[Ppnews] Former political prisoners targets of re-arrest outside Bethlehem

[Political Prisoner News]

Former political prisoners frequent targets of 
re-arrest at Container Checkpoint outside Bethlehem

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6869
07.09.09 - 13:19

Bethlehem / PNN – Some seven Palestinians are 
arrested per day at Israeli military checkpoints 
dotted throughout the West Bank, reports the 
Ministry of Detainees and Ex Detainees.

Director of the Department of Information in the 
Ministry, Riad Ashkar, noted that the occupying 
forces maintain 630 checkpoints within the West 
Bank, including 93 fixed military checkpoints and 
537 barriers composed of sand and concrete blocks 
and walls. In any given week there are some 70 flying checkpoints imposed.

The basic objective of these barriers, the 
Ministry said Monday, is to impede movement. 
Palestinians become obliged to obtain Israeli 
permission in order to pass from one West Bank 
town to the next. The Ministry of Detainees 
focused today’s comments on the use of barriers in the arrest of Palestinians.

“The prisons are full of political prisoners and 
Administrative Detention detainees, without 
charge or trial. Barriers allow soldiers to check 
the identities of citizens, and therefore it is 
easier to kidnap them and thrown them into 
investigation and detention centers and prisons.”

The Container Checkpoint on the Bethlehem route 
to Ramallah or Jericho along Wadi Nar Road is a 
frequent sore spot. Sometimes stretching back two 
hundred cars, the barrier is now being used by 
the Israelis to make arrests of former political prisoners.

The latest example is 23 year old Bethlehem 
resident Aisha Mohammad Ahmed Abiyat who was 
released after six years in Israeli prison only 
to be re-arrested after an ID check at the 
checkpoint 10 kilometers northeast of Bethlehem.

Abeer Awda of Tulkarem was searched in a 
provocative and hostile manner before being 
arrested at same checkpoint a few weeks ago. She 
has been arrested, released, and taken again. The 
woman had been in prison for three years and released only a few months ago.

The Israelis intend to ensure that political 
prisoners are never free, that they have no 
freedom of movement, and no security upon release 
from prison, says the prisons ministry.

University professor Mona Hussein Ka’adan of 
Jenin was arrested for the third time at 
Container Checkpoint. Israeli soldiers checked 
her ID and then told her to phone her family to 
inform them she was being again arrested. The 
woman was taken to an unknown location and then 
given a term under Administrative Detention, meaning no charge or trial.

Israeli forces positioned at the checkpoint went 
after former prisoner Mohammad Sharif Abdel Kader 
Jaradat. The31 year old from the town of Seir, 
northeast of Hebron, was questioned and then 
arrested without being given cause.

Not everyone arrested at Container is taken to 
prison. Some are detained for hours, miss their 
public transportation, and lose the fare they 
already paid, miss school or work, or are late 
arriving home. During Ramadan it is especially 
painful as the sun sets on the detained and the day’s fast remains unbroken.




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