Tag: Bridget Chappell

ISM apartment in Hebron broken into – Israeli Intelligence Services suspected

International Solidarity Movement

3rd May 2010

In the early hours of the morning on Saturday 1st May, the International Solidarity Movement’s Hebron apartment was broken into. Laptops, video cameras, photo memory cards and USB flash drives were stolen. Cash and credit cards that had been left in the apartment were not taken.

Similar items were taken by the Israeli military when they twice raided the ISM office in Ramallah in February of this year.

ISM activist Beatrice Smith says, “It seems likely that this was Shin Bet [the Israeli Intelligence Service]. Our neighbours have told us twice in the past week or so that soldiers have been coming up to our apartment when we’re out and they’ve been looking through the windows. If it was a normal robber, why would they have left cash and credit cards, but taken USB sticks and memory cards? This person wanted information, not money”.

Ms Smith’s argument is supported by a recent affidavit from Shin Bet to the Israeli High Court of Justice. In it, they admit that they have been keeping close surveillance on ISM activist Bridget Chappell, seemingly for the past several months.

Smith says, “It is clear from the surveillance and arrest of our activists, from the previous raids on our office in Ramallah, and now from the break-in here in Hebron that the Israeli authorities are determined to do all they can to stop us working here. They know that we’re non-violent, but they are scared because they don’t want the outside world to know what they are doing here. Anybody who comes here to bear witness to the occupation is a threat to them”.

Israel defends right to arrest foreigners in West Bank

Chaim Levinson | Ha’aretz

24 March 2010

The state argued Tuesday that the Israel Defense Forces has as the right to make arrests in Area A on the basis of a 1970 order that does not allow unauthorized persons to stay there for more than 48 hours without permission from the military commander.

The state made the argument in Tel Aviv District Court in defense of the decision to arrest Ariadna Jove Marti and Bridget Chappell, two international activists, in Bir Zeit near Ramallah last month.

Marti, who is from Spain, and Chappell, from Australia, were arrested on February 7 in Area A, which is under full Palestinian control. They were arrested and were immediately to be expelled from Israel but an appeal to the Supreme Court resulted in their release.

In court Tuesday, attorney Omer Shatz and Yiftah Cohen argued in their appeal that the State of Israel has no authority over civilian matters in Area A, and therefore the arrest of the two activists was illegal – and they must be allowed back into Ramallah.

For its part, the state said that Marti and Chappell belong to the International Solidarity Movement, an organization “that supports an ideology that is anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian and universally revolutionary.”

The state maintained: “The organization’s activists are involved in activities against the security forces in areas of friction in Judea and Samaria and East Jerusalem.”

The two were “taking advantage of their tourist visas so they could participate in demonstrations in areas of friction,” the state argued.

During deliberations earlier this week before Judge Oded Mudrik, representatives of the Shin Bet asked to present classified information on the two activists. The judge rejected the request and said the material was “irrelevant” to the decision to expel the two, as their activity does not pose a security threat.

At a later stage, the state presented a military order from May 1970 that allows entry into Judea and Samaria but forbids making the area a place of residence, temporary or permanent, or for more than 48 hours “unless the military commander permits this personally.”

The state argued that the two activists were not given such permission.

In its response the state did not answer to the argument that Bir Zeit is in Area A.

Mudrik ordered the expulsion delayed by a further seven days so the two can appeal against the order to the Supreme Court.

ISM activists to face first hearing, Supreme Court rules arrests illegal

19 March 2010

International Solidarity Movement

For immediate release:

The Israeli Supreme Court handed down its verdict last week regarding the arrest of International Solidarity Movement activists Bridget Chappell and Ariadna Jove Marti from Ramallah on February 7. The decision ruled that the arrests were illegal, but refrained from further comment on which Israeli department was responsible. Chappell and Marti’s first hearing in the Tel Aviv District Court regarding their deportation orders will take place at 3pm this coming Monday, March 22. The illegality of their arrests will be pursued in this case.

A panel of three judges’ decision issued last week declared that the arrest of Australian and Spanish nationals Chappell and Marti in Area A of the Palestinian Authority (under full Palestinian civilian and military control under the 1994 Oslo Accords) was illegal, but did not specify whether it was the military’s invasion of the ISM’s media office in Ramallah or the activists’ subsequent transferral to Oz Immigration Unit custody at Ofer military camp (still in the Occupied Territories, where immigration police hold no jurisdiction) was the condemnable issue. The judges stated that the case, opened on February 8, which saw the release of Chappell and Marti on bail, had now been exhausted in the Supreme Court and all remaining issues were to be pursued in Tel Aviv’s District Court.

Chappell and Marti’s lawyers Omer Shatz and Iftah Cohen filed an appeal in the District Court against the deportation orders that still apply to the activists, who are currently permitted to remain in Israeli until the end of legal proceedings.

“We will continue to press the issue of their arrest in the District Court, as we feel it was not sufficiently resolved in the Supreme Court case,” said Omer Shatz. “In addition to the appeal against the deportation orders and the bail conditions of their release, in the hopes that they can return to the West Bank.”

The activists were ordered to pay 3000NIS each for their release, in addition to the condition that they may not return to the West Bank thereafter. The condition, though not uncommon, highlights severe ironies in the Israeli authorities’ and court’s handling of the case in their removal from the Palestinian Authority to Israel, on charges of outstaying their Israeli visas and the subsequent order to remain in a country for which they hold no visa. The Palestinian Authority, under the Oslo Accords, has the jurisdiction to issue visas and handle issues of immigration within its own territory, but so far has never exercised this authority.

The first hearing of Chappell and Marti’s case in Tel Aviv’s District Court will be heard on March 22 at 3pm. The original date set for April was moved forward at the request of the prosecution, indicating a desire on the state’s part to remove the activists from the country as quickly as possible, considering the media attention they have gained since their release and the re-commencement of their solidarity work on the Israeli side of the Apartheid Wall. When asked if the activists may face deportation after this hearing, Shatz commented that “it’s unlikely, but there is a small chance the case may be thrown out after this hearing and Chappell and Marti’s deportation orders will be applicable to them immediately thereafter. It’s obvious that the state is keen to have them out of the country. We have the success of the Supreme Court verdict on our side, however.”

The activists regard the Supreme Court verdict as a victory and an important, if symbolic, step in the fight against Israel’s violation of national and international laws in its attempts to silence or remove those active against the occupation. “We must demonstrate to Israel that we will resist the crackdown on the popular resistance, and that we cannot be taken down so easily,” says Chappell. “On the ground, we have continued our work with Palestinian communities in East Jerusalem such as Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan. I’m steadfast in my resolution to remain here as long as I can, for the political ramifications of our case and to continue my role as an international activist in Palestine’s popular struggle.”

A force of 20 armed Israeli soldiers invaded the ISM’s Ramallah office on February 7 in a night raid operation, arresting Chappell and Marti, who were then subjected to interrogation and detention in Givon deportation prison. Almost one month before, ISM media co-ordinator Eva Novakova was kidnapped from her Ramallah apartment in a similar raid and deported to the Czech Republic. Novakova’s lawyers have since successfully obtained a verdict from the Israeli courts that this operation was illegal. Israeli attempts to deport foreigners involved with Palestinian solidarity work are part of a recent campaign to end Palestinian grassroots demonstrations, which involves mass arrests of Palestinian protesters and organizers.

Those wishing to attend Chappell and Marti’s trial on Monday March 22 should be present at the Tel Aviv District Court before 3pm.

Israel clampdowns on non-violent protest

Jonathan Cook | Middle East Online

12 February 2010

The Israeli courts ordered the release this week of two foreign women arrested by the army in the West Bank in what human-rights lawyers warn has become a wide-ranging clampdown by Israel on non-violent protest from international, Israeli and Palestinian activists.

The arrest of the two women during a nighttime raid on the Palestinian city of Ramallah has highlighted a new tactic by Israeli officials: using immigration police to try to deport foreign supporters of the Palestinian cause.

A Czech woman was deported last month after she was seized from Ramallah by a special unit known as Oz, originally established to arrest migrant labourers working illegally inside Israel.

Human rights lawyers say Israel’s new offensive is intended to undermine a joint non-violent struggle by international activists and Palestinian villagers challenging a land grab by Israel as it builds the separation wall on farmland in the West Bank.

In what Israel’s daily Haaretz newspaper recently called a “war on protest”, Israeli security forces have launched a series of raids in the West Bank over the past two months to detain Palestinian community leaders organising protests against the wall.

“Israel knows that the non-violence struggle is spreading and that it’s a powerful weapon against the occupation,” said Neta Golan, an Israeli activist based in Ramallah.

“Israel has no answer to it, which is why the security forces are panicking and have started making lots of arrests.”

The detention this week of Ariadna Marti, 25, of Spain, and Bridgette Chappell, 22, of Australia, suggests a revival of a long-running cat-and-mouse struggle between Israel and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a group of activists who have joined Palestinians in non-violently opposing the Israeli occupation. The last major confrontation, a few years into the second intifada, resulted in a brief surge of deaths and injuries of international activists at the hands of the Israeli army. Most controversially, Rachel Corrie, from the US, was run down and killed by an army bulldozer in 2003 as she stood by a home in Gaza threatened with demolition.

Ms Golan, a co-founder of the ISM, said Israel had sought to demonise the group’s activists in the Israeli and international media. “Instead of representing our struggle as one of non-violence, we are portrayed as ‘accomplices to terror’.”

The first entry of Israeli immigration police into a Palestinian-controlled area of the West Bank, the so-called “Area A”, occurred last month when a Czech woman was arrested in Ramallah. Eva Novakova, 28, who had recently been appointed the ISM’s media co-ordinator, was accused of overstaying her visa and was deported before she could appeal to the courts.

Human rights lawyers say such actions are illegal.

Omer Shatz, the lawyer representing Ms Marti and Ms Chappell, said a military operation into an area like Ramallah could not be justified to round up activists with expired visas.

“The activists are not breaking any laws in Ramallah,” he said. “The army and immigration police are effectively criminalising them by bringing them into Israel, where they need such a visa.”

Officials in the Palestinian Authority (PA) has grown increasingly unhappy at Israeli abuses of security arrangements dating from the Oslo era. The PA’s president, Mahmoud Abbas, recently described the Israeli operations into Area A as “incursions and provocations”.

Although the supreme court released the two women on bail on Monday, while their deportation was considered, it banned them from entering the West Bank and ordered each pay a US$800 (Dh2,939) bond.

The judges questioned the right of the army to hand over the women to immigration police from a military prison in the West Bank, but left open the issue of whether the operation would have been legal had the transfer occurred in Israeli territory.

The Spanish government is reported to have asked the Israeli ambassador in Spain to promise that Ms Marti would not be deported.

Ms Marti said they had been woken at 3am on Sunday by “15 to 20 soldiers who aimed their guns at us”. The pair were asked for their passports and then handcuffed. Later, she said, they had been offered the choice that “either we agree to immediate expulsion or that we will be jailed for six months”.

On Wednesday, shortly after the court ruling, the army raided the ISM’s office in Ramallah again, seizing computers, T-shirts and bracelets inscribed with “Palestine”.

“Israel has managed to stop most international activists from getting here by denying them entry at the borders,” said Ms Golan. “But those who do get in then face deportation if they are arrested or try to renew their visa.”

The ISM has been working closely with a number of local Palestinian popular committees in organising weekly demonstrations against Israel’s theft of Palestinian land under cover of the building of the wall.

The protests have made headlines only intermittently, usually when international or Israeli activists have been hurt or killed by Israeli soldiers. Palestinian injuries have mostly gone unnoticed.

In one incident that threatened to embarrass Israel, Tristan Anderson, 38, an American ISM member, was left brain-damaged last March after a soldier fired a tear-gas cannister at his head during a demonstration against the wall in the Palestinian village of Nilin.

In addition to regular arrests of Palestinian protesters, Israel has recently adopted a new tactic of rounding up community leaders and holding them in long-term administrative detention. A Haaretz editorial has called these practices “familiar from the darkest regimes”.

Abdallah Abu Rahman, a schoolteacher and head of the popular committee in the village of Bilin, has been in jail since December for arms possession. The charge refers to a display he created at his home of used tear gas cannisters fired by the Israeli army at demonstrators.

On Monday, the offices of Stop the Wall, an umbrella organisation for the popular committees, was raided, and its computers and documents taken. Two co-ordinators of the group, Jamal Juma and Mohammed Othman, were released from jail last month after mounting international pressure.

The Israeli police also have been harshly criticised by the courts for beating and jailing dozens of Israeli and Palestinian activists protesting against the takeover of homes by settlers in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

Last month, Hagai Elad, the head of Israel’s largest human rights law centre, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, was among 17 freed by a judge after demonstrators were detained for two days by police, who accused them of being “dangerous”.

IDF twice raids Ramallah office of pro-Palestinian group

Nir Hasson | Ha’aretz

11 February 2010

Israel Defense Forces soldiers raided the International Solidarity Movement’s Ramallah office Wednesday for the second time this week, confiscating computers, T-shirts and bracelets engraved with the word “Palestine.”

On Sunday, soldiers arrested Ariadna Jove Marti of Spain and Bridgette Chappell of Australia at the Ramallah office. The High Court of Justice ordered the two women freed on Monday.

Yesterday’s raid took place at 3 A.M. Hours later, the ISM held a press conference, in conjunction with other pro-Palestinian organizations, at which they lashed out at the IDF’s behavior. According to the ISM, the army launched an organized campaign in mid-December, the goal of which was to break up the popular protests against the separation fence in the West Bank villages of Bili’in and Na’alin. This campaign has included arrests and other forms of harassment, the activists charged.

Chappell said the IDF apparently sees the ISM as a “challenge” to Israel, and is therefore taking action against it. She added that the army would not find anything incriminating in the group’s computers, as all its activities are strictly legal.

According to the Israeli organization Anarchists Against the Wall, the IDF has conducted no fewer than 18 nighttime raids in Na’alin alone since December, during which time it has arrested 25 people. Bili’in was subject to five raids and eight arrests.

“I don’t think there were even that many army raids in Nablus in 2002, at the height of the intifada,” claimed Jonathan Pollack of the anarchist group.

In addition to its two raids on the ISM office, the IDF also raided the offices of two other groups – Stop the Wall and the Palestinian Communist Party – this week. The activists claim that none of these groups are involved in terrorist activities; they merely organize demonstrations.

ISM, founded soon after the second intifada began in September 2000, is a very small group. It usually has less than 20 activists in the West Bank at any one time. Nevertheless, it has been heavily involved in anti-Israel protests, and is currently active in the demonstrations against house demolitions in East Jerusalem as well as the protests in Bili’in and Na’alin. It also has four activists located in the Gaza Strip.

Two ISM activists have been killed while protesting, Rachel Corrie in 2003 and Tom Hurndall in 2004; two others have been seriously wounded.