Published yesterday (updated) 02/10/2009 09:31
Bound, blindfolded students arrested by the Israeli army [MaanImages]
Bethlehem – Ma’an – Israel has released a 15-year-old girl from prison in what it said was the first stage of a deal that will see the exchange of 20 female prisoners for a one-minute video of captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.
The Palestinian militant groups who have held Shalit in Gaza since 2006 are expected to deliver the video, proof that Shalit is still alive, to Israel on Thursday or Friday through German mediators.
Bara'a Malki, 15, returned home to the Jalazun Refugee Camp north of Ramallah on Wednesday night, allegedly the first of 20 women Israel has agreed to free in exchange for the video. She was welcomed with hugs and kisses from her overjoyed family.
Attorney Khalid Quzmar, a legal advisor to the organization Defense for Children International (DCI) – Palestine Section, said that Malki was ordered released by an Israeli court anyway, just one month before the end of her 11-month prison sentence.
Malki’s release draws attention to a forgotten aspect of Israel’s occupation: the imprisonment of children. According to the Palestine branch of the organization Defense for Children International (DCI), an average of 9,000 Palestinians are prosecuted in two Israeli military courts in the West Bank each year, among them an average of 700 children, some of them as young as 12.
But unlike Gilad Shalit (a uniformed soldier who was captured while on duty along Israel’s border with Gaza), Bara'a Malki, and hundreds of other Palestinian child detainees are nameless. There is no massive government effort for their release. Indeed, as stateless people they do not have a government looking after their interests. There are no bumper-stickers bearing their likeness. Jimmy Carter and Nicholas Sarkozy have not directly interceded to end their ordeal.
And their suffering is immense. DCI states in a report released in July that “from the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and in some cases torture, at the hands of Israeli soldiers, policemen and interrogators.”
While under interrogation, the report says, “children are subjected to a number of prohibited techniques, including the excessive use of blindfolds and handcuffs; slapping and kicking; painful position abuse for long periods of time; solitary confinement and sleep deprivation; and a combination of physical and psychological threats to the child, and the child’s family.”
The most common offense these children are charged with is stone-throwing, according to DCI, which handles the cases of a large portion of detained Palestinian youths. This nonlethal offense carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The organization says some children are forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not comprehend.
Bara'a Malki was detained by Israeli forces at the Qaladiya military checkpoint because she was in possession of a knife. In testimony she revealed that she brought a knife to the checkpoint, seeking her own arrest in order to escape problems at home. An Israeli military court later convicted her of attempting to kill a soldier.
This is what she told DCI about her arrest:
We walked to the checkpoint and stood in line like other people to pass through. When it was my turn, I entered through the electric gate that leads to a window where a female soldier was standing to check IDs. When the female soldier looked at me, I took the knife out and placed it in front of her. There was a glass partition separating me from her [Note: the glass partitions at Qalandiya checkpoint are bulletproof]. 'What is the knife for?' she asked. I did not answer.
Seconds later a security officer in civilian clothes and speaking Arabic asked me to enter into a room [...] A female soldier then came into the room and searched me. I only took off my jacket. Then a large number of soldiers and security officers came into the room.
One of the security officers asked me in a loud voice: ‘Why do you have a knife? Do you want to kill one of us?’ I told him that: ‘I have problems with my family and I came to the checkpoint to get arrested.’
Two hours after being arrested the girls were transferred to the Russian Compound (Al-Mascobiyya) Interrogation and Detention Centre in Jerusalem.
This person, who was an interrogator named Masoud and who spoke Arabic, asked me to sit on a leather chair in front of him [...] He then asked me why I came to the checkpoint holding a knife. I told him that my mother forced me to wear the headscarf since I was in the third grade, when I was only seven years old. My father agreed with her on that and did not object. My parents made me wear Jilbab [a long coat] two years ago which I did not accept.
They used to force me to wear it and did not allow me to leave the house without wearing it and covering my head. One day, my father walked into my room while I was opening the window and said: 'You are opening the window to talk to your male friend or lover.' My father then slapped me and closed the window. My parents kept asking me whenever I went out or was late after school. Basically, they took away my freedom.
The interrogator did not believe me when I explained these circumstances. He said that I came to the checkpoint to kill a soldier. He would repeat this over and over. 'Yes, my purpose was to kill a soldier and get arrested and stay in prison for ever. I want to get rid of my family.' I said to the interrogator.
It was on the basis of this reportedly falsely-obtained confession that Malki was convicted and spent the next 10 months in Telmod prison inside Israel.
Quzmar, the lawyer working with DCI who handled the case, told Ma'an that Malki’s imprisonment was unjust. “What she did would never ever endanger the security of Israel.”
“The role of the court is not to do what she wants,” he said, referring to Malki’s seemingly desperate attempt to escape her family. “I myself believe that this was a reaction to problems at home. This should be an internal problem … I don’t believe the Israelis had the right to do this.”
The Palestinian militant groups who have held Shalit in Gaza since 2006 are expected to deliver the video, proof that Shalit is still alive, to Israel on Thursday or Friday through German mediators.
Bara'a Malki, 15, returned home to the Jalazun Refugee Camp north of Ramallah on Wednesday night, allegedly the first of 20 women Israel has agreed to free in exchange for the video. She was welcomed with hugs and kisses from her overjoyed family.
Attorney Khalid Quzmar, a legal advisor to the organization Defense for Children International (DCI) – Palestine Section, said that Malki was ordered released by an Israeli court anyway, just one month before the end of her 11-month prison sentence.
Malki’s release draws attention to a forgotten aspect of Israel’s occupation: the imprisonment of children. According to the Palestine branch of the organization Defense for Children International (DCI), an average of 9,000 Palestinians are prosecuted in two Israeli military courts in the West Bank each year, among them an average of 700 children, some of them as young as 12.
But unlike Gilad Shalit (a uniformed soldier who was captured while on duty along Israel’s border with Gaza), Bara'a Malki, and hundreds of other Palestinian child detainees are nameless. There is no massive government effort for their release. Indeed, as stateless people they do not have a government looking after their interests. There are no bumper-stickers bearing their likeness. Jimmy Carter and Nicholas Sarkozy have not directly interceded to end their ordeal.
And their suffering is immense. DCI states in a report released in July that “from the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and in some cases torture, at the hands of Israeli soldiers, policemen and interrogators.”
While under interrogation, the report says, “children are subjected to a number of prohibited techniques, including the excessive use of blindfolds and handcuffs; slapping and kicking; painful position abuse for long periods of time; solitary confinement and sleep deprivation; and a combination of physical and psychological threats to the child, and the child’s family.”
The most common offense these children are charged with is stone-throwing, according to DCI, which handles the cases of a large portion of detained Palestinian youths. This nonlethal offense carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The organization says some children are forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not comprehend.
Bara'a Malki was detained by Israeli forces at the Qaladiya military checkpoint because she was in possession of a knife. In testimony she revealed that she brought a knife to the checkpoint, seeking her own arrest in order to escape problems at home. An Israeli military court later convicted her of attempting to kill a soldier.
This is what she told DCI about her arrest:
We walked to the checkpoint and stood in line like other people to pass through. When it was my turn, I entered through the electric gate that leads to a window where a female soldier was standing to check IDs. When the female soldier looked at me, I took the knife out and placed it in front of her. There was a glass partition separating me from her [Note: the glass partitions at Qalandiya checkpoint are bulletproof]. 'What is the knife for?' she asked. I did not answer.
Seconds later a security officer in civilian clothes and speaking Arabic asked me to enter into a room [...] A female soldier then came into the room and searched me. I only took off my jacket. Then a large number of soldiers and security officers came into the room.
One of the security officers asked me in a loud voice: ‘Why do you have a knife? Do you want to kill one of us?’ I told him that: ‘I have problems with my family and I came to the checkpoint to get arrested.’
Two hours after being arrested the girls were transferred to the Russian Compound (Al-Mascobiyya) Interrogation and Detention Centre in Jerusalem.
This person, who was an interrogator named Masoud and who spoke Arabic, asked me to sit on a leather chair in front of him [...] He then asked me why I came to the checkpoint holding a knife. I told him that my mother forced me to wear the headscarf since I was in the third grade, when I was only seven years old. My father agreed with her on that and did not object. My parents made me wear Jilbab [a long coat] two years ago which I did not accept.
They used to force me to wear it and did not allow me to leave the house without wearing it and covering my head. One day, my father walked into my room while I was opening the window and said: 'You are opening the window to talk to your male friend or lover.' My father then slapped me and closed the window. My parents kept asking me whenever I went out or was late after school. Basically, they took away my freedom.
The interrogator did not believe me when I explained these circumstances. He said that I came to the checkpoint to kill a soldier. He would repeat this over and over. 'Yes, my purpose was to kill a soldier and get arrested and stay in prison for ever. I want to get rid of my family.' I said to the interrogator.
It was on the basis of this reportedly falsely-obtained confession that Malki was convicted and spent the next 10 months in Telmod prison inside Israel.
Quzmar, the lawyer working with DCI who handled the case, told Ma'an that Malki’s imprisonment was unjust. “What she did would never ever endanger the security of Israel.”
“The role of the court is not to do what she wants,” he said, referring to Malki’s seemingly desperate attempt to escape her family. “I myself believe that this was a reaction to problems at home. This should be an internal problem … I don’t believe the Israelis had the right to do this.”
