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<font size=2>Anonymous Hacker Strikes Back<br>
</font><h1><b>Freedom Waves Prisoners Abused and
Imprisoned</b></h1><font size=2>by BEN LORBER<br>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/07/freedom-waves-prisoners-abused-and-imprisoned/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/11/07/freedom-waves-prisoners-abused-and-imprisoned/<br>
<br>
</a><i>West Bank.<br><br>
</i>In the immediate aftermath of the illegal capture of the Freedom
Waves flotillas, Israel’s public image has been tarnished, as reports of
violence at sea surface to counteract its claims of a peaceful takeover,
and as human rights cyber-resistance group Anonymous retaliates by
shutting down Israeli government web sites.<br><br>
As Israeli naval soldiers boarded the Tahrir and Saoirse Friday
afternoon, the IDF released a statement saying that the ships were
intercepted peacefully, and that no activists were harmed in the
takeover. In addition, in an attempt to portray its own reasonable
benevolence, the IDF released a video of soldiers contacting the ship and
offering to reroute its humanitarian aid by land or through Ashdod,
shortly before releasing another video which seemed to show Israeli
soldiers peacefully and non-threateningly boarding one of the
flotillas.<br><br>
When Egyptian journalist Lina Attalah, an activist aboard the Tahrir,
wrote an account of Israel’s seizure of the boats after her release on
Saturday, however, the world began to see a different picture.
“Towards the early afternoon,” she said, “we saw three Israeli warships
in the horizon… Soon after, the Israeli presence in the waters around us
intensified. We counted at least 15 ships, four of which were warships,
and the rest a mix of smaller boats and water cannons. From inside the
smaller boats, dozens of Israeli soldiers pointed their machines guns at
us. This is when our communications system was jammed and we lost contact
with the world…the Israelis sent radio messages to our boat, asking us to
stop sailing because they would board the boat and take us to the Israeli
port of Ashdod. When our boat refused to surrender, they aimed their
canons at us, showering us with salty water. The boat had become highly
unstable and panic was in the air… Israeli ships hit our boat and
soldiers started boarding. Dozens of masked soldiers screamed “on your
knees,” and “hands up.””<br><br>
The violent nature of Israel’s takeover of the Tahrir and Saoirse became
more apparent with a statement released mid-Sunday by Fintan Lane, the
National Coordinator of the Irish Ship Saoirse, in a hurried phone call
made from an Israeli prison. “The whole takeover [of the Saoirse by
Israeli naval authorities] took about three hours”, claims Lane. “It
began with Israeli forces hosing down the boats with high pressure hoses
and pointing guns at the passengers through the windows. I was hosed down
the stairs of the boat. Windows were smashed and the bridge of the boat
nearly caught fire. The boats were corralled to such an extent that the
two boats, the Saoirse and the Tahrir, collided with each other and were
damaged, with most of the damage happening to the MV Saoirse. The
boats nearly sank. The method used in the takeover was dangerous to human
life.”<br><br>
The same day, Saoirse activist Paul Murphy, Socialist Party and United
Left Alliance MEP for Dublin, related in a 3-minute phone call, monitored
by Israeli prison authorities, that “our boat was almost sunk by the
manner in which it was approached and boarded by the Israeli navy. People
were shackled and deprived of all personal belongings. In Givon
prison the authorities tried to disorientate us through sleep deprivation
and the removal of our watches and the prison clock recording the wrong
time. We have been given no time frame as to how long we will be kept
here before the deportation trial. We were denied our right by Israeli
law to contact our families within 24 hours of our arrest.”<br><br>
Also on Sunday, Greek captain of the Tahrir Giorgos Klontzas, after his
release from jail, told Greek Omnia TV that during interrogation, Israeli
forces handcuffed him tightly and stuck fingers in his eyes.<br><br>
The clearest testament to the abuse suffered by the activists at the
hands of the Israeli military has come from British activist David Heap,
in a letter smuggled out of his prison cell. “I write to you from
cell 9, block 59 Givon Prison near Ramla in Occupied Palestine”, the
letter stated. “Although I was tasered during the assault on the Tahrir,
and bruised during forcible removal dockside (I am limping slightly as a
result) I am basically ok… [we] were transported in handcuffs and leg
shackles…[we have created] a political prisoners’ committee in order to
press our collective demands- association in the block, i.e. open cells;
adequate writing and reading material; free communication with outside
world- i.e. regular phone calls; [and] information about shipmate women
held at same prison”. In response to the shortage of information
regarding the female activists currently behind bars, the Women’s
Organisation for Political Prisoners (WOFPP) offered Sunday night to send
a lawyer free of charge to visit the female prisoners.<br><br>
As reports of Israeli military violence leaked throughout the weekend, an
international group of hackers named Anonymous released a video
threatening retaliation against “a clear sign of piracy on the high
seas.” The ‘Open Letter from Anonymous to the Government of Israel’ was
pointed in its critique- “your actions”, it claimed, “are illegal,
against democracy, human rights, international and maritime laws”, and an
example of “justifying war, murder, illegal interception and pirate-like
activities under an illegal cover of defense” which “will not go
unnoticed by us or the people of the world”. Anonymous, which has
temporarily disabled many web sites in past publicized acts of moral
retribution, further threatened that “if you continue blocking
humanitarian vessels to Gaza or repeat the dreadful actions of May 31st
2010 against any Gaza Freedom Flotillas, you will leave us no choice but
to strike back, again and again, until you stop….we do not forget, we do
not forgive. Expect us.”<br><br>
A day later, Haaretz reported that “the websites of the IDF, Mossad and
the Shin Bet security services were down”, likely due to an Anonymous
cyber-attack. Hours later, however, the Israeli government released a
statement on Facebook claiming that the websites were down “due to a
systematic malfunction of the servers”, denying that Anonymous was behind
the crash. It is highly unlikely, however, for this shutdown to follow so
soon after Anonymous’s threat as a matter of pure coincidence.<br><br>
As the international community rises in condemnation of Israel’s illegal
takeover of a ship in international waters, 21 of the 27 activists
captured by Israel remain in prison awaiting deportation, and the
whereabouts of one, PressTV journalist Hassan Ghani, remains unknown. The
Irish activists have refused representation by a lawyer in the Israeli
court system, on the grounds that they do not acknowledge the legitimacy
of Israel’s legal system. In addition, they refuse to sign a waiver which
would forfeit their claim to legal representation before a judge and
allow for their immediate deportation, because the offered waiver claims
that they came to Israel voluntarily and entered illegally, statements
which are patently untrue in light of the fact that Israeli naval boats
seized the activists from the Tahrir and Saoirse, and forcibly
transported them to Ashdod. They will therefore, according to Israeli
law, be detained for 72 hours and then brought to court, where they will
almost certainly be deported- though, because they refused to sign the
waiver, the deportation will occur without their consent.<br><br>
As Israel unsuccessfully attempts to save face in the aftermath of its
illegal and violent seizure of innocent civilians on a humanitarian aid
mission in international waters, the international community once again
bears witness to the fact that, in the words of a Saturday press release
by the Canada Boat to Gaza team, “there is no legal justification for
stopping or in any way impeding the passage of the totally peaceful
Freedom Waves boats from the international solidarity movement with
Palestinian people”. What is clear to all, in spite of Israeli
repression, is that the recent aid mission is only the first of many
Freedom Waves bound for Gaza’s shore. “Whatever the Israeli Occupation
Forces do to us,” said David Heap and Ehab Lotayef, steering committee
members of the Tahrir, from behind Israeli prison bars, “this flotilla
marks the launching of the Freedom Waves. It is the continuation of many
efforts over the years to bring the plight of Gaza and Palestine to the
world’s attention. We will keep coming again and again, until the closure
of Gaza is ended and Palestinians have been able to achieve liberation
and justice… Expect us. Again and again. The Freedom Waves are just
beginning.”<br><br>
<b><i>Ben Lorber</b> is an activist with the International Solidarity
Movement in Nablus. He is also a journalist with the Alternative
Information Center in Bethlehem. He blogs at
freepaly.wordpress.com.<br><br>
<br><br>
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