(Another long post... and no pictures! Sorry, friends.)
During our afternoon in Aroub Refugee Camp, we met Gerard Horton, who works with Defence for Children International in Palestine. Military law has been in effect in Palestine since 1967, and, according to DCI, an average of 9,000 Palestinians are prosecuted in two Israeli military courts every year, including 700 children (page 6). Most children (we're talking 12-18 year olds) and adults are usually arrested at friction points - where settlements and/or Israeli roads are located close to Palestinian villages. There have been many arrests in the Aroub camp - it is surrounded by settlements and is quite close to a road used by settlers and the army. The army uses the military courts to keep control over the population and to protect the 500,000 settlers in the West Bank.
Gerard described for us how a child might come to be arrested. Let's say some children throw stones at a soldier. The army doesn't know who threw the stones, but they need to deter future stone throwing and to demonstrate that they are in control. They might look at the criminal records of those who live near where the incident took place, or use collaborators (children - often poor and feeling like they have no other choice - who the army pays to provide information on other children or people in the camp/village).
Once they have picked a child to arrest, the army will show up at the child's house with 30 vehicles in the middle of the night. (Seems excessive, no?) There will be yelling, maybe sound blasting, and the family will be forced out of the house. The person to be arrested is handcuffed with plastic ties (which can stay on for as long as 24 hours). Neither the child nor the parents is usually told why the child is being arrested, or where they're being taken. (Let's just reflect, for a moment, on how crazy this seems. Can you imagine this happening to you or someone in your family?!?) The child might also be injured while they are travelling, handcuffed, in a military vehicle.
The child can then be left outside for five or six hours - until the police officers show up for work in the morning. He/she (though they are mostly he) will be interrogated for about two hours, possibly threatened and hurt with physical violence. Most interrogations end in confessions, and the child then signs a confession which is written in Hebrew (which the child doesn't understand). The child would then be detained in the West Bank for a few days, and then transferred to a prison inside Israel. This violates the Geneva Conventions, and is one of the reasons behind the recent hunger strike being carried out by Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
The child must be brought before a judge within 8 days, and would meet a lawyer for the first time upon appearing in the military court.
And just in case you're wondering, the lawyers who represent these children don't challenge the inadmissible confessions (made without a parent present, through interrogation and violence, signed in a language the accused doesn't speak) because the child would end up being in jail for longer while waiting for a trial and might get a heavier sentence at the end of it. Pleading guilty is easier, quicker, and comes with a shorter sentence.
Now, I am not saying that throwing rocks is appropriate. Of course not. But there are certain things that the international community has agreed on when it comes to arresting and detaining people, and they are not being respected here.
We heard from several people who have been detained, including several teenagers. Two of the teenagers were arrested for a short video they made about collaborators in the refugee camp. We heard stories similar to the situation that Gerard had described - arrests in the middle of the night, harsh interrogations, jail for periods of 6-8 months. They also described the conditions of the prisons for Palestinians - quite unbelievable.
DCI-Palestine issued a report earlier this year about children held in military detention. If you are interested in these issues, it is definitely worth a read.
Gerard's presentation felt a bit like the one we got from the United Nations - there are clear problems with the justice system that violate international law and the fundamental human rights of children and adults... and yet we do nothing. (Okay, that's not quite true... DCI is working very hard in the region, and a report just came out in the UK about Palestinian children in Israeli military custody. So there is some work being done... but the international community could be doing more.)
It was very difficult to leave the refugee camp later that afternoon. We had just heard story after story of human rights being abused, of fear-filled, sleepless nights spent wondering where a son had been taken and if he was okay, of being questioned by soldiers just because you wanted to get to work or school. The people who had hosted us that day walked us to our bus. We stepped into the air conditioned vehicle, and I remember, as we pulled away to return to our hotel in Bethlehem, watching out the window as these young men walked back into the camp... Not home, a place where they have been forced to live and where they face oppression all the time. I thought about them as I lay in bed that night as well - were the soldiers there as I tried to get to sleep, taking away someone we had met that day? And what about right now, as I'm sitting at my dining room table a world away? I think often of the people I met that day.
Before we left the camp, we sang a song together that was sung during apartheid in South Africa:
During our afternoon in Aroub Refugee Camp, we met Gerard Horton, who works with Defence for Children International in Palestine. Military law has been in effect in Palestine since 1967, and, according to DCI, an average of 9,000 Palestinians are prosecuted in two Israeli military courts every year, including 700 children (page 6). Most children (we're talking 12-18 year olds) and adults are usually arrested at friction points - where settlements and/or Israeli roads are located close to Palestinian villages. There have been many arrests in the Aroub camp - it is surrounded by settlements and is quite close to a road used by settlers and the army. The army uses the military courts to keep control over the population and to protect the 500,000 settlers in the West Bank.
Gerard described for us how a child might come to be arrested. Let's say some children throw stones at a soldier. The army doesn't know who threw the stones, but they need to deter future stone throwing and to demonstrate that they are in control. They might look at the criminal records of those who live near where the incident took place, or use collaborators (children - often poor and feeling like they have no other choice - who the army pays to provide information on other children or people in the camp/village).
Once they have picked a child to arrest, the army will show up at the child's house with 30 vehicles in the middle of the night. (Seems excessive, no?) There will be yelling, maybe sound blasting, and the family will be forced out of the house. The person to be arrested is handcuffed with plastic ties (which can stay on for as long as 24 hours). Neither the child nor the parents is usually told why the child is being arrested, or where they're being taken. (Let's just reflect, for a moment, on how crazy this seems. Can you imagine this happening to you or someone in your family?!?) The child might also be injured while they are travelling, handcuffed, in a military vehicle.
The child can then be left outside for five or six hours - until the police officers show up for work in the morning. He/she (though they are mostly he) will be interrogated for about two hours, possibly threatened and hurt with physical violence. Most interrogations end in confessions, and the child then signs a confession which is written in Hebrew (which the child doesn't understand). The child would then be detained in the West Bank for a few days, and then transferred to a prison inside Israel. This violates the Geneva Conventions, and is one of the reasons behind the recent hunger strike being carried out by Palestinian prisoners in Israel.
The child must be brought before a judge within 8 days, and would meet a lawyer for the first time upon appearing in the military court.
And just in case you're wondering, the lawyers who represent these children don't challenge the inadmissible confessions (made without a parent present, through interrogation and violence, signed in a language the accused doesn't speak) because the child would end up being in jail for longer while waiting for a trial and might get a heavier sentence at the end of it. Pleading guilty is easier, quicker, and comes with a shorter sentence.
Now, I am not saying that throwing rocks is appropriate. Of course not. But there are certain things that the international community has agreed on when it comes to arresting and detaining people, and they are not being respected here.
We heard from several people who have been detained, including several teenagers. Two of the teenagers were arrested for a short video they made about collaborators in the refugee camp. We heard stories similar to the situation that Gerard had described - arrests in the middle of the night, harsh interrogations, jail for periods of 6-8 months. They also described the conditions of the prisons for Palestinians - quite unbelievable.
DCI-Palestine issued a report earlier this year about children held in military detention. If you are interested in these issues, it is definitely worth a read.
Gerard's presentation felt a bit like the one we got from the United Nations - there are clear problems with the justice system that violate international law and the fundamental human rights of children and adults... and yet we do nothing. (Okay, that's not quite true... DCI is working very hard in the region, and a report just came out in the UK about Palestinian children in Israeli military custody. So there is some work being done... but the international community could be doing more.)
It was very difficult to leave the refugee camp later that afternoon. We had just heard story after story of human rights being abused, of fear-filled, sleepless nights spent wondering where a son had been taken and if he was okay, of being questioned by soldiers just because you wanted to get to work or school. The people who had hosted us that day walked us to our bus. We stepped into the air conditioned vehicle, and I remember, as we pulled away to return to our hotel in Bethlehem, watching out the window as these young men walked back into the camp... Not home, a place where they have been forced to live and where they face oppression all the time. I thought about them as I lay in bed that night as well - were the soldiers there as I tried to get to sleep, taking away someone we had met that day? And what about right now, as I'm sitting at my dining room table a world away? I think often of the people I met that day.
Before we left the camp, we sang a song together that was sung during apartheid in South Africa:
Courage, brothers, you do not walk alone.
We will walk with you, and sing your spirit home.
Courage, sisters, you do not walk alone.
We will walk with you, and sing your spirit home.
This day was definitely one of the most challenging. In regards to throwing stones, I like to also put in perspective that the stones do very little damage. If it is tank vs. stones, tank wins every time.
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