[Ppnews] Palestine - Human rights defenders Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma released

[Political Prisoner News]

Human rights defenders Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma released

Press release, Addameer and Stop the Wall, 14 January 2010
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11008.shtml

On 13 January 2010, Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma, Palestinian human 
rights defenders active in the campaign against the annexation wall 
unlawfully constructed by Israel in occupied Palestinian territory, 
were finally released from Israeli detention. Addameer and Stop the 
Wall contend that both were arrested in an effort to curb the success 
of their peaceful activities in defense of Palestinian human rights.

Addameer and Stop the Wall would like to express a heartfelt and 
sincere thank you to everyone who took action on behalf of Mohammad 
and Jamal. Since 1967, the Israeli military court system in the 
Occupied Palestinian Territories has operated with frightening 
impunity, rarely if ever, upholding fair trial standards. The 
military courts are neither independent nor impartial, fall far short 
of acceptable international standards, and act in all cases in the 
interests of the occupying power and the military security apparatus. 
Addameer and Stop the Wall therefore believe that Mohammad and Jamal 
owe their release entirely to diplomatic pressure, interventions by 
the United Nations, grassroots solidarity campaigns and numerous 
statements and urgent appeals issued by international, Palestinian 
and Israeli human rights nongovernmental organizations, and not as a 
result of this terminally flawed military justice system.

While Addameer and Stop the Wall celebrate Mohammad and Jamal's 
release, we wish to remind the international community that an 
Israeli campaign of repression and arrest against human rights 
defenders active against the wall continues. Most recently, on 12 
January 2010, three such human rights defenders were arrested by 
Israeli forces in dawn raids into the West Bank villages of Nilin and 
Bilin. Ibrahim Ameera, coordinator of the Nilin Popular Committee 
against the Wall and Settlements was arrested from his home. That 
same night, the Israeli army arrested two members of the Popular 
Committee in Nilin, Zaydoun Srour and Hassan Musa, and raided the 
house of S., a youth activist who regularly attends demonstrations, 
and summoned him for interrogation. In Bilin, Israeli forces also 
arrested Muhammad Ali Yasin, an anti-wall youth activist.

Meanwhile, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher and head of the 
Bilin Popular Committee Against the Wall, remains in Israeli 
detention following his arrest on 10 December 2009. Abdallah has been 
charged with three offenses: incitement, stone throwing and the 
possession of arms. Among the accusations under the incitement 
charge, the military prosecution listed Abdallah's instrumental role 
in organizing and leading demonstrations against the wall and 
distributing Palestinian flags to demonstrators, an act which is 
still considered a "security offense" under Israeli military 
regulations. Israeli authorities have also accused Abdallah of 
collecting used M16 bullets and empty sound canisters and gas 
grenades, used by the soldiers to disperse the crowds at 
demonstrations, and exhibiting them in a Bilin museum.

Finally, Addameer has learned that, at the end of December, the 
Bethlehem Area Commander of the Israeli army issued a strong warning 
to members of the Popular Committee Against the Wall in the village 
of al-Masara, threatening that demonstrations against the wall would 
be harshly repressed if they continued in 2010, and that those 
involved in organizing or attending demonstrations would be arrested 
and "blacklisted." Since then, the village has been experiencing 
night incursions on a regular basis.

Fundamental principles set forth in the United Nations Declaration on 
Human Rights Defenders recognize that everyone has the right 
individually or in association with others, to document human rights 
violations, collect evidence, provide support and assistance to 
victims seeking remedies, combat cultures of impunity and mainstream 
human rights culture and information on an international and domestic 
level. States therefore bear a duty to protect, promote and implement 
all human rights and fundamental freedoms, and also to ensure the 
protection of all human rights defenders exercising their legitimate 
rights under international law.

Addameer and Stop the Wall therefore continue to urge the 
international community, including diplomatic missions in the 
Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and the International 
Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to intervene with Israel, calling for:
    * an end to the Israeli practice of arbitrary detention of human 
rights defenders;
    * the immediate release of all human rights defenders involved 
with the grassroots movement against the wall and settlements 
spearheaded by "Stop the Wall" campaign;
    * full adherence to the International Convention on Civil and 
Political Rights as applied to the Palestinian population in the OPT;
    * full respect for the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders; and,
    * full implementation of the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders
Background

Mohammad Othman, a youth coordinator with the Grassroots 
Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign (Stop the Wall), was released after 113 
days in Israeli detention without charge or trial. Mohammad, 34, was 
arrested by Israeli soldiers on 22 September 2009 at the Allenby 
Border Crossing as he returned home to the West Bank from an advocacy 
tour in Norway. On 22 November, after 61 days of physically and 
psychologically exhausting interrogation, a military court judge 
ordered the end to Mohammad's interrogation. The next day, however, 
Mohammad was placed under administrative detention. Mohammad's 
administrative detention was renewed for a one month period on 22 
December, but was later shortened by ten days by a military judge in 
the Court of Administrative Detainees. Although administrative 
detention is legally permissible only in emergency situations, 
threatening the "security of the state," and not as substitute for 
prosecution where there is no evidence to obtain a conviction, the 
military judge reduced Mohammad's detention order on the grounds that 
there had been no serious developments in the investigation into his 
case. Addameer and Stop the Wall contend that Mohammad's 
administrative detention was clearly arbitrary and based on 
impermissible grounds, in severe derogation from Israel's obligations 
under law.

Jamal Juma is a prominent Palestinian human rights defender, as the 
Coordinator of the Stop the Wall and as a founding member of several 
Palestinian civil society networks and non-governmental 
organizations. Jamal, 47, was released from Israeli detention after 
spending 27 days at the Moskobiyyeh interrogation center in 
Jerusalem. Although Jamal is a resident of East Jerusalem, and 
therefore falls under the jurisdiction of the Israeli civil system, 
Jamal was interrogated and detained under Israeli military orders, a 
military justice system that lacks even the most fundamental fair 
trial guarantees. Although the military prosecution acknowledged in 
court that they ended Jamal's interrogation after only eight days, 
Jamal was held in the Moskobiyyeh detention center for an additional 
19 days, without having been charged with a single offense.

Related Links
    * <http://stopthewall.org>Stop the Wall
    * <http://www.addameer.org/>Addameer - Prisoners' Support and 
Human Rights Association




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