[Ppnews] Freedom Theatre Artistic Director on hunger strike in Israeli prison

[Political Prisoner News]

<http://samidoun.ca/2012/07/freedom-theatre-artistic-director-on-hunger-strike-in-israeli-prison/>Freedom 
Theatre Artistic Director on hunger strike in Israeli prison

by <http://samidoun.ca/?author=1>samidoun
http://samidoun.ca/2012/07/freedom-theatre-artistic-director-on-hunger-strike-in-israeli-prison/

Press Release from The Freedom Theatre, Jenin, Occupied Palestine, 
July 5th, 2012

Today Nabil Al-Raee, the Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre was 
accused in an Israeli military court of possessing guns, helping a 
wanted person (Zakaria Zubeidi) as well as three other wanted but 
unnamed persons. The help Nabil is accused of rendering Zakaria - who 
years ago was granted amnesty by the Israeli authorities - is that he 
has driven him in his car and given him food and cigarettes. In 
response to these accusations Nabil declared that he is starting a 
hunger strike from tomorrow. "I don't understand why I'm here [in 
detention]. There is no reason for them to keep me here". Nabil's 
lawyer says: "This shows that that they are desperate, they have 
nothing to hold against him."

Nabil was taken by the Israeli army on June 6th at 03:00 in the night 
from his house in front of his family. For two weeks he was not 
allowed to communicate with his lawyer or have any contact with his 
family. Nor were any charges made against him. Once suspicions were 
eventually put forward, Nabil was first suspected of keeping 
information that could lead to the identification of Juliano Mer 
Khamis' murderer. In a later court hearing the Israeli prosecution 
claimed that Nabil was involved in "terror activities". Then in a 
recent court hearing the military judge declared that no evidence of 
any illegal activity had come up during the almost one month of 
interrogations and that Nabil would be released. However the 
prosecution was given a 48 hour period to appeal and put forward this 
third, equally absurd accusation against Nabil.

Micaela Miranda, Nabil's wife, attended the court hearing today: 
"This farce started with them accusing Nabil of being involved 
somehow in the murder of Juliano, then they accused him of terror 
activities and now it's something else. Every court hearing we go to 
there's another accusation, it's ridiculous and it's obvious that 
they are trying to find a justification for having kept Nabil 
incarcerated for so long."

Smadar Ben-Natan, Nabil's lawyer, says: "This shows that they really 
don't have anything to hold against him. If these are crimes then it 
means that everybody in Jenin camp are guilty of them. I hope that 
the judge in the next court hearing will understand this and that 
they will release him."

The Freedom Theatre Foundation in Sweden and The Freedom Theatre 
association in Jenin with its friends associations in USA, France, 
Italy, Scotland and Germany rebuke these accusations as pure 
fabrications that are part of the Israeli occupying force's attempt 
to destroy The Freedom Theatre entirely.

"Maybe they thought we would break down when Juliano Mer Khamis was 
assassinated, but we kept on and now they are trying to suffocate us 
slowly but surely by harassing our employees, members and supporters 
with various accusations, one more absurd than the other. This 
systematic harassment has gone on for a year now, it's enough!" says 
Jonatan Stanczak, the Managing Director of The Freedom Theatre.

Distinguished public figures such as Danny Glover, Noam Chomsky and 
Judith Butler along with almost 200 other people from the artistic 
community in the USA have called for the immediate release of Nabil 
and Zakaria in a statement in TimeOut magazine in New York. Artistic 
communities in Germany, the UK and elsewhere have made similar calls 
and thousands of individuals from all over the word have signed 
petitions and made complaints to Israeli and Palestinian 
representative bodies. A few weeks ago 56 members of the European 
Parliament signed a letter urging Catherine Ashton to take action and 
19 members of the Portuguese parliament, from all political parties 
except the extreme right, called for Nabil's release.

For more information, please see previous Press Release here: 
<http://thefreedomtheatre.org/news.php?id=254>http://thefreedomtheatre.org/news.php?id=254



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
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