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AEI - Open Windows News
Teacher in AEI’s Living in the
Holy Land project arrested
As part of a recent escalation of political
arrests in Bil’in, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a school
teacher and coordinator of the Bil’in Popular
Committee was arrested by Israeli soldiers on
Thursday, November 10.
Abdallah Abu Rahmah is a teacher involved in
AEI’s “Living in the Holy Land: Respecting
Differences” project. This project teaches
Palestinian students the value of interreligious
learning, with a focus on the three religions of
the Holy Land - Islam, Judaism and Christianity.
We feel with Abdallah and his family and call
AEI’s partners and supporters to make a public
protest along the lines suggested below by the
Bil’in Popular Committee, which non-violently
opposes the Wall declared illegal by among
others the International Court of Justice in the
Hague.
See for an interview AEI conducted with Abdallah
Abu Rahmeh:
http://www.aeicenter.org/sumud/stories_from_Palestine/Life_stories.htm
AEI-Open
Windows
Bethlehem
11/12/2009
Background information
From: Bil’in Popular Committee
At 2am on Thursday, 10 December 2009, seven
Israeli military jeeps pulled over at Abdallah
Abu Rahmah’s home in the city of Ramallah.
Soldiers raided the house and arrested Abu
Rahmah from his bed in the presence of his wife
and three children. Abu Rahmah is a high school
teacher in the Latin Patriarchate School in
Birzeit near Ramallah and coordinator for the
Bil’in Popular Committee against the Wall and
Settlements. A previous raid targeting Abu
Rahmah on 15 September 2009 was executed with
such exceptional violence, that a soldier was
subsequently indicted for assault.
Abu Rahmah’s arrest is part of an escalation in
Israeli military’s attempts to break the spirit
of the people of Bil’in, their popular
leadership, and the popular struggle as a whole
- aimed at crushing demonstrations against the
Wall. Recently, Adv. Gaby Lasky, who represents
many of Bil’in’s detainees, was informed by the
military prosecution that the army intends to
use legal measures as a means of ending the
demonstrations.
Following Abu Rahmah’s arrest, Adv. Lasky,
stated that “My client’s arrest is another
blatant illustration of the Israeli authorities’
application of legal procedures for the
political persecution of Bil’in residents. The
Bil’in demonstrators are being systemically
targeted while it is the State that is in
contempt of a High Court of Justice ruling; a
ruling which affirmed that the protesters have
justice on their side and instructed 2 years ago
that the route of the Wall in the area be
changed, which has not been implemented to
date.”
Since 23 June 2009, 31 residents of Bil’in have
been detained by the military in a wave of night
raids and arrests which began concurrently with
preliminary hearings in a lawsuit against two
Canadian companies responsible for the
construction of an Israeli settlement on
Bil’in’s land. The Israeli military is targeting
protesters and the leadership of Bil’in’s
Popular Committee. Apart from Abdallah, three
other committee members were arrested, but all
of them were released for lack of evidence. In
the case of Mohammed Khatib, the court even
found some of the presented evidence to be
falsified. In addition to committee members, a
leading Bil’in activist, Adeeb Abu Rahmah, who
has been detained for over five months, is not
suspected of committing any violence, but was
indicted with a blanket charge of “incitement”,
which was very liberally interpreted in this
case to include the organizing of grassroots
demonstrations.
Abdallah has been a member of the Bil’in Popular
Committee since its conception in 2004. As
coordinator, Abu Rahmah not only regularly
organizes and attends the weekly Friday
demonstrations but does the media work for the
Bil’in struggle. Abdallah has represented the
village in engagements around the world to
further Bil'in's cause. He has traveled to
Montreal to participate in a speaking tour and
the village's legal case against two Canadian
companies building settlements on Bil'in's land
in June 2009, and in December of 2008, he
participated in a speaking tour in France and
traveled to Germany to accept the the Carl von
Ossietzky Medal for outstanding service in the
realization of basic and human rights, awarded
by the board of trustees of the International
League for Human Rights on behalf of Bil'in.
Abdallah's endless work for his village is just
a part of his incredible persona, many of us
know him personally, as he welcomes thousands of
international, Palestinian and Israeli activists
when they visit Bil'in.
What
can you do?
Attempts to criminalize the leadership of
non-violent protests were curbed in the past
with the help of an outpouring of support from
people committed to justice from all over the
world.
1. Please protest by contacting your political
representatives, as well as your consuls and
ambassadors to Israel (http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Israel)
to demand that Israel stops targeting
non-violent popular resistance and release
Abdallah Abu Rahmah and all Bil’in prisoners.
2. Organise demonstrations outside of Israeli
embassies in your countries in condemnation of
Israel’s ongoing arrest campaign against
non-violent activists and in solidarity with
those who remain in Israel’s prisons (All
demonstrations can be coordinated through
palreports@gmail.com for media support
work).
3. The Popular Committee of Bil’in is in
desperate need for funds in order to pay legal
fees both for the trial in Montréal and for
representing the arrested protesters in the
military courts and bail. Please donate to the
Bil’in legal fund through PayPal. If you would
like to make a tax deductible donation in the US
or Canada contact:
bilinlegal@gmail.com. To make a donation
please click
here.
Background Bil’in:
Following initial construction of Israel’s wall
on Bil’in’s lands in March 2005, residents
organized almost daily direct actions and
demonstrations against the theft of their lands.
Garnering the attention of the international
community with their creativity and
perseverance, Bil’in has become a symbol for
Palestinian popular resistance. Almost five
years later, Bil’in continues to have weekly
Friday protests.
Located 12 kilometers west of Ramallah and 4 km
east of the Green Line, Bil’in
is an agricultural village spanning 4,000 dunams
(988 acres) with approximately 1,800 residents.
While construction of and opposition to the Wall
and began in 2005, the majority of land had been
expropriated from Bil’in earlier.
Starting in the early 1980’s, and more
significantly in 1991, approximately 56% of
Bil'in's agricultural land was declared ‘State
Land’ for the construction of the settlement
bloc,
Modi'in Illit
(http://elyon1.court.gov.il/files_eng/05/140/084/n25/05084140.n25.pdf).
Modi'in Illit currently holds the
largest settler population of any settlement
bloc, with over 42,000 residents and plans to
achieve a population of 150,000 (http://www.btselem.org/Download/200512_Under_the_Guise_of_Security_Eng.pdf).
In addition to grassroots organizing, Bil’in has
held annual conferences on popular resistance
since 2006; providing a forum for activists,
academics, and leaders to discuss strategies for
the unarmed struggle against the Occupation (
http://www.bilin-village.org/english/conferences/).
Bil’in embraced legal measures against Israel as
part of its multi-lateral resistance to the
theft of their livelihoods. The village first
turned to the courts in the fall of 2005. Two
years after they initiated legal proceedings,
the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled that due
to illegal construction in part of
Modi'in Illit, unfinished housing
could not be completed and that the route of the
Wall be moved several hundred meters west,
returning 25% of Bil’in’s lands to the village.
To date, the high court ruling has not been
implemented and construction continues.
In July 2008, Bil’in commenced legal proceedings
before the Superior Court of Quebec against
Green Park International Inc and Green Mount
International Inc for their involvement in
constructing, marketing and selling residential
units in the
Mattityahu East section of
Modi’in Illit.
In an effort to stop the popular resistance in
Bil’in, Israeli authorities intimidate
demonstrators with physical violence and
arrests.
Israeli armed forces have used sound and shock
grenades, water cannons, rubber-coated steel
bullets, tear-gas grenades, tear-gas canisters,
high velocity tear-gas projectiles, 0.22 caliber
live ammunition and live ammunition against
protesters.
On 17 April 2009, Bassem Abu Rahma was shot with
a high-velocity tear gas projectile in the chest
by Israeli forces and subsequently died from his
wounds at a Ramallah hospital (
http://palsolidarity.org/2009/04/6185).
Out of the 78 residents who have been arrested
in connection to demonstrations against the
Wall, 31 were arrested after the beginning of a
night raid campaign on 23 June 2009. Israeli
armed forces have been regularly invading homes
and forcefully searching for demonstration
participants, targeting the leaders of the
Popular Committee Against the Wall and
Settlements, as well as teenage boys accused of
throwing stones at the Wall.
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