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Detention of Palestinian political prisoners

By Shazia Arshad | Middle East Monitor | 29 January 2012

As candidates prepared for elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006, the Israeli authorities began a campaign of detention and imprisonment to thwart the growing move towards democracy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli authorities began to arrest members of Hamas: 450 were detained in 2005 to prevent their participation in the election the following year; many were held in administrative detention, without trial or charge. Despite this the elections took place and a number of the candidates in prison were elected to the PLC.

The 2006 Palestinian elections were overseen by international observers, who declared them to be free and fair (more open, it has been said, than the 2004 re-election of George W Bush). Hamas ended up as the democratically-elected Palestinian government. A number of PLC members under the Change and Reform List (including Hamas members and supporters) were also chosen by the electorate and became the target of the Israeli authorities’ constant campaign of arrest and detention.

There are, at the moment, 27 PLC members and 2 Ministers being detained by the Israeli authorities.

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January 29, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Minister of Detainees Calls for Boycott of Military Courts

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | January 26, 2012

Palestinian Minister of Detainees in the West Bank, Issa Qaraqe’, called for the boycotting of all Israeli military courts for their repeated rulings that confine thousands of detainees under administrative orders without filing any official indictments against them.

His statements came during a visit to the family of detainee, Ahmad Nabhan Saqer, aged 47, at the Askar refugee camp, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.

Saqer has been imprisoned under administrative detention for over three years, since he was abducted in November 2008, and Israeli military courts have repeatedly issued administrative detention orders against him, without filing any formal charges.

Saqer was arrested three times before, and has spent a total of twelve years and counting, behind bars.

The Palestinian Minister said that administrative detention is an illegal and unconstitutional form of imprisonment, as military courts do not have to file charges or reveal the cause of arrest.

Detainees held under administrative detention do not know for sure when, or if, they will be released, as Israel often continues to renew these orders without any prior notice. In some isolated cases, the detainees have been told that they will be released, taken to the main prison gate, and are then informed that a new order was issued against them, usually for three or six months each time.

Qaraqe’ voiced an appeal to human rights groups to apply pressure on Israel and oblige it to end its administrative detention laws as they are arbitrary, unconstitutional, and violate International Law.

He said that all military courts must be boycotted as they base their rulings on “secret files” that even defense attorneys do not have access to.

The wife of Saqer stated that the extended imprisonment of her husband, and the uncertainty of when or if he will be released, directly impacts the family, particularly his children who can’t know for sure when their father will be able to return home.

On January 20, 2012, Saqer declared that he will be boycotting military courts, and stated that appearing in front of military courts and judges provides them with the legitimacy they do not have.

There are 280 Palestinians who are currently imprisoned under administrative detention orders; Israel has issued more than 20,000 administrative detention orders since the year 2000. These orders have also been issued against children and elected legislators.

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January 28, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Demanding justice for Yousef, a quiet boy killed by Israeli settlers

Bekah Wolf | The Electronic Intifada | 27 January 2012
Yousef Ikhlayl, top left, attending a demonstration in Beit Ommar less than six months before he was killed by Israeli settlers. (Palestine Solidarity Project)

On 28 January 2011 at 6:30am, Yousef Ikhlayl, 17, went with his father Fakhri to their farmland on the outskirts of the West Bank village Beit Ommar, where they prepared the land around their grapevines. At approximately 7am, two groups of Israelis from the illegal settlements Bat Ayn and Kiryat Arba were taking a “hike” in the privately-owned Palestinian agricultural land belonging to the residents of Beit Ommar (“Palestinian killed in clashes with settlers near Hebron,” The Jerusalem Post, 29 January 2011).

There was no indication that the settlers were planning on shooting. Yousef’s father reported that the first shot fired by the settlers hit his son in the head. The settlers then began shooting in the air and the surrounding areas to prevent others from approaching, as his father screamed desperately for help.

Yousef was carried to a car that drove him out of the agricultural valley and to the main road, where an ambulance “rushed” him to the hospital in Hebron, passing two Israeli military checkpoints on the way. At the hospital, Yousef was put on a respirator, though he had no brain activity. He passed away soon after.

At his funeral the following day, as is common practice with the Israeli military involving martyr funerals, soldiers numbering in the hundreds invaded Beit Ommar and attacked the funeral with tear gas, rubber-coated steel bullets and even live ammunition, as the Palestine Solidarity Project reported (“Funeral of Yousef Ikhlayl attacked by Israeli military, dozens injured,” 29 January 2011).

The murder of Yousef Ikhlayl, the impunity with which the settlers acted and the military’s behavior at the funeral are common occurrences in the occupied West Bank. The death of a Palestinian, even a child, is rarely noted and quickly forgotten in much of the world. The killing of Yousef was, however, a profound event for myself, the Palestine Solidarity Project (PSP, the organization I co-founded) and popular resistance in the Hebron district as a whole.

Never safe

PSP began farmer-accompaniment programs in the areas surrounding Beit Ommar — particularly the areas near Bat Ayn settlement — in 2006. We did so because of the extreme violence and the regularity with which settlers from this colony would attack farmers, particularly in the Saffa valley near where Yousef was killed.

Yousef was a regular participant in all of our activities, including demonstrations, farming actions, summer camps, English classes and even a photography workshop we held in 2010. He was a fixture at PSP events, volunteering to set up for conferences and often babysitting my young daughter as we held meetings and tours for international activists. I have vivid memories of Yousef carrying my baby, Rafeef, around the yard of my house, pointing out tree leaves and flowers while my husband, PSP co-founder Mousa Abu Maria, and I met with international delegations and the local popular committee.

Yousef was quite familiar with the Israeli settlers from the area and their potential for violence. Perhaps it was because of this familiarity with them that he did not run when they arrived in the area. He had been with PSP dozens of times as we accompanied other farmers to their land, as settlers watched from the hillside or hurled rocks at us from hundreds of meters away. Perhaps he assumed this time would be no different; but maybe it would have been different if we had been there with his family. I wonder about what he thought when the settlers approached. I have often thought in the last year if things would have been different if international activists had been there; if I had been there.

Our farmer-accompaniment program in the area throughout the years, though it had led to literally dozens of arrests of Israeli and international solidarity activists, was completely successful in deterring settler violence during the accompaniment.

In the end, the settlers roamed the area freely, shooting at residents and youth who began throwing stones for two hours. Two hours before Israeli soldiers, who are responsible for the security of Area C — 60 percent of the West Bank under Israeli military control — could persuade the residents to return to their homes.

The aforementioned Jerusalem Post article adds that twenty settlers were detained at the scene by the military — a highly unusual occurrence, possibly due to the presence of international and Israeli activists who had arrived in the area after the shooting — but were all released the same day.

Israeli impunity

During the two hours that the settlers stayed in the area, PSP activists arrived and began taking pictures of them to provide to the Israeli police responsible for investigating attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank. Shortly after the murder, Yousef’s father and the activists who took the pictures went to the Israeli police station (located in the settlement Kfar Etzion, next door to Bat Ayn) and filed a formal complaint.

Yousef’s father provided the photographs to the police and even identified a few individuals he saw closest to him and his son when he was shot. In a democracy, one would think this level of evidence, combined with the heinousness of the crime, would lead to a thorough investigation and speedy indictment. But, as we all well know, that is not what happens when settlers attack Palestinians.

In December 2011, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights organization that monitors the criminal accountability of Israeli civilians and Israeli military forces in the West Bank, released an updated report on the rate of which Israeli civilians are prosecuted for crimes committed against Palestinians in the West Bank.

Yesh Din discovered, after researching the progress of 700 individual complaints filed with the Israeli police in the West Bank by Palestinians, that 91 percent of all complaints end with the investigation being closed without an indictment, including 85 percent of cases involving violence. The most common reason for closing a case (which can be done either by the police or by the police prosecutor) is “perpetrator unknown,” though a full 2 percent of all cases were closed because of a “lack of public interest,” which begs the question, “which public?” (“Updated data monitoring hundreds of investigations: 91% of cases closed without indictments,” 15 December 2011).

The report reveals that only 7.4 percent of cases involving settler crimes committed against Palestinians from 2005 to 2011 actually ended in an indictment. The statistic regarding crimes committed by Israeli military personnel against Palestinians, which are investigated by a separate entity, is a negligible 3.5 percent ending in indictments.

Yesh Din’s full report shows a series of failures, from the process of filing an initial complaint, to the police investigation, to the process inside the prosecutors’ office for initiating an indictment. In Yousef Ikhlayl’s case, Yesh Din discovered that while an investigation was conducted by the police (which may have only constituted the interview with Yousef’s father) and the file was turned over to the prosecution, the case has inexplicably been stalled for months because the prosecution’s office has refused to assign the case to an individual attorney, a step necessary before a final decision can be made on whether an indictment will be handed down.

It is obvious that individual justice for Palestinian victims of settler crimes — even when the victim is an unarmed child — remains elusive. Perhaps, as was suggested in an op-ed that appeared in Israeli daily Haaretz about the murder of Mustafa Tamimi, knowing the individual perpetrator, and pursuing a case against the individual, only serves to alleviate the responsibility of the system as a whole (“A courageous Palestinian has died, shrouded in stones,” 13 December 2011).

However, violent, ideological settlers, and their counterparts in the Israeli military, will only continue to act with total disregard for the basic human rights of Palestinians if they are assured that they will not face consequences. The death of a civilian, particularly a child, should result both in a black mark on the society that condones it, as well as the prosecution of the individuals responsible.

A call to action

Yousef Ikhlayl’s murder was overshadowed by world events taking place in January 2011. Activists and sympathetic journalists alike were focused on the massive uprising in Egypt that had just erupted, as well as other developments during the Arab uprisings. Beit Ommar, Yousef’s hometown, had fallen into the background as settler violence had decreased in previous months and the demonstrations in Nabi Saleh were gaining attention.

The community of Beit Ommar and the Palestine Solidarity Project have called for an international day of action on Saturday, 28 January, to commemorate the one-year anniversary of Yousef’s death and ensure that he will not be forgotten.

People all over the world will hold demonstrations in front of Israeli consulates, and will plaster their cities with posters of with his face (which can be found on the website).

We are calling for an end to Israeli impunity, and the world to remember that behind statistics and policy reports, the victims of Israel’s murderous policies are real, live people. It is imperative that the international community not only hold Israel accountable for its criminal acts, through movements including boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and solidarity work in Palestine, but also to humanize the victims of these crimes. Yousef Ikhlayl was a goofy, quiet and dedicated boy. He had a sheepish smile and made my daughter laugh. We will not forget him.

~

Bekah Wolf is a co-founder of the Palestine Solidarity Project, and has worked in the West Bank since 2003.  Further details on the day of action to demand justice for Yousef Ikhlayl can be found on the PSP website, www.palestinesolidarityproject.org. PSP can be followed on Twitter at @PalestinePSP.

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January 27, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , | Leave a comment

Libya: Detainees tortured and denied medical care

Médecins Sans Frontières | January 26, 2012

TRIPOLI/BRUSSELS – Detainees in the Libyan city of Misrata are being tortured and denied urgent medical care, leading the international medical humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to suspend its operations in detention centres in Misrata, MSF announced today.

MSF teams began working in Misrata’s detention centres in August, 2011, to treat war-wounded detainees. Since then, MSF doctors were increasingly confronted with patients who suffered injuries caused by torture during interrogation sessions. The interrogations were held outside the detention centres. In total, MSF treated 115 people who had torture-related wounds and reported all the cases to the relevant authorities in Misrata. Since January, several of the patients returned to interrogation centres have even been tortured again.

“Some officials have sought to exploit and obstruct MSF’s medical work,” said MSF General Director Christopher Stokes. “Patients were brought to us in the middle of interrogation for medical care, in order to make them fit for further interrogation. This is unacceptable. Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions.”

MSF medical teams were also asked to treat patients inside the interrogation centres, which was categorically refused by the organisation.

The most alarming case occurred on January 3, when MSF doctors treated a group of 14 detainees returning from an interrogation centre located outside the detention facilities. Despite previous MSF demands for the immediate end of torture, nine of the 14 detainees suffered numerous injuries and displayed obvious signs of torture.

The MSF team informed the National Army Security Service—the agency responsible for interrogations—that a number of patients needed to be transferred to hospitals for urgent and specialised care. All but one of the detainees were again deprived of essential medical care and were subjected to renewed interrogations and torture outside the detention centres.

After meeting with various authorities, MSF sent an official letter on January 9 to the Misrata Military Council, the Misrata Security Committee, the National Army Security Service, and the Misrata Local Civil Council, again demanding an immediate stop to any form of ill treatment of detainees.

“No concrete action has been taken,” said Stokes. “Instead, our team received four new torture cases. We have therefore come to the decision to suspend our medical activities in the detention centres.”

MSF has been present in Misrata since April 2011, in the midst of the Libyan conflict. Since August 2011, MSF has worked in Misrata’s detention centres, treating war wounded, performing surgeries, and providing orthopaedic follow-up care to people who had suffered bone fractures. MSF medical teams have carried out 2,600 consultations, including 311 for violent trauma.

MSF will continue its mental health support activities in schools and health facilities in Misrata, as well as its assistance to 3,000 African migrants, refugees and internally displaced persons in and around Tripoli.

~

MSF is an international humanitarian medical organisation that has worked in Libya since February 25, 2011. To ensure the independence of its medical work, MSF relies solely on private donations to finance its activities in Libya and does not accept any funding from governments, donor agencies, or military or political groups.

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January 26, 2012 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Speaker Of Palestine Parliament Receives Six Months Administrative Detention

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | January 24, 2012

The Israeli Military Court at the Ofer Israeli prison, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah, decided to imprison the elected head of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), Dr. Aziz Dweik, to six months administrative detention.

On Sunday, a court was held to look into the possibility of placing him under administrative detention, without any charges officially filed against him.

Both Dr. Dweik and legislator Khaled Tafesh, from the southern West Bank city of Hebron, were taken prisoner on Friday.

Representing Dr. Dweik, Lawyer Fadi Al-Qawasmi stated that the court issued the administrative detention order despite the fact that no charges were brought against his client.

The Palestinian Legislative Council slammed the Israeli court ruling against Dr. Dweik, and demanded the release of all elected legislators, ministers, and officials.

On Thursday at dawn, Israeli troops kidnapped legislator, Abdul-Jaber Foqaha, after breaking into his home in Ramallah. Soldiers confiscated documents, a mobile phone, and a computer that belong to the legislator.

On Sunday, Israeli troops broke into the International Red Cross headquarters in Jerusalem, and kidnapped two Palestinian members of parliament.

Khaled Abu Arfa and Mohammed Totah, both members of the political wing of the Hamas movement and elected MPs, were detained from the IRC headquarters, having spent over 18 months seeking refuge in the building following Israel’s illegal revocation of their Jerusalem residency.

Israel is currently holding prisoner 26 elected Palestinians legislators.

The Hamas movement stated that Israel is acting on obstructing and foiling all efforts to create a national unity government, and wants to destroy any chances of Palestinian reconciliation.

January 24, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Soldiers raid community center, arrest local activist

Ma’an – 22/01/2012

HEBRON – Soldiers ransacked the office of a Palestinian community center in Hebron on Saturday and arrested the coordinator of a local coalition group.

Issa Amr, leader of a group called Youth Against Settlements, was blindfolded and detained.

“Soldiers took me to a military base in Tel Rumeida, they handcuffed and blindfolded me where I was brutally beaten for no reason. They also threatened to kill me, and settlers spat on me several times.

Then they chanted hate slogans and things like ‘each Arab dog will have its day’. After that, soldiers steered me in the streets as they chanted that Golani battalion is the best in the Israeli army,” Issa Amr told Ma’an after he was released.

The Sumud and Tahaddi, or Steadfastness and Challenge, Center has been threatened by soldiers and settlers for years, he said.

Around 800 Jewish settlers live among 30,000 Palestinians in the parts of the ancient city of Hebron that are under Israeli control.

Routine settler abuse of the Palestinian community in Hebron includes physical assault, stone throwing, throwing waste water and gunfire.

The Israeli human rights group BT’selem says there is a “systematic failure” to protect Palestinians from settler attacks in Hebron, with Israeli soldiers often witnessing violent assaults without intervening.

January 22, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Video | Leave a comment

“Talk to us,” says Hamas in rare visit to Europe

Adri Nieuwhof | The Electronic Intifada | 20 January 2012
Mushir al-Masri gestures with his left hand while speaking into several microphones
Hamas spokesperson and Palestinian parliamentarian Mushir al-Masri in 2010. (Mohammed Asad/APA images)

Three Hamas politicians made a rare visit to Europe this week.

A delegation of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) travelled to Switzerland to attend a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). It was the first time since the 2006 PLC elections that Hamas members undertook an official visit to a European country.

The delegation — led by PLC member and Hamas spokesperson Mushir al-Masri — left the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing, and continued their journey via Egypt. Al-Masri also heads an international committee for the defense of the PLC members who are held in Israeli jails.

The IPU Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians met in Geneva on 14 January to discuss parliamentarians under threat. The IPU collected information about lawmakers who face death threats, are subjected to harassment, or are unable to carry out their parliamentary mandate without hindrance and invited the delegation from Gaza to clarify the situation of the Palestinian lawmakers.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman reacted furiously to the IPU invitation to the PLC members from Gaza, according to the news agency AFP (“Israel furious as Hamas attends global parliamentary forum,” 16 January 2011).

The Swiss-Israeli Association added that the invitation represented “an insult to democratic values and human rights that represent the spirit of Geneva.” Since 1957 the association has “promoted friendship” with the State of Israel and supports cultural, academic and social exchange with Israel.

But Anders Johnsson, the IPU President, warded off the attacks. He told the website Swissinfo that “the IPU doesn’t deal with Hamas, but the IPU committee deals with the rights of members of parliament, whoever they are” (“Hamas visit to Switzerland sparks outcry,” 19 January 2012).

Swiss defend invitation

A Swiss foreign ministry spokeswoman Carole Waelti told the same website that “Switzerland, as host of the organization, is obliged to facilitate the entry of people officially invited by the organization.” Waelti added that Switzerland has regular contacts with Hamas.

Switzerland does not belong to the European Union, which refuses to deal with Hamas and has placed the political party on its list of terrorist organizations.

Meanwhile, the Swiss envoy to the Middle East, Jean-Daniel Ruch, met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Cairo on 18 January to discuss the possibility of dialogue between Europe and Hamas (“Hamas chief Meshaal meets Swiss envoy in Cairo,” AFP, 19 January 2012).

Mushir Al-Masri told AFP that the talks “come within the framework of the Hamas political bureau’s contacts with some European parties and its policy of openness towards the Europeans.”

Ongoing detention

After the capture of an Israeli soldier in Gaza in 2006, Israel arrested eight ministers and 26 PLC members of the Hamas-affiliated Change and Reform Bloc.

Israel did not oppose the participation of any Palestinian blocs in the 2006 PLC elections. Yet one year after the elections, Israel declared the Change and Reform bloc illegal. Since then PLC members with the party have been accused of “membership,” “activity” and “holding a position” in an “unauthorized association” (Addameer page on Palestinian Legislative Council Members).

At its meeting, the IPU committee on human rights examined 70 cases in 37 countries, including those of the 23 Palestinian parliamentarians who are held without charge in administrative detention in Israeli jails. Twenty of the detained parliamentarians are members of the Change and Reform Bloc.

While each administrative detention order lasts for as much as six months, the Israeli authorities frequently renew the orders, therefore resulting in the PLC members being unable to carry out their legislative and oversight functions. The IPU Committee has called upon the Israeli authorities to abandon the practice of detaining elected representatives.

Following its participation in the IPU meeting, the Hamas delegation paid a visit to the Swiss national parliament in Bern.

“We also met with the Red Cross in Geneva, the vice-mayor of Geneva and with Islamic organizations in different cantons,” al-Masri told The Electronic Intifada. “The event in Geneva was the best attended.”

Al-Masri was referring to an event organized by the human rights group Droit pour Tous (Rights for All) to commemorate the anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, Israel’s attack on Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009. The event, hosted by the University of Geneva, was attended by approximately 500 persons.

“Don’t always follow the US”

In a fully-packed lecture hall, al-Masri recalled the devastation that was wreaked during the Gaza attacks.

“All persons who were complicit in the war crimes committed in Gaza should be taken to court,” he said. “Although the pro-Israel lobby has tried to jeopardize our visit to Geneva, we are here to tell you about our suffering under the siege of Gaza. We are here to defend the rights of the Palestinian people living in Gaza and in the West Bank, to defend the rights of all the political prisoners and to defend the rights of the Palestinians who live outside Palestine.”

Al-Masri called on European states to be just and impartial and not always to follow the United States.

“The European Union made a mistake by adding Hamas to its terrorist list. Hamas was elected by the people. The European countries should apply international law. Our ultimate goal is to obtain our freedom by all means. No matter the strength of our occupier, justice will win. ”

A Socialist Party member of the Swiss national parliament, Carlo Sommaruga, told the audience that “it does not make sense to bury one’s head in the sand. Hamas won the majority at the 2006 elections and then the movement and the Palestinian people were marginalized by the United States and Europe — a policy that has brought us nowhere.”

Sommaruga expressed his support for the Palestinian-led campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.

“I was an activist against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa,” he said. “We boycotted products, wanted to end financial relations and called for a cultural boycott. We have to do the same today. Every person has a responsibility. Everyone can participate in the BDS movement.”

The Change and Reform Bloc delegation was able to visit Switzerland because the Swiss authorities did not give in to pressure from Israel and pro-Israel forces in Switzerland. The IPU Committee called on Israel to end its practices that obstruct PLC members from carrying out their parliamentary mandate.

Time will tell if other governments in Europe support the call of the IPU by pressuring Israel to end the oppression of Palestinian parliamentarians.

Adri Nieuwhof is a consultant and human rights advocate based in Switzerland.

January 20, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Israeli forces ‘detain Palestinian Legislative Council head’ at checkpoint

Ma’an – 19/01/2012

JERUSALEM – Israeli forces on Thursday detained the head of the Palestinian Legislative Council Aziz Dweik at a checkpoint near Jerusalem, witnesses said.

Israeli soldiers handcuffed and blindfolded Dweik and took him to an unknown destination, witnesses told Ma’an.

An Israeli military spokesman had no immediate comment on the report.

Some 23 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council are currently imprisoned in Israel, according to the prisoner rights group Addameer. Twenty of the elected officials are being held in administrative detention without charge or trial.

Almost 5,000 Palestinians, including 132 minors, are held in Israeli jails, a practice which violates international law.

January 19, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

George Abdallah: Exposing the Farce of French Justice

It is an open secret that radical rebel George Abdallah, largely ignored by western media, was illegally sentenced to life in prison close to three decades ago. But French authorities continue to insist on keeping him behind bars, even after he has completed his prison term.


Abdallah originally should have been released from prison after 18 months (Photo: Marwan Tahtah)
By Othman Tazghart | Al Akhbar | January 18, 2012

Paris – French authorities are insisting on keeping an ex-fighter in the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF) in prison, despite the fact that 28 years have passed since he was first detained. This is a major breach of French legal procedures and the European Convention on Human Rights, which states that prisoners serving a life sentence must be released after serving a maximum of 18 years.

Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, who began his struggle as a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), before joining the LARF, was arrested in Lyon on October 1984. At the time, the LARF was accused of a number of high profile commando operations, the most prominent of which were the assassination of the American military attache in Paris, Charles Robert Ray (18 January 1982) and the Israeli diplomat, Ya’acov Bar-Simantov (3 April 1982).

Initially, French authorities could not find enough evidence to charge Abdallah in connection with those cases. Apart from some leaflets showing he belonged to the LARF and a fake Algerian passport in his possession, the authorities were hard pressed to make a case against him. Therefore, when he came before the court for the first time in July 1986, he was indicted on only one charge, the use of a fake travel document.

In his memoirs, titled The Elysee Years, and published in 1988, Jacques Attali, the advisor to President Francois Mitterand, wrote on 6 March 1985: “We have no proof against Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. Therefore, the only thing we can charge him with is possession of a fake passport.”

Abdallah originally should have been released from prison after 18 months. But his case soon took a very different turn, leading to his conviction and life imprisonment.

Isabelle Coutant-Peyre, who was a member of Abdallah’s defense team (then headed by the notorious lawyer Jacques Verges), recalls the details of the “judicial conspiracy” against the Lebanese revolutionary, saying: “Abdallah was suddenly recalled to the court on 28 February 1987. We were surprised that he was facing different charges and new evidence which was not included in his file during the first trial. The prosecution claimed that weapons had been found in secret hideaways and flats belonging to Abdallah. This was taken as proof of his participation in the commando operations carried out by the LARF in France in 1982.”

Coutant-Peyre adds: “The court did not hesitate in sentencing our client to life imprisonment, despite the protests of the defense team that the evidence against him was not included in the original trial and was fabricated later to convict him retroactively. This was a major breach of legal procedure.” It was clear that Abdallah had become the victim of an intelligence conspiracy.

However, the details of the conspiracy plotted by the French DST (internal intelligence) were not revealed until the 10th anniversary of Abdallah’s conviction. In his memoirs, titled The Fight Against Espionage: Memoirs of the Director of DST, the former director of French intelligence, Yves Bonnet, also revealed some of the threads of the conspiracy.

“We were able to gather enough information against Abdallah after the head of the anti-terrorist network, Jean Francois Clair, succeeded in recruiting an informant who was very close to the LARF,” Bonnet wrote. He only referred to the informant at the time as “Jean Paul M.” and indicated that he was a lawyer.

In July 2001, when Abdallah had already been in prison for 17 years, the lawyer Jean Paul Mazurier, a member of Abdallah’s defense team, threw a bombshell that shook the French judiciary system. In a long interview with Liberation, he confessed to being the informant alluded to by Yves Bonnet. The lawyer revealed in detail how French intelligence had recruited him to spy on his client (which in itself is enough evidence to repeal Abdallah’s sentence).

Mazurier added that the DST told him to make his client think that he shared his belief in revolutionary ideas and the struggle for the Palestinian cause. Abdallah began to trust him and brought him to meet his friends in the LARF in Lebanon. This made it easier for French intelligence to penetrate their group and gather evidence to convict Abdallah.

As a result of the scandal ignited by the confessions of the lawyer-informant, everyone expected Abdallah’s defense team to raise a challenge to the court to overturn the conviction against its client. French law prohibits the use of lawyers, doctors, or journalists to spy on the accused and to gather evidence against them.

However, the defense team did no such thing. They decided to wait until 2002 to present a request to release Abdallah because his sentence had expired. Despite repeated rejections of these requests over a ten year period, the defense team has refrained from putting in a request to overturn the conviction on the basis of the espionage incident. Everyone Al-Akhbar spoke to on the defense team refused to discuss the reasons behind this. One of them said: “That question should be put to Abdallah’s comrades in the LARF.”

As for the former director of DST, Yves Bonnet, he admits now that what happened was “an illegal intelligence conspiracy.”

“We really did behave like criminals in this case,” he said, adding, “I have to add my voice today to those who are calling for Abdallah’s release. It is time to put an end to the gross injustice we committed against him.”

January 19, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

UN slams collective punishment of Gaza

Press TV – Jan 19, 2012

Head of the UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has expressed concerns over the Israeli regime’s dismantlement of the Karni crossing in northeastern Gaza Strip.

Valerie Amos said in a press conference at the UN Security Council on Wednesday that the dismantlement of the Karni crossing means that commercial activity into Gaza will decline and it will have the impact of “de-developing Gaza rather than re-developing it.”

The senior UN official was referring to the continued Israeli blockade of Gaza and its devastating impact on the economic development there.

The Israeli regime has full control over the airspace, territorial waters and border crossings of the impoverished Gaza Strip.

Amos also commented on the impact of continued Israeli settlement activities on Palestinian residents in terms of their “access to basic services, including schools and health centers” in the occupied West Bank.

About 500,000 Israelis live in more than 100 illegal settlements in the West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).

The UN official also pointed to the “increase in the levels of settler violence” over the past few months in the West Bank.

The Israeli regime has repeatedly been censured by the international community for its illegal settlement activities on the occupied Palestinian land.

January 19, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

Ahmad Sa’adat – Ten Years a Hostage

Statement by the Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat

Ahmad Sa’adatJanuary 15, 2012 is the 10th anniversary of the abduction of Palestinian political leader Ahmad Sa’adat by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah at the hands of the PA intelligence services headed by Tawfiq Tirawi. Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been imprisoned for ten years – first by PA security, then under US and British guard in a PA prison in Jericho, and now, for the past six years, inside Israeli jails alongside thousands of other Palestinian political prisoners after a siege on Jericho and the kidnapping of Sa’adat and his comrades in 2006.

The kidnapping of Ahmad Sa’adat on January 15, 2002, was emblematic of the deep damage of the crime of “security cooperation” to the Palestinian people and their national cause. “Security cooperation” has meant nothing but attacks on the Palestinian resistance at the behest of Israel, committed by Palestinian Authority hands. The abduction of Ahmad Sa’adat, and his imprisonment – and that of his comrades – in the PA prison in Jericho, under U.S. and British guard, was a clear example of the PA’s status as fundamentally beholden to the interests of Israel, the U.S. and other international powers, at the expense of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian resistance.

The abduction of Ahmad Sa’adat has come to symbolize the thousands of Palestinians who have gone through the jails of the PA because of their loyalty to the Palestinian people, cause and resistance, and the impunity of PA officials – like Tawfiq Tirawi – who continue to find lucrative and influential positions within the Authority despite their shameless acts of betrayal, imprisoning, and abducting Palestinian leaders and activists.

This complicity with Israeli demands for the subjugation and suppression of the Palestinian people led directly to the Israeli assault on Jericho prison in 2006, where Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades were immobilized in the face of Israeli occupation aggression. Sa’adat had never been charged with a crime throughout his four years in PA prison; his release had been ordered by the PA’s highest court. Yet the PA refused to release Sa’adat, respecting the dictates of Israel, the US and Britain above Palestinian legitimacy; it claimed that it “could not guarantee his safety” outside the prison. Yet it simultaneously guaranteed that he and his comrades could not be safe from Israeli aggression, their locations known at all times by Israel and under the watchful eyes of U.S. and British guards, directly in collusion with Israel. (It should be noted that, forewarned of the attack, the U.S. and British guards absented Jericho prison at the request of the Israeli occupation army.)

Since his second kidnapping, from a PA prison to the heart of the occupation’s jails, Ahmad Sa’adat has remained a leader of the prisoners’ movement. Today, he has spent nearly three full years in isolation at the hands of the occupation. He was an inspiration – and his release from isolation a key demand of the prisoners’ hunger strike that galvanized the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the prisoners’ cause in October 2011.

Just as Sa’adat’s kidnapping is a symbol of the crime of security cooperation, Sa’adat’s imprisonment in the hands of the occupation is a symbol of the steadfastness of the nearly 5,000 prisoners inside the jails of the occupation – like his fellow prisoners, resisting isolation, refusing rights violations, and not allowing their will and strength to be broken by the actions of the occupation jailers.

Ten years after the abduction of Ahmad Sa’adat, this anniversary is a reminder that we must continue to organize, act, and demand the freedom of Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian political prisoners, and expose the complicity of the U.S., British, Canadian and other international governments in the enforcement of “security cooperation” and the abuse and mass imprisonment of Palestinian political leaders and activists by the Israeli occupation. While the Quartet pushes the Palestinian Authority to return to bogus negotiations with the occupation (while the occupation continues settlement expansion, ethnic cleansing, land confiscation, home demolitions, isolation, solitary confinement, and mass imprisonment), it is urgent that we form an international popular basis of support for the Palestinian people and their activists and leaders inside the jails of the occupation, rather than those complicit with the occupation at the table of negotiations.

January 17, 2012 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers beat and arrest two teenagers in Hebron

By Michael McRay | CPTnet | January 16th, 2012

On 12 January 2012 at 5:20pm, Israeli soldiers forcibly entered the Zaru family home near the Qitoun checkpoint in al-Khalil (Hebron), assaulting the mother and two sons. The invasion was a result of an earlier encounter between the soldiers and Anas, the older of the sons, age 18 and developmentally disabled. That morning, Anas was coming home through the Qitoun checkpoint after refilling the cooking gas tank for the household. When he tried to enter the door of the checkpoint corridor, the soldiers closed it. He knocked repeatedly on the door until the soldiers shouted at him, “Why are you knocking?”

“Because you will not open the door to let me through,” he responded. When the door opened and he passed through, the soldiers knocked the gas tank away, shoved him to the ground, and began beating him. When Anas tried to get up, he stumbled into one of the soldiers, who then claimed Anas had attacked him. They took him into a side alley to continue the beating out of public sight.

A witness had called Anas’ father, who arrived and took Anas home. The soldiers did nothing during the day, though Palestinians saw Israeli soldiers lingering outside the Zaru home throughout the afternoon. Only a few minutes after observers from TIPH had passed by on an evening patrol, the soldiers stopped Anas in front of his house. They said they had come for Noor, Anas’ 16 year-old brother, and would destroy the house if Anas did not bring Noor. Anas called Noor, who appeared at the front door up the stairs. Before he could come down, the soldiers ran up the stairs and grabbed him, dragging him down the stairs. They handcuffed and blindfolded both boys outside. As they beat Anas, they pointed a gun to his head and threatened to kill him if he opened his mouth about what was happening.

The mother demanded to know why her boys were being taken, but the soldiers shoved her and told her to “go home.” They forced Noor against the wall outside the house and began beating him with the butt of their rifles. He suffered frequent blows to the head. They then arrested Noor and Anas, escorting them to the military base. During the escort, Noor began vomiting and then fainted from a concussion. Once at the military base, he fainted again.

The soldiers released Anas within the hour and transferred Noor to the police station, evidently in an attempt to press charges. Due to the immediate actions of locals and international observer teams, the Red Cross, the Hebron Rehabilitation Committee, Israeli Civil Administration, law offices, and other organizations soon got involved. Noor went home that night with a fractured skull, and additional injuries to the head, eye, hands, back, ribs, shoulders, and stomach. He was unable to sit when he arrived home because the pain was too overwhelming.

The soldiers have suffered no repercussions.

January 16, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | Leave a comment

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