[Pnews] Palestinian Ruba Assi with the Progressive Democratic Student Pole, arrested for participation in rallies, community campaigns, and stone-throwing

[Prisoner News]

addameer.org <https://www.addameer.org/prisoner/4527> Ruba Assi
October 14, 2021
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Name: Ruba Fahmy Muhammad Dar Assi

Date of Birth: 1 March 2000

Residence: Ramallah - Beitunya

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Third-year Sociology student at Birzeit University

Date of Arrest: 9 July 2020

Prison: Damon

Legal Status: Serving a 21-month sentence

Arrest and Interrogation

On 9 July 2020, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stormed Ruba’s house in
Beituniya at 2 in the morning, wherein they began shouting at her father
and demanding Ruba. IOF searched Ruba and announced her arrest without
providing any reason for the arrest. Ruba was not allowed to say goodbye to
her family or to wear a jacket. She was then handcuffed by iron cuffs with
her hands to the front and blindfolded with a mask. Ruba was taken
blindfolded and cuffed on a military jeep for a long-distance until they
reached an area that she could no longer recognize. A military officer of
the area tried to provoke Ruba, taunting that, “the handcuffs are big on
your hands and very wide, and you are very small.”

Ruba was placed in the open air until she was transferred the next morning
to Ofer military camp, where she was confined to a cell that lacked basic
living conditions, with no ventilation, a bed made of bricks, and roughly
textured walls.

After her interrogation, Ruba was transferred via the bosta to Hasharon
Prison and Detention Center, where she was held in difficult conditions,
due in part to the poor quality of the food, and the intentional delays by
Israeli Prison Services (IPS) in responding to her basic requests for water
and food. The cell she was held in had no ventilation or fan, and Ruba was
only allowed to the yard for a period of 1-1½ hours. The yard itself was a
small courtyard with a closed ceiling.

Since her arrest, Ruba underwent three COVID-19 tests, without ever knowing
the results of the tests. Moreover, Ruba was forced to use the same mask
since her arrest without changing, despite asking several times for a
change, for which she was refused.

Ruba was interrogated about her activities with the Progressive Democratic
Student Pole, her alleged participation in rallies, community campaigns,
and stone-throwing. The military officer in charge of her interrogation
threatened to keep her in prison until 2025.

Legal Status

Ruba’s detention was extended by Ofer Military Court on 12 July 2020, until
21 July 2020 when the military prosecution submitted an indictment against
Ruba that included charges relating to her student and union activism, as
well as her membership in an “illegal” association under Israeli military
orders (the Progressive Democratic Student Pole), and charges of throwing
stones. The indictment laid against Ruba goes into minute detail on her
participation in activities such as a book supplies fair, the hanging of
flags and pictures of martyrs, selling books at discounted prices, along
with food and drink on behalf of the “illegal” association.

Nearly one year following her arrest, and following the postponement of her
court hearings on several occasions, Ofer Military Court sentenced Ruba to
a 21-month prison term, in addition to 14-months suspended over 5 years on
the charge of membership in an organization deemed “illegal,” and a 5-month
suspended prison sentence for 5 years on the charge of attending a meeting
of the “illegal” association, a 12-month suspended prison sentence for 5
years on the charge of throwing stones, along with a fine of 3,000 shekels.

Addameer’s lawyers filed an appeal against the ruling, for which Ofer
Military Court of Appeals issued a decision on 13 September 2021 rejecting
the appeal and confirming Ruba’s sentence of 21 months in prison, noting
that the crimes for which she was convicted were “extremely dangerous to
the security and warranted severe punishment.” The appellate judge
emphasized that the court of the first instance, Ofer Military Court,
greatly reduced the detainee’s sentence, stating that there was no room for
further mitigation of the sentence. The military judge notes that despite
the detainee’s clean past, with the seriousness of the acts she committed,
there was no room for the Court of Appeals to interfere with the ruling of
the court of the first instance.

Selling Books and Stationaries...Dangerous Crimes

Israeli occupation authorities target their repressive policies against
Palestinian university students by arresting them, assaulting them, and
imprisoning them on charges related to their legitimate student and union
activities. Such practices deprive Palestinian students of their basic
rights guaranteed under international laws, charters, and conventions, most
notably the right to freedom of opinion, expression, and association.

Despite the fact that student and union activity is legitimate and
protected around the world, Israeli occupation authorities systematically
deny Palestinian students the right to engage in such activities. Rather,
they work to ban student groups working in universities, prosecute their
members, and charge them with allegations relating to their work, and try
them before military courts that lack any semblance of justice and even the
most basic of fair trial standards.

The military judge plays a significant complementary role with the military
prosecution. For it is not enough for occupation authorities to file purely
union and civil charges against the students, but rather they must further
emphasize the alleged “severity” of the charges that necessitate
imprisonment for long months. Military judges fulfill this role by issuing
long prison sentences with corresponding legal opinions for charges such as
selling books and stationaries, participating in meetings, etc. The
practice applied by military courts in convicting students for exercising
their basic rights highlights the extent to which Israeli occupation
authorities violate fundamental obligations and rights under international
law. Moreover, it further signals the systematic and complementary nature
of the Israeli occupation forces, military prosecution, and military
judges, under the umbrella of the occupation authorities, which
systematically suppress all civil acts by claiming that the seriousness of
the activities impacts the security of the region.

The security-based justification serves to shift attention, deter, and
eliminate any political, union, or social activity practiced by university
students, amid the broader suppression of the Palestinian people, in all
their different occupations, and preventing their right to
self-determination and liberation from the occupation.

Ruba’s Childhood and Detention

Ruba was only a little over two years old when her family was harassed and
her father, Fahmy Assi,  was arrested by the Israeli Occupation Forces. Her
father, Fahmy, underwent the agony of arbitrary administrative detention
for many years, and Ruba grew up at the doors of the Israeli occupation
prisons waiting to visit her dad. Now, she, too, is arbitrarily detained
and deprived of her basic right to complete her education, which now
postpones the joy of her graduation for another two years as she continues
to be imprisoned in Damon Prison.
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