Tag: Hares Boys

Support the Hares boys this Prisoners’ Day

14th April 2014 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine

17th April, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, is a global day of action.

Join to demand justice for the Hares Boys, as well as all Palestinian children incarcerated by the Israeli military regime.

What you can do:

1. Organise an Event – a sit-in, a demo, a protest, a silent dance, anything – in your home city at the Israeli embassy or buildings of significance to the occupation (e.g. G4S, which is complicit in torture of children) with a poster of an image of the Hares Boys (some examples below) or your own message of support. Then, please email your photo/video to the International Solidarity Movement (palreports@gmail.com) or post it on the Hares Boys facebook page. All pictures/videos will then be collated to demonstrate to Israel and the world the international backing that the boys have.

2. Twitter Action- On 16 April, the day before the Prisoners’ Day in Palestine, we are planning to coordinate a twitter action. We ask that you join us on at 8pm Palestinian time (your local time may be posted below). The Twitter hashtag will be tweeted from the ISM Twitter account as the action starts so please stay tuned!

We would like to thank you and hope you can support this campaign in some way.

Image credit: Leïla la Très Sage

Time zones for Twitter action on the 16th of April:

03:00 (3am) Tokyo, Japan
04:00 (4am) Melbourne+Sydney, Australia
11:00 (11am) San Francisco, California, US
14:00 (2pm) New York, US + Toronto, Canada
15:00 (3pm) Argentina, Chile, Brazil
18:00 (6pm) London
19:00 (7pm) Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Norway
20:00 (8pm) Palestine + Cape Town, South Africa

The fight for the freedom of the 5 Hares Boys continues

6th April 2014 | International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team | Occupied Palestine

In a conversation with Neimeh and Yaseen Shamlawi in their home in Hares we hear about the traumatic journey they have gone through but also the painstaking efforts they have made to build a campaign for their son’s freedom ever since he was arrested in the middle of the night on the 17th of March 2013.

On the 14th of March a settler from the illegal settlement of Yakir crashed her car with her three daughters inside on the main road near the village, leaving all of them with various injuries. Despite the horrible event seeming like an unfortunate accident, over the following days 13 boys from the village of Hares were arrested. Eventually five of them were charged with attempted murder stemming from allegations that stones were thrown onto the road by boys from the village.

Ali’s mother recalls to us the night he was taken by Israeli soldiers, 25 of them entering the family house after the door had been forcibly opened. They went from room to room waking everyone up before grabbing Ali and instructing his parents to find his shoes. Before they left both Niemeh and Yaseen recount how one of the soldiers told Ali to go and “kiss his parents goodbye”, to which his mother remembers saying that she didn’t need to as she would see him in a few days.

Over a year later and Ali and the other four boys, Tamer Souf, Ammer Souf, Mohammed Suleiman, and Mohammed Kleib are still imprisoned. We asked Neimeh and Yaseen why they thought that the Israeli military had been so harsh in their pursuit of prison sentences for the boys, both parents shrugged with what is obviously still raw bewilderment as to how their son, 16 at the time of his kidnapping, is now facing up to 25 years in prison.

“No-one saw anyone throwing stones,” Niemeh says again and again during our visit, and indeed the lack of evidence is startling. Originally no one made any claim that stones were thrown. The first search of the car, by police from the illegal settlement, produced no evidence of any stones but a subsequent search two days later uncovered a single stone in the vehicle. The court, like the vast majority of cases against Palestinians, through the Israeli military system has not called a single Palestinian witness. Instead they have focused on an Israeli woman who was driving nearby, and a passing truck driver, neither of who can say that they saw anyone throwing stones.

The conversation turns to Ali and how he’s coping with being in Megiddo prison. “He is crying all the time when we see him as he misses his friends, family, and school,” Niemeh tells us. While the five Hares Boys do get to see each other fairly regularly whilst they have been incarcerated this is of little solace due to the fact that they find themselves in an adult prison and are unable to make or receive any phone calls. Their parents are only granted a visit twice a month. It is also solely them who can make the long journey to the prison due to Israel’s procedure of granting permits. This has meant that Ali has not had the chance to have any sort of meaningful conversations with his brothers, sisters or any other family and friends since his sudden arrest.

Inside the prison itself, very little is provided by the Israeli state so every time they visit, the parents try and bring what their sons require, whether it’s bed linen, books to read or clothes. In terms of education Ali and the other boys only receive two hours of classes a week, which is currently classes in Arabic and Mathematics. There is no chance of formal qualifications resulting from this small amount of study, at a time when the boys should have been working hard in school in order to begin to decide where they want their lives to go. Like so many other things this is something else that the Israeli authorities have taken away from them.

When Ali’s parents do visit their son it is far from a simple matter, even with the permits. They tend to leave Hares at approximately 6:30 in the morning traveling to Nablus before catching a bus to Qalqilya, where they cross through a checkpoint into the state of Israel. The wait at this checkpoint usually lasts for around two hours due to the volume of people that cross and the lack of border staff usually working at any one time. Eventually Yaseen and Niemeh tend to arrive at the prison at around 11am, then wait for up to two more hours before finally getting to see their son. However, while it is plain to see that the parents treasure these visits with their son, they are only allowed up

to 45 minutes with him, and the entire encounter takes place through glass and over a phone. “I can’t touch him,” Niemeh says shaking her head sadly.

The trips to Salem military court are perhaps more difficult than the prison visits for the parents, as well as other family and friends who do have permission to attend the court. This involves arriving at the court at 9am before waiting with dozens of other relatives of accused Palestinians, before finally two people are allowed to attend the hearing itself. Ali’s mother talks of desperately trying to talk to her son face to face but Israeli security officers preventing her from getting even three meters from him, only allowing her one minute and sometimes even blocking her view. The trend, as in so many hearings for Palestinians accused of crimes by the Israeli military, is continuous postponement, hence why Ali and the other Hares boys have been awaiting trial for over a year.

The latest postponement means the next hearing will be on the 10th of April.

However, despite this, the way in which Ali and all the other Hares Boys’ families have organised themselves and fought for justice is remarkable. With the support of organisations including the International Women’s Peace Service (IWPS) and the Defence for Children International (DCI) a campaign has been built and continues to put pressure on the Israeli judiciary system. The families meet regularly, supporting one another and the Palestinian Authority has helped them with lawyers. Although the fact that the boys remain in prison and continue to face such draconian charges demonstrates that so much more needs to be done.

When we asked the family what people could do in their home countries the answer was very clear. Niemeh was adamant that putting pressure on the ambassadors of countries to attend the hearing was a crucial step with an emphasis on sharing the story and making people understand the realities of Ali and the other boys’ situation. Therefore following the case, discussing it with people who are unaware and generally increasing the knowledge of people is crucial. Unsurprisingly all the Hares Boys need financial aid as well. Currently Ali’s parents alone require another $2000 for legal costs (you can donate here).

As activists who support the Palestinian struggle against the occupation we believe it is our duty to back the campaign to free the five Hares Boys. In fact anyone believing in universal human rights and justice should be fully behind the boys and their return to their families.

One year on: the Hares Boys

18th March 2014 | The Hares Boys | Occupied Palestine

Yesterday the Hares Boys, who are being charged with 20 counts of attempted murder with no evidence whatsoever, have been in an Israeli prison for one year. Now is more important than ever to fully understand the circumstances surrounding the unlawful arrest and imprisonment of Mohammad Suleiman, Ammar Souf, Mohammed Kleib, Tamer Souf, and Ali Shamlawi.

The car accident

At around 18:30 on Thursday 14 March 2013, a car crashed into the back of a truck on Road 5 in Salfit Governorate, occupied Palestine. The driver and her 3 daughters were injured, one of them – seriously. The driver, Adva Biton, was going back to the illegal Israeli settler colony of Yakir when the accident occurred. She later claimed the accident was due to Palestinian youth throwing stones at her car. The driver of the truck, having testified immediately after the accident that he had pulled over because of a flat tyre, later changed his mind and said he had seen stones by the road.

There were no witnesses to the car accident. Nobody had seen any children or youth throwing stones that day.

The arrests

In the early hours of Friday 15 March 2013, masked Israeli soldiers, some with attack dogs, stormed the village of Hares, which is close to Road 5. More than 50 soldiers broke the doors of the villagers’ houses, demanding the whereabouts of their teenage sons. Ten boys were arrested that night, blindfolded, handcuffed, and transferred to an unknown location. The families were not informed of their sons’ alleged wrongdoings.

Two days later, a second wave of violent arrests took place. At around 3 o’clock in the morning, the Israeli army, accompanied by the Shabak (the Israeli secret service), entered the homes of 3 Palestinian adolescents. They had a piece of paper with their names in Hebrew. After forcing all the family members into one room, taking away their phones so that they wouldn’t call for help, and interrogating them, the soldiers handcuffed their sons, all aged 16-17.

“Kiss and hug your mother goodbye,” a Shabak agent told one boy. “You may never see her again.”

A week later, Israeli army jeeps again entered the village and arrested several boys, who had just come back home from school. The soldiers lined all of them up, including a 6-year-old, and threatened at gunpoint their uncle who pleaded for the soldiers to at least release the youngest children. The army then randomly chose 3 boys, handcuffed them behind their backs, blindfolded them, and took them away. The families were not informed about either the allegations against their children, or their exact location.

In total, 19 boys from the neighbouring villages of Hares and Kifl Hares were arrested in relation to the settler car accident. None of them had previously had any history of stone-throwing. After violent interrogations, most of the minors were released, except for five, who remain in Megiddo, an Israeli adult prison.

These are the Hares Boys.

The interrogation

The arrested boys were subjected to a series of abuse and ill-treatment that accounts as torture. Upon detention, they were kept in solitary confinement for up to two weeks. One boy, since released, described his cell: a windowless hole 1m wide and 2m long; there was no mattress or blanket to sleep on; toilet facilities were dirty; the six lights were kept on continuously, leading to the boy losing track of the time of the day; the food made him feel ill. The boy was denied lawyer; he was interrogated violently three times during three days, and eventually released after found not guilty at the trial.

Other boys have also told their lawyers of very similar treatment. They “confessed” of stone-throwing after being repeatedly abused in prison and during interrogations.

The charges

The five boys from Hares are charged with 25 counts of attempted murder each, apparently 1 count for every alleged stone thrown at passing cars. The Israeli military prosecution insists that the boys consciously “intended to kill”; the boys can face the maximum punishment for attempted murder: 25 years to life imprisonment.

The prosecution’s case relies on the boys’ “confessions”, which have been obtained under torture, and 61 “witnesses,” some of which claim that their cars have been damaged by stones on that same day on Road 5. The latter only appeared after the car accident got a lot of media coverage as a “terrorist act”, and the Israeli prime minister Benyamin Natanyahu announced, after the boys’ arrest, that he “caught the terrorists that did it”. Other “witnesses” include the police and the Shabak, who were not even present at that location at the time. It is not clear whether the 61 “witnesses” have been properly questioned and their claims verified with, for example, hospital admission data, or even if the alleged damage to their vehicles has been photographed or otherwise documented. Such information is not even available to the boys’ attorneys.

The implications

If the boys are convicted, this case would set a legal precedent which would allow the Israeli military to convict any Palestinian child or youngster for attempted murder in cases of stone-throwing.

The boys are now 16-17 years old. If the Israeli military get their way, the boys would only return to their homes and their families at the age of 41 – at best. Five young lives ruined with no evidence of their guilt is a spit in the face to our common principles of justice as human beings.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH THIS?

Almost every stage of this case that could go wrong, did. Local and international law has been mostly dismissed; principles of justice barely fading in the horizon; respect for human beings non-existent.

Consider this:

The Hares Boys, as well as thousands of other Palestinian youngsters, are treated in the Israeli military court system as adults. According to international human rights law in general, and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in particular, adults are people over 18 years of age. Israel treats even 9-year-olds as adults.
The racist system of “justice”: no matter the alleged crime, Palestinians are forced to go through the military courts and are tried under military law, while Israelis fall into the civil court system for the same crimes.
Violently arresting children at night without giving any explanation to their families about the reasons behind it, nor informing them about their children’s whereabouts goes against Israel’s own laws which state that minors are to be accompanied by an adult family member when detained or arrested.
The denial of lawyer for several days (in some cases weeks) after detention also accounts as a major violation of Israel’s own rules.
Children being put into solitary confinement for days on end is a form of torture; It is a severe punishment before the verdict.
Abusive interrogations of scared minors is considered torture.
The boys were arrested despite a total lack of evidence against them and condemned by the Israeli media as “terrorists”, which goes against the universal presumption of innocence (innocent until found guilty) and delivers a guilty verdict in the highly bombastic public trial, putting pressure on the judges to do likewise.