on his way to work

15 January 2013: Samir ‘Awad, 17, of the village of Budrus, Ramallah District, fatally shot by soldiers beside the Separation Barrier near Budrus

18 January 2013: Saleh al-‘Amarin, 15, of al-‘Aza Refugee Camp, Bethlehem District, fatally shot by soldiers in al-A’yda Refugee Camp

23 January 2013: Lubna al-Hanash, 21, of Bethlehem, fatally shot by soldiers near Route 60, by al-‘Arrub Refugee Camp

Palestinian still detained after he was shot in the head at peaceful demonstration

5th March 2013 | International Solidarity Movement, Hebron, Occupied Palestine

22 year old Ibrahim Saadi is still being held at Ofer Prison in Ramallah after being shot in the head close range by a rubber bullet and arrested during a peaceful demonstration in Hebron on Friday.
His brother told us he had recieved a number of stitches on his head before being transferred to Ofer.

Ibrahim Saadi with wounds to head being dragged down street by soldiers

The peaceful protest organised in remembrance of the Abraham mosque massacre in 1994 was broken up by tear gas and stun grenades in Hebron on Friday. Many parts of Hebron have been shut off to palestinians since the massacre, including Shuhada Street which was once a busy commercial area.
The demonstration was organised by Hebron Defence League and was attended by Palestinian, Israeli and International activists who sat down on the road close to the gate which blocks access to Shuhada street. Soldiers threw tear gas canisters and sound grenades at the demonstrators causing many to disperse.

When the remaining demonstrators regrouped, they were prevented from moving anywhere else by a line of soldiers. Soldiers attempted to take the megaphone of one activist but was blocked by both Israeli and International activists.

Not long after the demonstration ended , 22 year old Ibrahim Sa`adi was dragged unconscious down the street by a group of soldiers with his face covered in blood. According to several eyewitnesses including his brother, Ibrahim was shot at close range with a rubber bullet. His eight year old sister saw the entire scene and was left in shock.
After the news of Sa`adi`s arrest spread , clashes erupted around bab al zawiya area of Hebron. Dozens of demonstrators were injured , including one international, as the army fired rubber coated steel bullets, tear gas, stun grenades and live ammunition. The clashes continued until after sunset.

Israeli Occupation Forces stand in between peaceful demonstrators

Earlier that morning 19 year old Abdel Basset was arrested by soldiers in Tel Rumeida A witness who filmed the arrest was made to delete the video by the soldiers.

Ibrahim Saadi is dragged down the street unconscious by soldiers

By Team Khalil