Bil'in demonstrations coordinator sentenced to 16 months in prison

[ 12/01/2011 - 10:33 AM ]

RAMALLAH, (PIC)-- Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the Bil'in anti-separation wall committee, was sentenced on Tuesday to 16 months in prison other than a three-year suspended sentence and was forced to pay NIS 5,000 in fines. The Israeli Ofer Court charged Abu Rahma with incitement and participation in throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, as well as participation in allegedly "illegal demonstrations". Abu Rahma was previously sentenced to a year in jail but was kept prisoner by the military prosecutor after his scheduled mid-November, 2010 release because of continued weekly protests in the Bil'in village. 24 European diplomats attended the court hearing. In a separate development, prisoner Hamza Mahmoud Ali al-Khumoor of the Bethlehem refugee camp of Al-Duhaisha has gone on his 11th day of hunger strike, prison sources said. Khumoor, arrested in April 2002 and serving an 18-year sentence, went on strike after he was placed in solitary confinement after striking a prison guard in self-defense during a heated prison search.