Associazione di Amicizia Italo-Palestinese, 10 marzo 2010
La settimana scorsa mentre guidavo per andare alla prigione militare di Ofer, nella West Bank, per presenziare a un’udienza di Abdallah Abu Rahma di Bili’in, mi è venuto da pensare che la maggior parte della gente che è passata accanto a queste enormi pareti nel fare la spola verso Gerusalemme non si era mai resa conto di stare guidando accanto a una prigione. La qual cosa, a dire il vero non mi sorprende se si considera il paesaggio di cemento della West Bank.
Risolvi il quiz da solo e vediamo come ti riesce: Quale di queste foto rappresenta una prigione militare nei Territori Occupati?
Qual’è le prigione militare?
In alto a sinistra: Muro e torre di guardia attorno a Ramallah.
In alto a destra: Muro e torre di guardia attorno a Bethlehem.
In basso a destra: Muro e torre di guardia attorno a Qalqilya.
Today we have reason to celebrate. Mohammad Othman and Jamal Jumah, two Palestinian prisoners of conscience arrested for their human rights activism have been released within the last 24 hours -- and you had a hand in making this possible.
Thanks to you, we generated over 10,000 emails to US President Obama, and over 2,200 emails to the US Consulate in East Jerusalem complaining about the arbitrary detention of Mohammad Othman. You helped up flood the US State Department with phone calls as well.
Here is what Stop the Wall had to say today about Jamal's release (2). Their words obviously ring true regarding Mohammad Othman as well:
Jamal Juma', the coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign has been released yesterday evening after a month long detention in Israeli jails. He had been called for interrogation and then arrested on December 16. Yesterday, the military court decided for Jamal's release.
Like for the other Palestinian human rights defenders in Israeli jails, there was never a case in the courtroom. Not a single charge has been put forth. The reason for his arrest was purely political - an attempt to crush Stop the Wall and the popular committees against the Wall. Therefore, the reasons for his release are also outside the courtroom: The impressive support of international civil society has moved governments and used the media to an extent that made his imprisonment too uncomfortable.
In the time since Jonathan Pollack, himself one of the most steadfast Israeli activists working in solidarity with Palestinians, wrote the article below, Jamal Juma', the director of the Stop the Wall, a Palestinian grassroots organization, has also been detained (see http://stopthewall.org/latestnews/2140.shtml for news updates and actions).
Activists like Jamal Juma', Mohammad Othman, and Abdallah Abu Ramah, to name just a few, inspire international campaigns for their release. But just in the last six months, 31 residents of Bil'in have been arrested, mostly during nighttime raids, and 89 have been arrested in Ni'ilin in the last 18 months. These two villages are two of the main hubs of unarmed protest against the Wall.
As Pollack notes, there seems to be a stepped up campaign on the part of Israel to target grassroots activists that is very disturbing.
On a pitch black early December night, seven armored Israeli military jeeps pulled into the driveway of a home in the West Bank town of Ramallah. Dozens of soldiers, armed and possibly very scared, came to arrest someone they were probably told was a dangerous, wanted man - Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher at the Latin Patriarchate School and a well-known grassroots organizer in the village of Bil'in.
Groupes juifs 
