Archive | Human Rights

RSS feed for this section

Palestinian Prisoners – Kidnapped and Neglected

Posted on 17 May 2012.

NOVANEWS

by Sami  Jamil Jadallah

 

In contrast to Gilad Shalit, the French-Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas on June 2006, who became a cause celebrate by heads of states, international organizations, kidnapped Palestinian civilians are ignored by Israel, by the Palestinian leadership, certainly by the world community.

Gilad Shalit was not an ordinary Israeli civilian citizen. He was a soldier, a member of the IDF, carrying a gun, ready to shoot and kill. He was a prisoner of war. In contrast, the Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention are kidnapped civilians, not soldiers, not carrying guns, did not shoot or kill any one. They are simply kidnapped and held without cause and without trial by a criminal Israel and every one that count remains silent.

The interesting thing about Israel’s administrative detention is that it is inherited from the former British Mandate in Palestine and used to detain and applied more to Palestinians and much less to Jews, even though Jewish settlers were actively engaged in terrorist activities.

It is also interesting to note until Israel formally adopted the “administrative detention” in 1979, the Knesset and for a long time since the founding of the state refused to formally adopt it, as it was ashamed to use it. The state simply “borrowed” it to detain Palestinians, first those who remained in Palestine of 48 and then later widely used to detain hundreds of thousands since 67. Over 600,000 Palestinians were processed through Israeli jails. That is one third of the population.

Israel uses “administrative detention” to punish, intimidate even force detainees to become “informers” of Shin Beth, the Israeli internal security agency.

Under Israeli laws, the Defense Minister has the authority and power to detain any one for renewable periods of 6 months based on recommendations of the various security agencies. Of course no need for any detainee to have committed any crimes. Simply if the security agencies think a detainee is a person of interest it can detain them.

Moreover the law does not require the state to bring or file formal charges, and the detainee has no right of council, and has no right to see or cross examine the order, neither the defense lawyer. So-called “evidence” is presented to a presiding judge normally in a military court and the state does not even have to present evidence. A simple letter from the Defense Ministry claiming there is “evidence” is sufficient to send someone to jail for yearns without trial. Now my friends this is the only democracy in the Middle East and this is America’s best ally, certainly the most expensive ally in the history of the world.

Of course we all need to keep in mind that the US like its ally Israel did and does exercise the powers of “administrative detention”. In fact over 110,000 Japanese American were also held in administrative detention called “internment camps”.

Now these people were never charged with any crime, nor there were any evidence they collaborated with the Japanese. Yet the President of the United States saw it fit to detain these American people simply because they were Japanese.

While the US detained and “interned” these US citizens because they were of Japanese origin, the US did not detain or create internment camps for Americans of

German origin living on the East Coast.

The US Supreme Court in Karamtsu vs. the US, 323 US 214, sided with the government and ruled President Roosevelt Executive Order 9066 was constitutional. I was surprised back in 76 when I did a research paper on the subject

that the most liberal justice on the court justice William Douglas ruled with the majority of 6-3. That case stand, it was never overruled.

While every Tom, Dick and Harry from Obama to Blair, to Merkel to Sarkozy to too many to mention traveled to Jerusalem and Ramallah in support of the release of Gilad Shalit, even the G8, the Catholic Church, Russian leadership all demanded his release. He became an “honorary” citizen” of many countries in Europe. Yet hardly any one, not even the UN ever gave a damn about the thousand Palestinians kidnapped and detained by Israel.

More tragic is the fact that the Ramallah leadership never made the issue of kidnapped prisoners a priority or an issue in international meetings, only giving a lip service. Only when these detainees went on hunger strike did the Ramallah

leadership paid any attention. Its priority always was to seek funds to operate and serve the Jewish Occupation.

Unlike the movie Fiddler on the Roof when the lead character Tevye sang his song “If I was a rich man,” the Palestinians prisoners should be singing the song “ If I was Jew”. Only then will the world give them any attention.

Water & salt Show of support for Prisoners, Ramallah

 

 

Posted in Human Rights, Palestine Affairs0 Comments

Zio-Nazi High Court rejected Palestinian Detainees’ Appeal

Posted on 14 May 2012.

NOVANEWS

[PCHR_e] Urgent statement: The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) on the occasion of its international board meeting in Paris on May 12th 2012, strongly denounces the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israel

Urgent statement

 

The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) on the occasion of its international board meeting in Paris on May 12th 2012, strongly denounces the situation of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, who have been on hunger strike since April 17th 2012 in protest against administrative detention, as well as living conditions and ill-treatment in the prisons.

FIDH is particularly worried about the deteriorating health situation of Mr. Bilal Diab and Mr. Tha’er Halahleh as a result of their hunger strike and ill-treatment, and fears for the safety of their lives. Last week, Israel’s High Court of Justice rejected these detainees’ appeal to be released from administrative detention. This decision comes despite the reports by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that Diab and Halahleh’s lives are in imminent danger as they have been on hunger strike for more than 72 days.

According to FIDH member organization in Gaza, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) “at least 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention facilities have been on hunger strike since 17 April 2012 in order to denounce their ongoing administrative detention as well as other violations of their rights.  These demands include: improving their living conditions in the Israeli prisons; ensuring family visitations, particularly for the prisoners from the Gaza Strip; allowing detainees to receive education; and putting an end to the solitary confinement policy, repression and night searches”.

Diab and Halahleh stand amongst  around 300 Palestinians suffering from the Israel’s policy of administrative detention, according to FIDH member organization B’tselem. The procedure allows for the detention of Palestinians in Israeli prisons without charges brought against them, and without being informed of any evidence, under the auspices of “security concerns”. According to B’tselem, in December 2011, 60% of those detained have had their detention extended.

FIDH calls upon the immediate release of Diab, Halahleh , and all others who are arbitrary detained.

Furthermore, FIDH calls on the Israeli authorities to abide by their international obligations and respect the international humanitarian and human rights laws and in particular Article 14 paragraph 3 (a) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights(ICCPR) which provides that everyone should be entitled to “be informed promptly and in detail in a language which he understands of the nature and cause of the charge against him”. The policy of administrative detention contravenes with the basic international human rights standards as the evidence against persons are  submitted in secret to the military court and neither the defendants nor their lawyers are informed of this evidence. Accordingly, FIDH recalls that the right do fair trial and information about charges cannot be compromise for security concerns.

 

Posted in Human Rights, Palestine Affairs0 Comments

PALESTINIAN PRISONERS IN ZIO-NAZI CAMP

Posted on 14 May 2012.

NOVANEWS

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown: Why so little condemnation of Israel’s extremism?

The moralistic Chief Rabbi will not be on ‘Thought for the Day’ expressing sorrow for the treatment of the men

A predominant focus in the recent case of the sex gang found guilty of abusing teenagers in Manchest…

Thaer Halahleh wrote a letter to his wife Shireen from an Israeli jail in February: “My detention has been renewed seven times and they still haven’t charged me. I can’t take it any more.” Then the 34-year-old began a hunger strike, as did Bilal Diab. That was 77 days ago. Both are Palestinians, fathers, whose young daughters are strip searched and terrified when they visit. David Rose, an exceptional investigative journalist and Jewish himself, recently publicised their stories. Eight others have been on the same, silent, self-wasting, wasted protest. Halahleh’s eyes were bleeding, blood instead of tears. He, Diab and others may well be dead by the time you read this. Last Friday, Supreme Court judges in this hubristic democracy turned down an application from civil rights groups to have the men moved to civilian hospitals. They didn’t want, perhaps, their own citizens to witness such stuff. What would that do to the image of the plucky little nation, surrounded by real and imagined threats?

The moralistic Chief Rabbi will not be on “Thought for the Day” expressing sorrow for the treatment of these prisoners. Ardent British Zionists will not be pressed to condemn those responsible for the state barbarism. You certainly won’t get a big TV hit like Homeland, (based on Hatufim, an Israeli TV series that fictionalised the capture by Palestinian militants of the IDF soldier Gilad Shalit) being made about these men. Come on, you cool, edgy TV chaps, how about a film about a handsome Palestinian held by the Israelis till he loses his mind? Do I hear a choral “No”?

Western opinion formers have been indifferent, in some cases knowingly so, about what is happening. No condemnations are heard around our Parliament. They say we must have freedom of speech, but that right is never evoked when it comes to Israel. The BNP and EDL can spread their racist poison freely, but Baroness Jenny Tonge is savaged by Zionists and her own party for saying that nation “is not going to be there forever in its present form”. She has just quit the Lib Dems. If she had uttered the same words about, say, Zimbabwe, she would have been acclaimed.

A large number of enlightened British Jews see the double standards and object to Israel’s intransigence. It must be so hard to do what they do, behave with integrity and empathise with those they are instructed to hate.

The detained Palestinians are embarked on peaceful, Gandhian protest action. They want their families to be able to visit without restrictions, decent medical treatment, not to be put into solitary confinement for years on end, to be taken to court and tried. How is that “terrorism”? With the 1981 IRA hunger strikers, of whom 10 died, even the most anti-Republican British newspapers published pictures and told us what was happening. TV too covered their journeys to the very end.

With these slowly dying inmates and the 6,000 others locked up without due process, there is nothing, nada. I never knew until this week that since 1967, 700,000 Palestinians have been detained. Not all were innocent but nor were all of them guilty. To be a Palestinian, to want equality, rights, freedom and land is not a crime. Except that for hardline Israelis, it is.

Their country is protected from censure partly because of fears that any criticism of its actions is potentially “anti-Semitic”. Some anti-Semites do use Israel as a cover, but then Israel uses that fact to tar and warn all legitimate criticism. Its governments do what they damn-well want and claim perpetual exceptionality. Their darkest deeds are thus left unscrutinised. This time though, it is suddenly dawning on some key people, among them the hapless Middle East saviour Tony Blair, that these “martyrs” could trigger another Intifada. He is urging Israeli officials to “take all measures to prevent a tragic outcome that could have serious implications for stability and security”. Why, he even uttered the words “human rights”. The UN and other bodies have intervened. They will all be rebuffed, so monstrous are the egos of the ultra-right wing leadership. In any case Netanyahu et al can point – and with absolute validity – at Guantanamo Bay and our own prisoners held without trial. They are all in it together.

Blair is right to be fearful. Every time a hunger striker dies, even more inchoately angry young Muslim men will be radicalised and turn murderous. Some are raised in the West filled with rhetoric about freedom, democracy, fairness and justice and then witness the betrayal of Palestinians. That dissonance between principles and reality makes them, perhaps, even more enraged than the Palestinians themselves who have low expectations and few illusions. This is not making excuses for terrorists, it is just a reality check.

I truly want Israel to survive and thrive but it is becoming its own worst enemy. British activist Tom Hurndall, 21, was sheltering a Palestinian child from Israeli bullets in Gaza in 2003, when he was killed. His candid journals have just been published. Read them and mourn the idealistic young man and the loss of all idealism in Israel.

Posted in Human Rights, Palestine Affairs0 Comments

Egypt: New Law Keeps Military Trials of Civilians

Posted on 13 May 2012.

NOVANEWS

12,000 Tried by Military in 2011, Hundreds More Cases Pending

  • Anti-military protesters march towards the Peoples’ Assembly during a rally to stop the head of state from sending civilians for military trials in Cairo, on May 6, 2012.
    © 2012 Reuters

It’s shocking that this elected parliament has failed to take the basic step of protecting Egyptian civilians against an inherently unfair military justice system. Parliament’s failure to ban a major abuse of the military government betrays campaign promises to deliver justice to all Egyptians.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch

(New York) – Egypt’s parliament on May 6, 2012, approved amendments to the Code of Military Justice that failed to end the unprecedented expansion of military trials of civilians, despite pleas for reform from the legal and human rights communities, Human Rights Watch said today. In 2011 more than 12,000 civilians, including children, faced unfair military trials which fail to provide the basic due process rights of civilian courts, more than the number of military trials of civilians during 30 years of rule by former president Hosni Mubarak.

The military has continued to try civilians before military tribunals in 2012 despite promises to limit the practice. More than 300 civilians arrested since May 4 in Cairo during the clashes near the ministry of defense in Cairo are now also scheduled for military trials.

“It’s shocking that this elected parliament has failed to take the basic step of protecting Egyptian civilians against an inherently unfair military justice system,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Parliament’s failure to ban a major abuse of the military government betrays campaign promises to deliver justice to all Egyptians.”

International human rights law bans trials of civilians before military courts. Despite this, until now Egypt has maintained its 1966 Code of Military Justice (CMJ), which permits military trials of civilians in various circumstances set out in Articles 5 (civilians present in an area where the military are deployed), 6 (presidential referral) and 7 (if one of the parties is military personnel). In addition, Article 8 (bis) (1) allows military tribunals to try juveniles when accompanied by an adult who is subject to military jurisdiction, while Article 48 gives the military justice system sole competence to determine its jurisdiction.

The amendments parliament passed on May 6 limit only the right of the president to refer civilians to military tribunals and fail to address the broad discretion given to the military in Articles 5 and 7 to try civilians, Human Rights Watch said. Parliament also only changed a few words in Articles 8 and 48, without addressing the extremely problematic substance of the two provisions, which allow children to be tried before military tribunals.

The legislative and constitutional affairs committee of the People’s Assembly, Egypt’s lower house of parliament, had during the past three months discussed reforming the CMJ based on proposed amendments drafted by SCAF General Mamdouh Shaheen, who represented the government in parliament. Two members of the committee, Mohamed al-Omda and Hussein Ibrahim, had submitted proposals with additional suggested amendments that would allow sentences issued by military courts to be appealed before civilian courts. But parliament’s rules of procedure, which date from the Mubarak-era parliament that was dominated by one party, give precedence to government-proposed drafts, and the committee failed to adopt the members’ proposals.

Shaheen’s proposed amendments only limited the right of the president to refer civilians to military tribunals. He told the legislative committee on March 19 that this provision had been “imposed on the military by former president Hosni Mubarak” and that the SCAF “had frequently tried to change it.” Shaheen rejected MPs’ demands to amend Article 48, which states that the military justice system is solely competent to determine its own jurisdiction, saying in a televised debate in parliament that “the provision just needs to be narrowed to guarantee the security of the armed forces against [civilians] who try to blow up a tank or steal ammunition because this would destroy the military justice system.”

Over the past year the SCAF has consistently stated that it has the right to try civilians before military courts on the basis of the Code of Military Justice. In a live television interview on a local station, ON TV, on April 11, General Ismail Etman, the military’s head of Morale Affairs, said that “in cases where it affects the security of the armed forces or the security of the country, such as thuggery, looting, or destruction of property, theft, and especially if one of the parties is a military officer, we transfer it to military trials to be looked into immediately.”

“The SCAF-proposed amendments were the usual half-hearted, cosmetic attempts by the military to respond to criticism without limiting the military’s discretion,” said Whitson. “The failure of MPs who were the primary victims of military trials under Mubarak to end such a system undermines faith in their desire to push for reform.”

In the first eight months of its rule, the SCAF tried 12,000 civilians before military courts, more than the total number of trials of civilians before military courts under Mubarak. Under the Mubarak government, military trials of civilians were reserved for high-profile political cases, such as the 2008 conviction of the former deputy guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, Khairat al-Shatir, and 24 others; and these were usually on the basis of referrals by the president.

“The Egyptian people sacrificed their lives and security for a government that would safeguard their rights, but apparently the parliament they elected is interested only in protecting the military,” said Whitson.

Human Rights Watch strongly opposes any trials of civilians before military courts, where proceedings do not protect basic due process rights or satisfy the requirements of independence and impartiality of courts of law. It has called upon Egypt’s new parliament to amend the code of military justice to restrict the jurisdiction of military courts to trials of only military personnel charged with offenses of an exclusively military nature.

Human Rights Watch has also recommended that the CMJ be amended to explicitly state that the public prosecutor shall be competent to investigate complaints regarding military abuse and to allow members of the military to be tried before civilian courts in cases of abuse and ill-treatment. Otherwise, Human Rights Watch said, there will never be full accountability for serious human rights abuses committed by the military over the past year, including torture, virginity tests and the killing of protesters at Maspero.

Posted in Egypt, Human Rights0 Comments

If Charles Taylor Can Be Tried for War Crimes, Why Not Kissinger?

Posted on 13 May 2012.

NOVANEWS
by: Reed Brody

Should Vladimir Putin be studying the conviction of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian president? What about Henry Kissinger?

In April a United Nations–backed special tribunal in The Hague convicted Taylor of “aiding and abetting” the rebels in neighboring Sierra Leone as they committed horrific abuses against civilians. The rebels’ crimes, which included their signature atrocity of cutting off victims’ arms and legs, as well as forcing children to execute their parents, were among the most heartless I have ever investigated.

The verdict marked the first time since the post–World War II Nuremberg trials that a former head of state has been convicted by an international tribunal of war crimes and crimes against humanity. What may be of more lasting significance, however, is that Taylor was not convicted for oppressing his own people—though he did that as well—but for his material support to abusive forces in another country. In that respect, the decision speaks not just to tinpot dictators but to leaders of countries who fight proxy wars by knowingly giving client states or rebel allies the means to commit atrocities.

Following precedents from the Yugoslavia war crimes tribunal, the court—officially called the Special Court for Sierra Leone—said that “aiding and abetting” requires that the accused give “practical assistance, encouragement, or moral support which had a substantial effect on the perpetration of a crime.” The accused must have known that his acts “would assist the commission of the crime by the perpetrator” or be aware “of the substantial likelihood” that they would.

In Taylor’s case, the court found that he knew of the atrocities being committed against civilians by his Sierra Leonean allies “and of their propensity to commit crimes.” Nevertheless, the court said, Taylor continued to ship arms to the rebels and provide them with political and moral support and encouragement. The principle is akin to giving more ammunition to an armed man on a killing spree.

It’s striking that the very same legal reasoning could apply to those in Washington, Moscow or elsewhere who provide military assistance to abusive forces half a world away. Take, for example, the case of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and East Timor. Declassified documents reveal that after the Timorese declaration of independence from Portugal in 1975, Kissinger and President Gerald Ford, fearing that the new country would become a communist outpost, gave Indonesian President Suharto the green light to invade the island in a Jakarta meeting the day before the invasion.

The United States was then supplying Indonesia’s military with 90 percent of its arms, and Kissinger himself described their relationship as that of “donor-client.” As the civilian death toll from the invasion climbed into the tens of thousands and the reports of atrocities mounted, Kissinger ensured that US arms continued to flow to the invading forces despite Congressional strictures. Estimates of those who died from military action, starvation or disease range from 100,000 to 180,000—roughly one-seventh to one-fourth of the entire population of East Timor.

The reasoning might also apply to Russian leaders if it were found that they gave Syrian President Bashar al-Assad the means to massacre his own people. Russia (and before it the Soviet Union) has long supplied Syria with the bulk of its weapons. But even during the latest crackdown, which has become increasingly brutal—including the shelling of Syrian cities with heavy artillery—Russian exports of arms and ammunition have continued. While Russian officials say the weapons are used for defensive purposes, others allege that the shipments include sniper rifles of the kind used by Syrian government forces against protesters.

To be sure, it is hard to imagine a case against a Russian or American leader reaching an international court. Neither country has ratified the statute authorizing the International Criminal Court, and both can veto any Security Council referral to the ICC. Unfortunately, the most powerful, and those whom they protect, still appear to be beyond the reach of the developing architecture of international justice.

Even so, the Taylor decision should give pause not only to leaders who kill their own people but also to those who would arm and support them. As such, it could be a major advance for human rights.

Posted in Human Rights0 Comments

“Close Guantánamo” Calls on US Communities to Demand Release of Cleared Prisoners in US

Posted on 12 May 2012.

NOVANEWS

I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January with US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us— just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

Ever since it became apparent, during the Bush administration, that there were wrongly detained prisoners at Guantánamo who could not be safely repatriated, certain principled groups and individuals have pushed for those men to be given new homes in the United States, the country responsible for their lost years of arbitrary detention and abuse.

From the beginning, however, voices have also been raised in opposition to these calls, even though US officials realized early on that  too many “Mickey Mouse detainees” were being sent to Guantánamo from Afghanistan, as Maj. Gen. Michael Dunlavey, the commander of Guantánamo until October 2002, explained to the Los Angeles Times later that year. Officials also realized that some of these men — and boys — couldn’t be safely repatriated, but no one in a position of authority thought about granting political asylum to any of them.

The situation came to a head with the case of the Uighurs, Muslims from China’s Xinjiang province, who had escaped persecution in their homeland, and had only one enemy — the Chinese Communist government. Twenty-two Uighurs had been seized and sent to Guantánamo, but when the situation became tense for the administration, a third country was found for them instead.

That country was Albania, and on May 5, 2006, just three days before five of the Uighurs were due to have their habeas corpus petitions considered by the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C., they were flown to Tirana, and given new homes in a UN refugee center.

In Bush’s dying days in the White House, the remaining Uighurs were the first Guantánamo prisoners to win their habeas corpus petitions in the District Court in Washington D.C., in October 2008, and Judge Ricardo Urbina went so far as to call their continued detention unconstitutional, and to demand their release in the US. The government appealed, however, andobtained a stay from the Court of Appeals.

When President Obama took over, and promised to close Guantánamo within a year, there were high hopes that he would realize that releasing cleared prisoners who couldn’t be repatriated into the United States would not only be appropriate, but would also send a positive signal to other countries, who were also being asked to offer new homes to those who couldn’t return home safely from Guantánamo.

Unfortunately, the President disagreed. In February 2009, the Justice Department pushed for the Appeals Court to rule that it was not up to the courts to order Guantánamo prisoners to be released into the United States, which they were happy to do, ruling that decisions about immigration were for the executive branch to make, and not for the courts — even when those seeking immigration were innocent men kidnapped and taken to Guantánamo to be held and abused for seven years.

Three months later, when White House Counsel Greg Craig had tried to make amends for this appalling decision, and was close to finalizing a plan to bring some of the Uighurs to live in the US, President Obama ditched the plan when Republicans got wind of it, and threatened to use it against him.

Around the same time, Congress stepped in, turning down a request by the administration for $80 million to close Guantánamo, and in November 2009, as part of a Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, lawmakersapproved a measure stating that Guantánamo prisoners could only be sent to the US mainland for prosecution, and not for resettlement.

The Amherst, Leverett and Berkeley resolutions

Just after Congress passed this legislation, the town of Amherst, in the Pioneer Valley in Massachusetts, fought back,passing a resolution, at a Special Town meeting on November 4, 2009, in which representatives of the town “urge[d] Congress to repeal the ban on releasing cleared detainees into the United States,” and promised to “welcome such cleared detainees into our community as soon as the ban is lifted.”

The community in Amherst gave the following reasons:

  • because President Obama “vowed to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay Naval Base by January 2010″;
  • because “many detainees at Guantánamo have been cleared by our government of wrongdoing and have been determined to pose no threat to the United States”; because “many of these detainees cannot be repatriated because they are either stateless or fear the harm awaiting them if returned to their home country”;
  • because “our government has asked other countries to accept cleared detainees but has banned their settlement in the United States”; because “these detainees have suffered unjust imprisonment for many years”;
  • because “the Pioneer Valley has many resources to help such detainees with trauma from their imprisonment”; and
  • because “the Pioneer Valley has welcomed in the past many refugees from a variety of traumatic experiences in other countries.”

Amherst established an important precedent with this resolution, which was also adopted in nearby Leverett on April 24, 2010, and on October 25, 2011, the City of Berkeley, in California, also passed a similar resolution (PDF), stating that Berkeley “supports the closure of Guantánamo as called for by President Obama in January 2009,” and is “unwilling to turn its back on cleared detainees still being held at Guantánamo,” and also that it “urges Congress to remove bans on movement of cleared detainees to the US,” and, “upon the lifting of Congressional bans, would welcome one or more cleared detainees into the Berkeley community thanks to private support.”

The community in Berkeley gave a number of reasons, including the following:

  • because “[t]he residents of Berkeley have welcomed to our City those who have been forced into exile, and who have come fleeing torture and death,” as affirmed by the Berkeley City Council in 1971, when Berkeley was declared a City of Refuge;
  • because “President Barack Obama stated in January 2009 that the prison at Guantánamo would be closed by January 2010″;
  • because “despite US Supreme Court rulings on the right to due process” — in Rasul v. Bush, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, and Boumediene v. Bush — “Guantánamo remains open,” and those held include “those who could not be sent to their home countries because of post-transfer treatment concerns”;
  • because “Guantánamo has become emblematic of the gross human rights abuses perpetrated by the US Government in the name of fighting terrorism”;
  • because “Guantánamo detainees have undergone a wide range of interrogation procedures that constitute torture or maltreatment, including but not limited to sensory deprivation and prolonged isolation”;
  • because “Amnesty International USA states: ‘… the indefinite and arbitrary nature of the circumstances of their detention has led to a steep decline in the mental health of many incarcerated at Guantánamo …’ (email May 12, 2011 from AI USA Chair Carole Nagengast to Peace & Justice Commissioner Rita Maran)”; and
  • because “Congresswoman Barbara Lee writes: ‘Guantánamo … has led the world to question America’s commitment to the rule of law, due process, and the rejection of torture as an acceptable interrogation practice …’ (Letter of May 26, 2011 to Rita Maran).”

The Resolution came about thanks to strong support from Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), the Amnesty International USA Board of Directors Chair Carole Nagengast, and Sister Marianne Farina of the Dominican School of Philosophy & Theology in Berkeley.

The ongoing need for US communities to resolve to resettle prisoners from Guantánamo

Over ten years since Guantánamo opened, the need for other communities to follow the example of Amherst, Leverett and Berkeley remains as strong as ever. Despite the failure of the Obama administration, Congress and the US courts to allow any endangered prisoner to be rehoused in the United States, 17 countries in total have, during Obama’s Presidency, taken in 39 prisoners — from Algeria, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Libya, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia and Uzbekistan, as well as 14 of the 17 remaining Uighurs who could not be safely repatriated.

The most recent releases were two Uighurs, who were flown to a new home in El Salvador last month, 15 months after the last prisoner was released. That huge delay was largely due to Congress, where lawmakers imposed further restrictions on the administration’s ability to release prisoners, banning the transfer of any prisoner to the US mainland for any reason, and also imposing onerous restrictions on releases to any country for any reason.

Those restrictions were defused in the National Defense Authorization Act, which contains a waiver that can be used by the President to bypass Congress, but as the Washington Post explained in an editorial on April 27 — and as we reported herelast week — a home has still not been found for the last three Uighurs, whose release was ordered three years and seven months ago, and therefore they should be given new homes in the United States, to prevent them from — possibly — spending the rest of their lives in Guantánamo.

Here at “Close Guantánamo,” we are concerned that, in total, 87 of the 169 prisoners still held at Guantánamo have beencleared for release but are still held, and we believe it is appropriate that, if these men cannot be safely rehoused elsewhere, then they should be offered homes in the US.

When Berkeley passed its resolution, those who proposed it also stated that they would be happy to accept two prisoners in particular — Djamel Ameziane, an Algerian recently profiled here, and Ravil Mingazov, the last Russian in Guantánamo, who I have written about here. In 2009, Amherst also called for Ravil Mingazov to be welcomed to live in their town, along with another Algerian, Ahmed Belbacha, profiled here, who was cleared for release in 2007, but has spent the last five years resisting his forced repatriation, because he fears that he will be imprisoned on false charges after a show trial.

For further information, please feel free to contact Rita Maran at UC Berkeley, who is a commissioner with the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission, and led the effort to draft Berkeley’s resolution, and Nancy Talanian, the executive director of “No More Guantánamos,” the organization coordinating the groups within the US calling for prisoners to be resettled in their communities. When the Berkeley resolution was passed, Nancy commended the City Council and the resolution’s supporters, and said, “Dozens of innocent men remain in Guantánamo simply because they cannot safely return to their home countries, and US allies rightly question why they must welcome all of them when the US refuses to take any. Berkeley’s resolution is a necessary step toward closing the prison with justice and restoring our country’s commitment to human rights.”

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joiningthe new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation

Posted in Human Rights, USA0 Comments

Palestinian Hunger Strikers: Fighting Ingrained Duplicity

Posted on 11 May 2012.

NOVANEWS
[Palestinians hold photographs of their relatives jailed in Israel during a support rally for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 5, 2012. Image by Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo.]
[Palestinians hold photographs of their relatives jailed in Israel during a support rally for Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 5, 2012. Image by Majdi Mohammed/AP Photo.]

On his seventy-third day of hunger strike, Thaer Halahleh was vomiting blood, bleeding from his lips and gums, while his body weighs in at121 pounds—a fraction of its pre-hunger strike size. The thirty-three-year-old Palestinian follows the still-palpable footsteps of Adnan Khader and Hana Shalabi whose hunger strikes resulted in release. He also stands alongside Bilal Diab who is also entering his seventy-third day of visceral protest. Together, they inspired nearly 2,500 Palestinian political prisoners to go on hunger strike in protest of Israel’s policy of indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Administrative detention has constituted a core of Israel’s 1,500 occupation laws that apply to Palestinians only, and which are not subject to any type of civilian or public review. Derived from British Mandate laws, administrative detention permits Israeli Forces to arrest Palestinians for up to six months without charge or trial, and without any show of incriminating evidence. Such detention orders can be renewed indefinitely, each time for another six-month term.

Ayed Dudeen is one of the longest-serving detainees in Israeli captivity. First arrested in October 2007, Israeli officials renewed his detention thirty times without charge or trial. After languishing in a prison cell for nearly four years without due process, prison authorities released him in August 2011 only to re-arrest him two weeks later. His wife Amal  no longer tells their six children that their father is coming home, because, in her words, “I do not want to give them false hope anymore, I just hope that this nightmare will go away.”

Twenty percent of the Palestinian population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories have at one point been held under administrative detention by Israeli forces. Israel argues these policies are necessary to ensure the security of its Jewish citizens, including those unlawfully resident in settlements surrounding Jerusalem, Area C, and the Jordan Valley—in fragrant contravention of the Fourth Geneva Convention’s Article 49(6), which explicitly prohibits the transfer of one’s civilian population to the territory it occupies.

The mass hunger strike threatens to demolish the formidable narratives of national security long propagated by Israeli authorities. In its most recent session, the United Nation’s Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination concluded that Israel’s policy of administrative detention is not justifiable as a security imperative, but instead represents the existence of two laws for two peoples in a single land. The Committee went on to state that such policies amount to arbitrary detention and contravene Article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits “racial segregation and apartheid.” Nevertheless, this apartheid policy has so far escaped the global condemnation it deserves. In general, Palestinian grievances are consistently evaded with the help of media bias that accords faint coverage to signs of resistance, including even this extraordinary non-violent movement mounted by Palestinian victims of institutionalized state abuse.

Although there has not been a principled or total abandonment of armed struggle by Palestinians living under occupation, there has been a notable and dramatic shift in emphasis to the tactics of nonviolence. For yearsliberal commentators in the West have been urging the Palestinians to make such a shift, partly for pragmatic reasons. Even President Obama echoed this suggestion in his 2009 Cairo address when he said,

“Palestinians must abandon violence….For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America’sfounding.”

But when Palestinians act in this recommended manner, the West averts its gaze and Israel responds with cynical disregard, dismissing near-death Palestinian hunger strikers as publicity stunts or cheap tricks to free themselves from imprisonment. Today, Palestinians have epitomized the best of American values that reflect the global history of non-violent resistance, as they wage a mass hunger strike, engage in a global boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli Apartheid, and risk their bodies on a weekly basis in peaceful protests against the Annexation Wall. The latter continues to expand its devastating encroachment upon and around Palestinian lands in defiance of a near unanimous Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice as well as countless Security Council Resolutions.

Yet, this America chooses to label the hunger strikers’ prison guards, the architects of racist laws and policies, as well as the engineers of the Apartheid Wall, as the sole and exemplary democracy in the Middle East. Rather than condemn Israel’s colonial practices, which constitute the core of Arab grievances and explain the widespread resentment of the US role in the Middle East, a US Congressional House panel has just now approved nearly one billion US dollars in additional military assistance to augment Israel’s anti-missile defense program. If passed, Israel will receive a record amount of four billion dollars in military aid next year by any country in the world.

There is a stark contrast between the round-the-clock coverage given to Chen Guangchen, the blind Chinese human rights activist who escaped from house arrest to the safety of the US Embassy, and the scant notice given this unprecedented Palestinian challenge to the Israeli prison system that is subjecting the protesters to severe health risks, even death. What is more, such hunger strikes are part of a broader Palestinian reliance on a powerful symbolic appeal to the conscience of humanity in their quest for long-denied rights under international law. Said deprivations include a disavowal of a peace process that has gone nowhere for decades while a pattern of settlement expansion has made any realization of the widely endorsed “two-state solution” increasingly implausible. The prolonged nature of the occupation also steadily transforms what was supposed to be a temporary occupation into a permanent arrangement best understood as a mixture of annexation and apartheid.

In the face of this opportunity to place pressure upon Israel to comply with international law and human rights norms, the international community of governments and inter-governmental institutions has been grotesquely silent as Palestinians place their very lives at sacrificial risk. For its part, the United Nations’ most senior officials said nothing until a group of forty young protesters blocked the entrance of UN offices in Ramallah on 8 May demanding the issuance of a statement on behalf of the hunger striking prisoners. Together with the help of a global social media campaign to trend #UNclosed, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and UNRWA’s director Filippo Grandi have finally issued statements expressing deep concern. Grandi has gone the farthest to urge that Israel either provide trials for the detainees or release them, though his statement has been conspicuously removed from the Agency’s website.

It is hard to deny the irony of tacit approval, at worst, or timid condemnation, at best, in the United Nations, the United States, or elsewhere. In its 2008 Boumedienne decision, the US Supreme Court declared that (arguably) the world’s most villainous and immoral persons are entitled to habeas corpus review in US courts in order to avoid the cruelty of indefinite detention. Yet, Israel’s policy of detaining indigenous Palestinians who inhabit the lands the State seeks to confiscate and settle for more than four decades denied those Palestinians exactly such legal protection. What are Palestinians to do in the face of such frustrating circumstances? What message does the lack of international support for their strong displays of nonviolence, self-sacrifice, and personal bravery send to them and to their Arab and Muslim counterparts who are once more exposed to blatant US hypocrisy in the region?

Palestinian civil society is now mainly opting for explicit acts of collective nonviolent resistance to register their dissatisfactions with the failures of the United Nations—or inter-governmental diplomacy in general—to produce a sustainable peace that reflects Palestinian rights under international law. The main expression of this embrace of nonviolence is the adoption of tactics used so successfully by the anti-Apartheid campaign to change the political climate in racist South Africa, yielding a nonviolent path to multiracial constitutional democracy. At the present time the growing BDS movement is working to achieve similar results.

Let us recall that successful global nonviolent movements are not restricted to fasts and marches, but include the boycott, non-cooperation, and civil disobedience tactics deployed by Palestinians today. Though President Obama, encumbered as he may be by a domestic election cycle, may feel compelled to ignore Palestinian responses to his call, the rest of the world should not.  Certainly, US-based and global citizens should demand that the Western media begin to act responsibly when dealing with injustices inflicted on the Palestinian people, and not sheepishly report human rights abuses only when committed by the adversaries of their state. The media itself is a tactical target and a residual problem. In solidarity with the hunger strikers, civic allies should address the institutional edifice upholding administrative detention. It extends from a discriminatory core and therefore its requisite treatment includes ensuring the enjoyment of internationally guaranteed rights; rights enshrined by the BDS call to action and reified by the movement’s steady and deliberate progression.

Posted in Human Rights, Palestine Affairs0 Comments

“Only one of my three sons is left and is locked behind Israel’s bars”

Posted on 10 May 2012.

NOVANEWS

 

ImageA hunger striker’s son in Gaza’s sit-in tent carrying a sign reading “I am in solidarity with Palestinian detainees”–By Mjd Abusalama

The sit-in tent for Palestinian political prisoners has been moved from the International Committee for the Red Cross to a central park near the statue of the Unknown Soldier in the middle of Gaza City. It is one of the few green places and thus one of the most lively places in Gaza, where people escape from their dark houses and seek fun and relief, or to simply waste their times observing others.  However, the sit-in tent is now used differently, to send messages of solidarity with our Political prisoners who have been on a mass hunger strike since April 17, and to show anger with the Arab and international community and all human rights organizations, which keep calling for human rights, democracy and justice, but when it comes to our prisoners, they do nothing but watch them dying and remaining helpless.

The solidarity is taking many forms, such as lighting candles, making marches, creatively performing plays, songs, poetry and Dabka, joining a symbolic hunger strike.  In Gaza’s sit-in tent, 50 men and 45 women have joined a symbolic hunger strike in solidarity with the detainees since May 2, including prisoner’s wives, parents, sisters and former prisoners. Those people have been protesting day and night. The tent is their shelter as long as the revolution of hunger is going inside Israeli prisons. Having been in the solidarity tent daily, even more than in my house, I’ve witnessed most of the cases among hunger strikers whose health conditions got deteriorating. Several cases were sent to hospital for low or high blood pressure and so many people fainted or emotionally collapsed. Ambulances and doctors never leave the tents anymore as if they have full time job at the tent.

While observing the hunger strikers getting paler as more days pass, I can’t help but think of our heroes, our prisoners behind Israel’s bars and compare. The strikers here have access to water and salt and they also have a small dish of yogurt and soup per day. But our prisoners have nothing but water and salt, ‘in case it’s not confiscated by the Israeli Prison Service (IPS).’  Strikers here can rest or sleep whenever they feel like it, but our prisoners keep being transferred between sections and prisons by the IPS attempting to exhaust them. Loai Odeh, a former prisoner who is also now on a hunger strike in solidarity, emphasizes that the IPS mercilessly prevents the strikers from resting, with these words he wrote recalling his experience of hunger strike during the campaign of disobedience.  “Soldiers burst into strikers’ rooms aggressively as if they were confronting armed fighters on a battleground, not hunger strikers with feeble bodies that can barely stand.  Knowing that strikers are intolerant of noise, soldiers break into their rooms with loud screams and initiate a  hand search in a way that one feels that he’s being beaten rather than searched.”

 

ImageLoai Odeh and Abu Hosny Al-Srafity in the sit-in tent

While making the daily tour to show support and admiration to the hunger strikers in the tent, I was surprised to see Abu Hosny Al-Srafity wearing the strikers’ t-shirt that distinguishes them from others, and which beautifully designed with the Palestinian flag with “we’ll live dignified” written on it.  Abu Hosny is a 66-year old detainee’s father whom I met since I started going to the weekly protest in the ICRC for political prisoners. Whenever we meet, we greet each other and have a short and informal conversation, but never had a real one that would make me feel like knowing him intimately. Finally, I had this conversation with him after I said “You, too?” out of surprise reacting to seeing that t-shirt.

“Absolutely!” He powerfully confirmed. “We took this step because we consider ourselves as partners in this battle of dignity but our hunger strike remains symbolic at the end of the day. It equals nothing of our detainees’ enormous suffering under the Israeli oppressive regime. They aren’t only hungry for food, they are hungry for dignity, justice, and freedom.”

He refused to let his age be a barrier in front of standing with his son Ali who was detained for 10 years and still has six to go. Doctors keep pressuring him to break his hunger strike but he refuses saying that “my life isn’t any more precious than that of my son.”

Our conversation was still in the beginning.  What came next was heartbreaking. I was amazed at his high spirit and his determination but this profound chat we had clarified to me where he got that strength from.

“Ali is the only son left.” He said. “Left?” I interrupted. Then he moved his below to take a photo he kept below and started explaining. “I had three sons. My oldest son Hosny and my youngest Mohammed were killed and the one in the middle is behind Israel’s bars.” I felt raged and asked how. “In 2004, I was sitting with my wife chatting alone about the terrifying sounds of warplanes that occupied Gaza’s sky. We knew an attack was coming. Then a loud expulsion was heard and shook the land below us. We were in indescribable panic.  My wife prayed, “May Allah stand with the mothers of the targeted people.”  Then she answered the phone that informed her about the assassination of her oldest son, having no idea she was praying for herself.”

It was very hard to keep control of my emotions after hearing that tragedy. I continued looking directly at his eyes that were full of sorrow and listened silently. “Wait. The next story is even more shocking.” He said. “I was on my way home from a family visit with my wife and my seven-year-old son Mohammed in 1994. We were close to the eastern line, near Naheloz settlement. While standing in the street and waving for cars to take us back home, we suddenly glanced an Israeli car and a jeep driving too fast toward us. We got confused and scared. They intentionally smashed my son under their wheels, hit my wife and badly injured her and kept driving fast toward the settlement. It was horrible. It all happened so quickly that I couldn’t rescue my son who froze out of fear in front of that heartless driver who killed him and didn’t bother to even look back.”

Abu Hosny stopped talking to see my reaction but I was too shocked to utter any word after hearing that horrible incidents. His voice narrating the stories of the murder of his two sons kept replaying in my ears, and my tears kept flowing and the features of shock didn’t leave my face.  He saw me in that condition and softly tapped on my hand and said, “Don’t be sad, my daughter. As long as we’re living on these holy lands of Palestine, we’ll never get fed up giving any sacrifice. These unjust and unsecure lives we’re leading are the source of our inner strength and determination. If that wasn’t the case, you wouldn’t see me now hunger striking in solidarity with my son, the living martyr, with hope to celebrate his freedom soon.”

Let’s pray to all detainees’ families to celebrate the victory of their detained sons in their battle of empty stomachs against the armed merciless jailers and pray that this victory will result in allowing them to visit their sons after over 6 years of family visits’ ban. Let’s support our prayers with  taking serious actions.

Posted in Human Rights, Palestine Affairs0 Comments

PCHR Condemns Preventing al-Quds Channel Crew from Carrying out Their Work and Their Detention by Shifa Hospital Security Personnel in Gaza City

Posted on 09 May 2012.

NOVANEWS

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the prevention of the al-Quds satellite channel’s crew from carrying out their work at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and their detention by the security officers of Shifa Hospital on Monday, 07 May 2012.  PCHR calls upon the Palestinian police in Gaza to respect the press freedom and the freedom of opinion and expression which are ensured under the Palestinian Basic Law and relevant international standards.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR and the testimony of Rami Abu Shammalah, a cameraman, at approximately 10:00, on Monday, 07 May 2012, al-Quds satellite channel’s crew comprised of Hanadi Nasrallah, a reporter, Rami Abu Shammalah, a cameraman, and Yusef al-Telbani, a sound technician, was denied entry into Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.  The crew went to the hospital to report on the health conditions of the mother of Rami Barbakh, a Palestinian prisoner detained in Israeli jails.  The mother was hospitalized as a result of starting a hunger strike in solidarity with her son.  Abu Shammalah said that once they started to film the admission of the mother to the hospital in order to receive necessary medical treatment, two security officers came, began to shout at them, and pulled them out of the place.

Then four police officers, who were present at the hospital, arrived at the scene.  Abu Shammalah told them that he had stopped filming and would leave the hospital.  However, the police officer refused to let them go and detained the whole crew in one of the security rooms.  The director of Al-Quds channel’s office came to the hospital in an attempt to have the crew released, upon which the police officers told him that the crew did not have a permit for filming.  The director replied that al-Quds channel had obtained a permit for filming from the Ministry of Interior which allows its crews to film everywhere.  He also requested the police officers to release the crew, but they refused to do so. The director left and after a while the Public Relations Officer of the hospital intervened and arranged the crew’s release.

“The police officers also obstructed the work of another crew from al-Quds channel comprised of Mohammed al-Akhras, a cameraman, and Mahmoud Abu Seedo, a producer, when they were trying to interview Rawhi Moshtaha, an ex-prisoner who was admitted into Shifa Hospital.  Moshtaha’s health conditions deteriorated because of the hunger strike he started in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

PCHR denounces the detention of al-Quds channel’s crew and their prevention from carrying out their work, and:

1.     Calls for providing protection to journalists and media, and taking necessary measures to allow them to work freely in respect of the right to freedom of opinion and press freedoms;

2.     Stresses that the right to freedom of opinion and expression and press freedoms are guaranteed under the Palestinian Basic Law and relevant human rights conventions;

3.     Calls upon the Palestinian security services to respect international human rights standards, the Palestinian Basic Law and other relevant laws.

Posted in Human Rights, Palestine Affairs0 Comments

Dying to Live Free

Posted on 05 May 2012.

NOVANEWS
by Stephen Lendman

 

Israel’s prison gulag is one of the world’s most hellish. Palestinians held suffer horrifically. Inflicting pain and suffering is official Israeli policy. Rule of law principles are spurned.

Virtually all Palestinians held are political prisoners. Refusing food is their only resistance weapon. The Addameer Prisoner Support group estimates about 2,000 now engage in open-ended hunger strikes. Most began on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners Day.

Israel responded as expected. More pain and suffering was inflicted. Detainees are attacked and beaten. Personal possessions were confiscated. Electricity was cut off. Salt for water is prohibited.

Transfers are made harsher locations. Solitary confinement is imposed. Visits by family members and lawyers are denied. Addameer said its attorneys can’t get access.

Israel hopes tough tactics will undermine the will to resist. Instead it’s hardened.

Eight or more prisoners remain on extended strikes. On April 27, Thaer Halaheh and Bilal Diab reached day 59. Despite deteriorating health, an Israeli judge rejected their appeals against lawless administrative detention without charge. More on them below.

Hassan Safadi’s High Court petition was rejected. He’s refused food for 54 days. Omar Abu Shalal reached day 50. Jaffar Azzedine’s on day 35.

In Ramleh Prison hospital, Mohammad Taj continues hunger striking after 41 days. He demands prisoner of war status and Third Geneva rights.

Mahmoud Sarsak reached day 36. He’s imprisoned under Israel’s draconian Unlawful Combatants Law (UCL). Without evidence, it’s imposed based on “a reasonable basis” to believe Palestinians belong to a hostile group belligerently confronting Israel.

Israel calls wanting to live free belligerent and confrontational. UCL is similar to George Bush’s “unlawful enemy combatant” designation.

Under America’s 2009 Military Commissions Act (MCA), terminology was switched to “unprivileged enemy belligerent.” Language changed, but not intent. Detainees charged lose all rights, including due process and judicial fairness.

Bush’s UEC designation resurrected a defunct WW II provision. Four Geneva conventions superseded it. Under its new name, it’s still enforced. Boyle once called it a:

“quasi-category universe of legal nihilism where human beings can be disappeared, detained incommunicado, denied access to attorneys and regular courts, tried in kangaroo courts, executed, tortured, assassinated and subjected to numerous other manifestations of State Terrorism.”

Israel enforces the same harshness. Like America, it gets away with murder with impunity. Prolonged arbitrary detention is imposed. Hundreds face it uncharged because no evidence proves wrongdoing or intent to commit it.

Detaining someone long-term constitutes a serious international law breach. Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

“Everyone has the right to liberty and security of person. No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention. No one shall be deprived of his liberty except on such grounds and in accordance with such procedures as are established by law.”

“Anyone who is arrested shall be informed, at the time of arrest, of the reasons for his arrest and shall be promptly informed of any charges against him.”

“Anyone who is deprived of his liberty by arrest or detention shall be entitled to take proceedings before a court, in order that that court may decide without delay on the lawfulness of his detention and order his release if the detention is not lawful.”

Although some wiggle room permits use “in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation,” Israel consistently violates Fourth Geneva’s Article 78, stating:

“If the Occupying Power considers it necessary, for imperative reasons of security, to take measures concerning protected persons, it may, at the most, subject them to assigned residence or to internment.”

“Decisions regarding such assigned residence or internment shall be made according to a regular procedure to be prescribed by the Occupying Power in accordance with the provisions of the present Convention. This procedure shall include the right of appeal (decided on) with the least possible delay. (If it’s upheld), it shall be subject to periodical review….”

Extended uncharged detentions should never substitute for criminal proceedings. Nor should anyone face imprisonment for political reasons. Israel flaunts international law and its own. Palestinians suffer horrifically in gulag hell.

Despite extreme prison harshness, hunger strikers resolve to resist. Their numbers grow. Expect more to join them. Their will defies Israeli lawlessness. They’re dying to live free.

Bilal Diab

On August 17, 2011, Israeli soldiers arrested him. Around 40 masked men in civilian clothes surrounded his home at 12:30 AM. Sound bombs and tear gas were used. Family members were treated belligerently. Bilal’s brother, Issam, was violently thrown to the ground. Hands shackled behind his back, he was beaten.

Bilal was shackled, blindfolded, and mistreated. He was dragged violently to a jeep about 250 meters away. First taken to Megiddo prison, he was transferred to Salem Detention Center for interrogation.

On August 25, he was ordered detained uncharged for six months. Secret evidence was alleged. If any existed, it would be revealed. Prisoners, family members, and counsel can only speculate why he’s held. Lawyers know doing so violates international law. Israeli military courts and civil ones go along.

On February 14, Bilal was ordered held another six months. Administrative detentions have no limit. Prisoners can be held indefinitely uncharged.

On February 29, he began hunger striking in protest. At the time, he was at Al-Maqab Prison. On March 31, he was transferred to Ramleh Prison hospital and isolated.

After losing consciousness several times, he was sent to Harofeh Hospital, then returned to Ramleh. Addameer lawyers were denied permission to see him.

The Israeli Prison Service (IPS) claims he’s being properly cared for. In fact, he’s punished in isolation hell.

Earlier, he spent seven years in Israeli prisons. On February 17, 2010, he was released. Israeli authorities targeted him and family members. They said over 18 raids were made since September 2000. Each time, an arrest followed.

Bilal’s brother Bassam spent seven months in prison. His brother Issam was detained uncharged for 10 months, then sentenced to another 16 months. His brother Allam was held six months, and Azzam got a life sentence. On March 29, he began hunger striking with Bilal.

Bilal had no family contacts since arrested. Their appeals were denied. Now they know he may die. Israel doesn’t care either way.

Thaer Halahleh

On June 26, 2010, about 50 soldiers arrested him at home past midnight. Belligerently, they broke in and seized him. Soldiers told his father he was a “threat to the public.” No other reason was given.

On July 5, 2010, he was administratively detained without charge. Alleged secret evidence was again claimed. Every three months, his detention was extended. On February 29, he began hunger striking in protest.

He’s also now at Ramleh Prison hospital in isolation. Addameer can’t see him. Reportedly, he’s in serious condition like Bilal. In vain, both men appealed for release. Their failing health was disregarded.

Eight previous times, Thaer was arrested. He spent six and half years in prison uncharged. Since beginning his hunger strike, his mother, wife and daughter saw him once. His father and five brothers were denied.

No further family visits are allowed. His father and brothers earlier were arrested. His brother Shaher’s serving a 17 year sentence in Rimon Prison.

On April 26, the International Middle East Media Center reported Thaer’s immune system and organs may be failing. Mandela Institute lawyer, Anwar Abu Lafy, saw him. He said a recent liver and kidney CT Scan showed “his body is unable to function and his life is in grave danger.”

He can’t walk or stand. He suffers sharp chest and stomach pain. He’s losing vision in his right eye. He lost over 52 pounds. His blood pressure and sugar levels are dangerously low.

He also suffers from “escalating heart beats, hair loss, bleeding from his mouth and gums, and weakening muscles.” He’s dying but won’t stop hunger striking for justice. Neither will Bilal and others.


A Final Comment

Resisting courageously gets world attention. Israeli harshness hasn’t gone unnoticed. Behind bars or free, all Palestinians suffer. Many resist. Their rights matter. They deserve justice like everyone. Hopefully one day they’ll get it. It’s decades overdue.

Posted in Human Rights, ZIO-NAZI0 Comments

Older Entries »

Join our mailing list

* = required field

Archives