| America's Credibility Gap |
| Nadia Hijab |
| In the past three weeks the United States has rightly expressed concern about a pattern of increasing political repression in Sudan, has called on Iran to release all human rights defenders, and has wished Burmese human rights heroine Aung San Suu Kyi a happy birthday. Yet the Administration remains silent about Israel’s draconian arrest and treatment of human rights defenders Ameer Makhoul and Omar Saeed, part of a pattern of increasing repression of the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Nor has the State Department sent Ameer birthday greetings. He turned 52 in prison on June 19 and when his trial resumes on June 27 it will feature a confession extracted by torture and “secret evidence” that will not be disclosed to his lawyers. It is going to be increasingly difficult for the Obama team to turn a blind eye to the way Israel treats its Palestinian citizens -- treatment Israel is also beginning to extend to Jewish human rights defenders. The 1.2 million Palestinians, whose community has faced discrimination under the law since Israel was established in 1948, have been committing the worst possible crime: demanding equality in the state of Israel. As of 1993, the Oslo Accords sent three signals to the Palestinian people. To those living under occupation, Oslo sounded like a promise of freedom. To refugees and exiles, Oslo smelled of a sell-out of the right of return. And to the Palestinian citizens of Israel it was a signal to push for full citizenship rights -- something that challenges Israel’s claim that it is possible to be a Jewish and democratic state. As Ameer’s wife, feminist writer Janan Abdu, put it, “When Israel insists on being a ‘Jewish state’ it cancels out our very existence.” Over the years Ameer Makhoul helped to found political parties and community groups. He no longer belongs to any and instead he focuses on directing Ittijah -- a coalition that now brings together 64 Palestinian non-governmental organizations. And he’s building bridges between Palestinian political and civil society leaders, and with the Arab world. According to Janan, “This ability to network locally, at the Arab level, and internationally, coupled with his clear strategic vision and the refusal to give up fundamental Palestinian rights -- this is what Israel is trying to silence.” Ameer means “prince” in Arabic, and there is no question that the soft-spoken Palestinian is an inspiring leader and coalition-builder. His wife is equally inspiring, somehow finding the strength to cope with a series of tragedies. Her parents died this month within two weeks of each other. Her father’s funeral fell on the day the family was finally allowed to visit Ameer. “I went from the prison to the funeral,” Janan says. “There are only two choices: to be strong or to be crushed. We need to keep believing in our rights, even if the personal price is so hard.” Ameer recently established the Popular Committee for the Defence of Freedoms to expose Israel’s harassment of its Palestinian politicians. Janan recalls their conversations about the committee’s work, “I would say your turn will come. And now it has. Silencing his voice is also an attempt to silence a defender of political freedoms.” Israel has been planning to silence Ameer for some time. During its December 2008-January 2009 assault on Gaza, when Israeli Palestinian and Jewish protestors filled the streets of Haifa and Tel Aviv, the security services hauled Ameer in for several hours of questioning. They were particularly upset at the way he was able to reach across generations and mobilize Palestinian youth. And they threatened him. They told him “We can ‘disappear’ you," Janan recalls, "You should know that the next time we bring you in you will not see your family again for a long time.” In his first letter from prison, released by his family this week, Ameer said the Israeli intelligence services forced him “to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn’t do, ever.” And if they still need to “complete the puzzle, they have the legal tools to fill it in by so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.” In his letter Ameer launches a challenge to the human rights community to use his case to show how such tools are used “for the criminalization of human rights defenders.” So here are some questions for the Obama administration: Given its ostensible concern for human rights, why does it not, at the very least, call for a fair trial for Ameer Makhoul and Omar Saeed and condemn Israel’s use of torture? Is it really ready to support institutionalized racism in the 21st Century by recognizing Israel as a Jewish state? Or will it, one day, bridge the yawning divide between its fine talk about human rights and its application to all human beings? |
Thursday, November 10, 2011
nterview Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “What cows are to India, security is to Israel: when they call in security, human rights vanish"
Janan and her daughters at a courtroom hearing
Interview Janan Abdu-Makhoul, wife of Ameer Makhoul
Janan Abdu is the wife of Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a well-known human rights and civil society activist. Earlier this year, Ameer was convicted on various counts of having contact with enemies of Israel and espionage after a plea bargain agreement at his trial. The confession on which Ameer's conviction and sentencing were based, was admitted as evidence by the court, despite allegations that he was tortured during his interrogation. Ameer was arrested by the Israeli security services and police on 6 May 2010. Amnesty International raised concerns that his arrest and continued detention smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work. Ameer was brutally arrested at his home. Janan herself is a human rights activist and therapist for violated children and women. Following the sentencing of her husband, she has not been able to resume her work. We had a moving conversation with her in her hometown Haifa.
Who is Ameer Makhoul?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer is a well known human rights defender and political leader here in Israel..He is also the chairman of the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms within the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, a representative body which includes all Arab political parties and municipality mayors of Arab villages/Towns in Israel and representative of other organizations. Ameer is the director of Ittijah, a union of Arab Community Based Associations including 85 NGOs. Ameer writes about his political views and his ideas of a one State solution and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Maybe his influence as a human rights defender was too big, so Israel got scared.”
He was charged with espionage. Do you think it is related to his work as a human rights defender?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer was accused of spying for Hezbollah. But investigators who checked 30.000 of his phone calls since one year ago, could not find any call linking to Hezbollah! In his laptops they couldn’t find anything either, not a single e-mail or skype call or any other evidence linking him to Hezbollah. The security services already announced that they had been following him since one year and a half before his arrest and they never found anything. That is why they needed another kind of evidence and why they tortured him, to force him to confess.
The charge is ridiculous. I can only conclude that it is an excuse for intimidating him and other human rights defenders. They took a well-known leader of Palestinian civil society as a message to the rest of Palestinian civil society, to make us afraid to engage in legal, democratic human rights activism in Israel. Ameer was already found guilty by the media and Israeli public opinion even before his trail began, because of the holy security declared by the state. No Arab facing security charges was eventually found innocent in this country.”
When did this intimidation start?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After the Israeli attack on Gaza in the beginning of 2009, General Security Services came to Ameer. They threatened him saying: ‘Next time we will catch you and you can say goodbye to your family for a long time.’ On 21 April, Ameer wanted to travel Jordan, but he received a travel ban because of security reasons. 3 weeks later, on the 6th of May, he arrived from al-Arakib, the Bedouin village that was completely destroyed by Israeli police. He had promised to bring international support to the village, as chairman of the Committee of political freedoms and director of Ittijah. On that day they came to arrest him. He disappeared for 2 weeks. Even his lawyer was not allowed to see him.”
How did they arrest Ameer?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “The way he was arrested, amounts to kidnapping. At 3am we heard knocking on the door. When we opened, we saw a large group of policemen and security personnel (GSS) in civilian clothing. They invaded our home and immediately took Ameer. I was in my sleeping dress. Police, 15 men and 1 woman, came into the bedroom and my daughters bedrooms. They were terrified. Police told me: ‘We are arresting your husband and searching your house.’ I know my rights, so I asked them to identify themselves. They refused to do so. I said: ‘Who are you? You are like thieves, coming to my house in the middle of the night, I want to see your police identification.’ They responded by laughing in my face.”
“One of them showed me his ID, but not long enough to read it. I also asked for the court order to search our house. They had one, but I received it just in the end of the search. It was dated 22 April. It means my husband’s arrest had not been not urgent. ŰIt means they planned it well in advance. It was pure intimidation, also because they did it in the middle of the night, in our private home. They could’ve arrested him in his office. It was a message to Ameer and to other Palestinian human rights defenders in Israel.”
How did police and security staff treat you and your daughters?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “While they some of them were searching the house, others had already taken Ameer away. 3 of them went to my daughters, and 3 stayed with me. They forced us to sit down and be quiet. When we resisted, they shouted: ‘If you want violence, you can get violence.’ I said: ‘What you are doing in our home is violence, violating the private sphere of our home, terrifying us.’ The dog was so scared that he urinated on the floor. I wanted to sweep it with a cloth, but they took it with force, twitching my arms. They stayed for 2 hours, until the morning. They searched the whole house and made a complete mess of everything. They forced my daughters to stay awake while they took me from room to room to search everything.”
“My daughter was in the middle of her exam period. They threw all her books and stuff on the ground. My daughter said she had exams. She asked the police to keep everything in its place. The policeman promised her to do so, but in the end he didn't. They confiscated all our mobile phones and laptops. We still don’t have them back. When the phone rang and I wanted to answer, police violently took the phone from my hand. Everything they do, they do with force. I was afraid this could be the medical staff of the hospital where my mother was hospitalized. I told the policemen she was dying. They didn’t even allow me to answer. Some weeks later she died. This was the worst month in my life. On 6 May Ameer was arrested, on 31 May my father died, on 14 June I lost my mother.”
What is the impact on your life?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “In our family, we talk of before and after 6 May 2010. Our lives changed completely. The state pushed us, not to the limit, but beyond. I can’t work anymore as a therapist, because I was myself experiencing trauma and I was investing all my time and energy in the campaign to free Ameer. When I’d treat Jewish women at the shelter where I work, I could be seen as ‘the wife of…’. I’m proud of Ameer, of what he is. I believe in him. So my basic income is gone. Our case was all over the media in Israel. Our privacy was taken away. Some websites even published our names, address and phone number. Even my daughters’ picture was in the newspaper. They are 13 and 17. I received threats over the phone and through letters. One letter had a picture of Hitler. I had to change my phone number.”
“Many of my friends say I should go to the police to report it, but I don’t trust the system anymore. How could I after what they have done to us, my daughters and husband. It’s all one system, the system that kidnapped and tortured my husband. We don’t have any protection against the overwhelming power of the State. The right to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, I doubt if the right to a fair trial, means anything here. Israeli courts legalize these violations of fundamental human rights and allow large derivations from it. What cows are to India, security is to Israel: when they call in security, human rights vanish. This is what makes us afraid, because human rights should be a protection against abuse of power by the State.”
“The order to search our home was given by a judge. There was a gag order for the press. Ameer did not get permission to see his lawyer for 2 weeks. The judge refused a blood test after he claimed to be tortured. How can I trust the legal system? I want to believe in justice. I am a social worker and all my life I worked to help victimes, children, women, Arabs and Jews. But now I became very suspicious of the system from my own experience.”
How do you deal with the situation?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “All this did not break us. I feel more motivated to struggle, to free Ameer, to expose the racism in the Israeli regime. We have nothing to hide or to be afraid of. We believe in our right to be free in our homeland, to live with dignity and without fear.”
How did the detention go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “For 12 days Ameer was secretly held by Shin Bet (General Security Services) in Petah Tikvah prison without access to a lawyer. Even doctors from Physicians for Human Rights were not allowed. There was a gag (media reporting) order for 12 days. During those days he was tortured. ŰTorture in Israeli prisons looks like this: he was tied with hands and feet in a painful position to a small chair. Ameer is 1m90. He was forced to stay awake in that position for over 24 hours, during which he underwent ‘violent interrogations’. He had no feelings in his hands and fingers anymore. Every time he dozed off to sleep, they pulled his head back up by his hair.”
“He felt extremely weak. He feared they had drugged him one night. He smelled some kind of DDT through the air-conditioning. During torture he couldn’t remember how I looked like. It was a blackened period. At one point the interrogator said: ‘You feel you have to throw up, so do it.’ How did he know what Ameer was feeling? He must have known Ameer was given a substance. Ameer asked for a blood test after day 4, but it was refused even in court. There urgently needs to be a study about what is going on with political prisoners in Israeli prisons.”
What happened after those initial 12 days?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After 12 days he was moved to Gilboa prison between Afula and the Jordan river after he was charged with all those charges. Now we could meet him once a week behind glass for half an hour. As a political prisoner he was not allowed to get Arab newspapers or books. We wanted to give him the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, ‘My way to freedom’, but it was refused. They have to wear prison clothes when they are brought to court or even at our meetings. Family cannot send food and clothes. He is forced to buy from the shop in the prison. He was refused even a hat to protect against the sun. The doctor needs to give him permission for that. The prison guards said: “You can stay inside if you suffer from the sun.”
What are you doing to resist?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We established a Committee for the Defense of Ameer. Its members are activists and public figures. We organize solidarity evenings, international and local campaigns to free Ameer. People send solidarity letters and cards to Ameer. The prison authorities need to read everything. They said that my letters are too long. They even suggested me to summarize it. I write articles and reports about Ameer’s humiliation and what the prison authorities do. I expose this in meetings with people who are interested in Ameer's case and political prisoners issues, I am working to keep the issue on the agenda of the international community, I am asking Amnesty to keep following Ameer's case. We need a website updating and reporting on his situation, but I need help with that. It's important to have all the material published in English,”
Do you receive a lot of support?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We feel so much support, also from Amnesty International and other international groups and organizations, Ameer was nominated by some of them for a human rights award. People that me me or Ameer didn’t know before send solidarity cards, It helps me to keep the courage. Despite everything, I am getting stronger. I feel I have nothing more to lose. I have no choice but to keep fighting for Ameer’s freedom and to keep believing in him and his right to be free. Everytime Ameer is taken to court there are demonstrations supported by Arabs and Jewish Israelis."
"There were many demonstrations. A lot of web pages are dedicated to Free Ameer Makhoul. There is also a facebook page which has 4000 members. Jewish American groups support the campaign. I don’t only get threat letters from Jewish Israelis. I received letters of support from Israeli and American Jews, even from rabbis, saying they are ashamed. I answer them that we don’t blame Jews, but the State that is harming democracy. It’s a problem of Israel, but Palestinians are paying the price. If things like this can happen in Israel, then it should stop calling itself democratic.”
A democracy also applies the principles of a fair trial. How did the legal procedures go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “When he was in pre-trial detention he wasn’t allow to see his lawyer for 12 days. During those 12 days he was tortured and taken to court (to renew the detention order) by the same security services staff who also tortured him. He had to face the judge sitting next to his torturers without the presence of a lawyer. Lawyer and detainee weren’t allowed to be in the court room at the same time. First the lawyer gets in, then he goes out and the GSS and Ameer come in. What kind of a hearing is this when the lawyer can't be there for his client?”
“The evidence brought against him is secret, so our space to influence the court is so limited. This treatment is reserved to political prisoners because they are said to be out to harm Israeli democracy. So, violations of the fundamental democratic right to a fair trial are legalized by the judge. It is against any principle of the rule of law and the right to a fair trial. His lawyer Husen Abu Husen and staff from Adalah (legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel) defended Ameer, but they boycotted the trial because they were not allowed to visit him. When they were eventually allowed to visit him and saw Ameer, it was not him. They were chocked to see him. He seemed very tired. He had yellow spots on his skin due to lack of sleep. In court he was absent.”
Are you still in contact with him?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Every week I am writing him letters, but during Sukkot (Jewish holliday) and other Jewish holidays he didn’t get any letter for 1 month. So far I have written him 21 letters. Every letter is 20 pages long. I am explaining him about family life, to keep him up-to-date on daily life things. All these letters go through censorship at the prison. They have to read every word of every letter, so I can’t write personal things or feelings. Sometimes they take certain pages from the letters. Ameer, as a political prisoner, can send 2 letters every month, each one maximum 12 pages. Normally political prisoners can meet family members directly when someone in the family of the prisoner is dying. When both of my parents died within one month after Ameer’s arrest, I needed support of my husband. But we wasn’t allowed to have this direct meeting. The claim was that they were my parents, not his. I need to forgot that he exist.”
There are about 7000 Palestinian political prisoners like Ameer in Israeli jails. Israel calls them Security prisoners. 7000 similar stories, 7000 families destroyed. Amnesty International is concerned at the broad definitions of espionage in Israeli law and by the Israeli courts’ practice of admitting statements which have been allegedly been obtained under duress. It also condemns the practice of prohibiting “security suspects” from meeting their lawyers for specific periods. Following Ameer Makhoul’s arrest on 6 May 2010 he was prevented from meeting with his lawyers for 12 days, during which time he was interrogated by the General Security Service (GSS, also known as the Israel Security Agency or ISA) in Petah Tikva.
Ameer Makhoul had previously told his lawyers that during his interrogation he was subjected to sleep deprivation, forced into painful stress positions, and threatened. AI would consider such methods to amount to torture, inhumane and degrading treatment. During his interrogation Ameer Makhoul was also prevented from seeing an independent doctor. AI is also concerned by the use of gag orders to initially restrict information concerning the arrest and interrogation of Ameer Makhoul.
On Ameer Makhoul Amnesty International sent out two statements
Israel must stop harassment of human rights defender (2010-05-12)
Palestinian human rights activist jailed (2011-01-30)
More information
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=436
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/…story.aspx?id=553
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=551
http://www.stoptorture.org.il/en/skira90-99
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r44auLB4VTU
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-05-06/ameer-makhoul-israels-repression-of-its-palestinian-citizens-unites-us-in-struggle/
Janan Abdu is the wife of Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a well-known human rights and civil society activist. Earlier this year, Ameer was convicted on various counts of having contact with enemies of Israel and espionage after a plea bargain agreement at his trial. The confession on which Ameer's conviction and sentencing were based, was admitted as evidence by the court, despite allegations that he was tortured during his interrogation. Ameer was arrested by the Israeli security services and police on 6 May 2010. Amnesty International raised concerns that his arrest and continued detention smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work. Ameer was brutally arrested at his home. Janan herself is a human rights activist and therapist for violated children and women. Following the sentencing of her husband, she has not been able to resume her work. We had a moving conversation with her in her hometown Haifa.
Who is Ameer Makhoul?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer is a well known human rights defender and political leader here in Israel..He is also the chairman of the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms within the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, a representative body which includes all Arab political parties and municipality mayors of Arab villages/Towns in Israel and representative of other organizations. Ameer is the director of Ittijah, a union of Arab Community Based Associations including 85 NGOs. Ameer writes about his political views and his ideas of a one State solution and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Maybe his influence as a human rights defender was too big, so Israel got scared.”
He was charged with espionage. Do you think it is related to his work as a human rights defender?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer was accused of spying for Hezbollah. But investigators who checked 30.000 of his phone calls since one year ago, could not find any call linking to Hezbollah! In his laptops they couldn’t find anything either, not a single e-mail or skype call or any other evidence linking him to Hezbollah. The security services already announced that they had been following him since one year and a half before his arrest and they never found anything. That is why they needed another kind of evidence and why they tortured him, to force him to confess.
The charge is ridiculous. I can only conclude that it is an excuse for intimidating him and other human rights defenders. They took a well-known leader of Palestinian civil society as a message to the rest of Palestinian civil society, to make us afraid to engage in legal, democratic human rights activism in Israel. Ameer was already found guilty by the media and Israeli public opinion even before his trail began, because of the holy security declared by the state. No Arab facing security charges was eventually found innocent in this country.”
When did this intimidation start?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After the Israeli attack on Gaza in the beginning of 2009, General Security Services came to Ameer. They threatened him saying: ‘Next time we will catch you and you can say goodbye to your family for a long time.’ On 21 April, Ameer wanted to travel Jordan, but he received a travel ban because of security reasons. 3 weeks later, on the 6th of May, he arrived from al-Arakib, the Bedouin village that was completely destroyed by Israeli police. He had promised to bring international support to the village, as chairman of the Committee of political freedoms and director of Ittijah. On that day they came to arrest him. He disappeared for 2 weeks. Even his lawyer was not allowed to see him.”
How did they arrest Ameer?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “The way he was arrested, amounts to kidnapping. At 3am we heard knocking on the door. When we opened, we saw a large group of policemen and security personnel (GSS) in civilian clothing. They invaded our home and immediately took Ameer. I was in my sleeping dress. Police, 15 men and 1 woman, came into the bedroom and my daughters bedrooms. They were terrified. Police told me: ‘We are arresting your husband and searching your house.’ I know my rights, so I asked them to identify themselves. They refused to do so. I said: ‘Who are you? You are like thieves, coming to my house in the middle of the night, I want to see your police identification.’ They responded by laughing in my face.”
“One of them showed me his ID, but not long enough to read it. I also asked for the court order to search our house. They had one, but I received it just in the end of the search. It was dated 22 April. It means my husband’s arrest had not been not urgent. ŰIt means they planned it well in advance. It was pure intimidation, also because they did it in the middle of the night, in our private home. They could’ve arrested him in his office. It was a message to Ameer and to other Palestinian human rights defenders in Israel.”
How did police and security staff treat you and your daughters?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “While they some of them were searching the house, others had already taken Ameer away. 3 of them went to my daughters, and 3 stayed with me. They forced us to sit down and be quiet. When we resisted, they shouted: ‘If you want violence, you can get violence.’ I said: ‘What you are doing in our home is violence, violating the private sphere of our home, terrifying us.’ The dog was so scared that he urinated on the floor. I wanted to sweep it with a cloth, but they took it with force, twitching my arms. They stayed for 2 hours, until the morning. They searched the whole house and made a complete mess of everything. They forced my daughters to stay awake while they took me from room to room to search everything.”
“My daughter was in the middle of her exam period. They threw all her books and stuff on the ground. My daughter said she had exams. She asked the police to keep everything in its place. The policeman promised her to do so, but in the end he didn't. They confiscated all our mobile phones and laptops. We still don’t have them back. When the phone rang and I wanted to answer, police violently took the phone from my hand. Everything they do, they do with force. I was afraid this could be the medical staff of the hospital where my mother was hospitalized. I told the policemen she was dying. They didn’t even allow me to answer. Some weeks later she died. This was the worst month in my life. On 6 May Ameer was arrested, on 31 May my father died, on 14 June I lost my mother.”
What is the impact on your life?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “In our family, we talk of before and after 6 May 2010. Our lives changed completely. The state pushed us, not to the limit, but beyond. I can’t work anymore as a therapist, because I was myself experiencing trauma and I was investing all my time and energy in the campaign to free Ameer. When I’d treat Jewish women at the shelter where I work, I could be seen as ‘the wife of…’. I’m proud of Ameer, of what he is. I believe in him. So my basic income is gone. Our case was all over the media in Israel. Our privacy was taken away. Some websites even published our names, address and phone number. Even my daughters’ picture was in the newspaper. They are 13 and 17. I received threats over the phone and through letters. One letter had a picture of Hitler. I had to change my phone number.”
“Many of my friends say I should go to the police to report it, but I don’t trust the system anymore. How could I after what they have done to us, my daughters and husband. It’s all one system, the system that kidnapped and tortured my husband. We don’t have any protection against the overwhelming power of the State. The right to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, I doubt if the right to a fair trial, means anything here. Israeli courts legalize these violations of fundamental human rights and allow large derivations from it. What cows are to India, security is to Israel: when they call in security, human rights vanish. This is what makes us afraid, because human rights should be a protection against abuse of power by the State.”
“The order to search our home was given by a judge. There was a gag order for the press. Ameer did not get permission to see his lawyer for 2 weeks. The judge refused a blood test after he claimed to be tortured. How can I trust the legal system? I want to believe in justice. I am a social worker and all my life I worked to help victimes, children, women, Arabs and Jews. But now I became very suspicious of the system from my own experience.”
How do you deal with the situation?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “All this did not break us. I feel more motivated to struggle, to free Ameer, to expose the racism in the Israeli regime. We have nothing to hide or to be afraid of. We believe in our right to be free in our homeland, to live with dignity and without fear.”
How did the detention go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “For 12 days Ameer was secretly held by Shin Bet (General Security Services) in Petah Tikvah prison without access to a lawyer. Even doctors from Physicians for Human Rights were not allowed. There was a gag (media reporting) order for 12 days. During those days he was tortured. ŰTorture in Israeli prisons looks like this: he was tied with hands and feet in a painful position to a small chair. Ameer is 1m90. He was forced to stay awake in that position for over 24 hours, during which he underwent ‘violent interrogations’. He had no feelings in his hands and fingers anymore. Every time he dozed off to sleep, they pulled his head back up by his hair.”
“He felt extremely weak. He feared they had drugged him one night. He smelled some kind of DDT through the air-conditioning. During torture he couldn’t remember how I looked like. It was a blackened period. At one point the interrogator said: ‘You feel you have to throw up, so do it.’ How did he know what Ameer was feeling? He must have known Ameer was given a substance. Ameer asked for a blood test after day 4, but it was refused even in court. There urgently needs to be a study about what is going on with political prisoners in Israeli prisons.”
What happened after those initial 12 days?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After 12 days he was moved to Gilboa prison between Afula and the Jordan river after he was charged with all those charges. Now we could meet him once a week behind glass for half an hour. As a political prisoner he was not allowed to get Arab newspapers or books. We wanted to give him the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, ‘My way to freedom’, but it was refused. They have to wear prison clothes when they are brought to court or even at our meetings. Family cannot send food and clothes. He is forced to buy from the shop in the prison. He was refused even a hat to protect against the sun. The doctor needs to give him permission for that. The prison guards said: “You can stay inside if you suffer from the sun.”
What are you doing to resist?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We established a Committee for the Defense of Ameer. Its members are activists and public figures. We organize solidarity evenings, international and local campaigns to free Ameer. People send solidarity letters and cards to Ameer. The prison authorities need to read everything. They said that my letters are too long. They even suggested me to summarize it. I write articles and reports about Ameer’s humiliation and what the prison authorities do. I expose this in meetings with people who are interested in Ameer's case and political prisoners issues, I am working to keep the issue on the agenda of the international community, I am asking Amnesty to keep following Ameer's case. We need a website updating and reporting on his situation, but I need help with that. It's important to have all the material published in English,”
Do you receive a lot of support?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We feel so much support, also from Amnesty International and other international groups and organizations, Ameer was nominated by some of them for a human rights award. People that me me or Ameer didn’t know before send solidarity cards, It helps me to keep the courage. Despite everything, I am getting stronger. I feel I have nothing more to lose. I have no choice but to keep fighting for Ameer’s freedom and to keep believing in him and his right to be free. Everytime Ameer is taken to court there are demonstrations supported by Arabs and Jewish Israelis."
"There were many demonstrations. A lot of web pages are dedicated to Free Ameer Makhoul. There is also a facebook page which has 4000 members. Jewish American groups support the campaign. I don’t only get threat letters from Jewish Israelis. I received letters of support from Israeli and American Jews, even from rabbis, saying they are ashamed. I answer them that we don’t blame Jews, but the State that is harming democracy. It’s a problem of Israel, but Palestinians are paying the price. If things like this can happen in Israel, then it should stop calling itself democratic.”
A democracy also applies the principles of a fair trial. How did the legal procedures go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “When he was in pre-trial detention he wasn’t allow to see his lawyer for 12 days. During those 12 days he was tortured and taken to court (to renew the detention order) by the same security services staff who also tortured him. He had to face the judge sitting next to his torturers without the presence of a lawyer. Lawyer and detainee weren’t allowed to be in the court room at the same time. First the lawyer gets in, then he goes out and the GSS and Ameer come in. What kind of a hearing is this when the lawyer can't be there for his client?”
“The evidence brought against him is secret, so our space to influence the court is so limited. This treatment is reserved to political prisoners because they are said to be out to harm Israeli democracy. So, violations of the fundamental democratic right to a fair trial are legalized by the judge. It is against any principle of the rule of law and the right to a fair trial. His lawyer Husen Abu Husen and staff from Adalah (legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel) defended Ameer, but they boycotted the trial because they were not allowed to visit him. When they were eventually allowed to visit him and saw Ameer, it was not him. They were chocked to see him. He seemed very tired. He had yellow spots on his skin due to lack of sleep. In court he was absent.”
Are you still in contact with him?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Every week I am writing him letters, but during Sukkot (Jewish holliday) and other Jewish holidays he didn’t get any letter for 1 month. So far I have written him 21 letters. Every letter is 20 pages long. I am explaining him about family life, to keep him up-to-date on daily life things. All these letters go through censorship at the prison. They have to read every word of every letter, so I can’t write personal things or feelings. Sometimes they take certain pages from the letters. Ameer, as a political prisoner, can send 2 letters every month, each one maximum 12 pages. Normally political prisoners can meet family members directly when someone in the family of the prisoner is dying. When both of my parents died within one month after Ameer’s arrest, I needed support of my husband. But we wasn’t allowed to have this direct meeting. The claim was that they were my parents, not his. I need to forgot that he exist.”
There are about 7000 Palestinian political prisoners like Ameer in Israeli jails. Israel calls them Security prisoners. 7000 similar stories, 7000 families destroyed. Amnesty International is concerned at the broad definitions of espionage in Israeli law and by the Israeli courts’ practice of admitting statements which have been allegedly been obtained under duress. It also condemns the practice of prohibiting “security suspects” from meeting their lawyers for specific periods. Following Ameer Makhoul’s arrest on 6 May 2010 he was prevented from meeting with his lawyers for 12 days, during which time he was interrogated by the General Security Service (GSS, also known as the Israel Security Agency or ISA) in Petah Tikva.
Ameer Makhoul had previously told his lawyers that during his interrogation he was subjected to sleep deprivation, forced into painful stress positions, and threatened. AI would consider such methods to amount to torture, inhumane and degrading treatment. During his interrogation Ameer Makhoul was also prevented from seeing an independent doctor. AI is also concerned by the use of gag orders to initially restrict information concerning the arrest and interrogation of Ameer Makhoul.
On Ameer Makhoul Amnesty International sent out two statements
Israel must stop harassment of human rights defender (2010-05-12)
Palestinian human rights activist jailed (2011-01-30)
More information
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=436
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/…story.aspx?id=553
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=551
http://www.stoptorture.org.il/en/skira90-99
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r44auLB4VTU
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-05-06/ameer-makhoul-israels-repression-of-its-palestinian-citizens-unites-us-in-struggle/
| Targeting Israel's Palestinians | ||||
Is a conflict brewing between the Israeli establishment and the country's Arab citizens? Ben White Last Modified: 23 Jun 2010 15:25 GMT | ||||
In May, Ameer Makhoul, the director of Ittijah, a network for Palestinian NGOs, was taken from his home in the middle of the night by the Shin Bet, Israel's internal security service. Once the media gag was lifted, it emerged that Makhoul and another Palestinian citizen, Omar Said, a natural medicine expert and Balad party activist, were facing serious security-related charges. Both men were denied access to lawyers for approximately a fortnight. Makhoul's wife, Janan Abdu, says she feels that her husband is being made an example of. "He's in a key position in within the community here, has a high profile internationally and he has been speaking clearly about discrimination and encouraging [a] boycott [of Israel]." "They have done what they threatened to do," she says, referring to a warning Shin Bet agents gave Ameer in January 2009 that the "next time" he would have to say goodbye to his family for a long time. 'Political dead-end' In 2007, Yuval Diskin, the head of Shin Bet, made it clear that the agency would "thwart" any activities that challenge the Jewish character of the state, regardless of whether those activities are legal. Hussein Abu Hussein, a lawyer on the legal teams representing Makhoul and Said, says he feels that some within the Israeli establishment are looking for a confrontation with the Palestinians inside Israel. "The state has reached a political dead-end, with worldwide condemnation of Israel's actions, and calls for the prosecution of leaders in international courts. "They don't know what they want - with regards to the nature of the state, what to do with Palestinians in the West Bank, in Gaza. Attacking a minority is a way of avoiding the real issues." In recent weeks, it has been elected Arab members of the knesset (MKs) who have been subjected to such attacks - in particular, Haneen Zoubi, from the Balad party, after she returned from participating in the Gaza aid flotilla. One knesset debate descended into farce, threats and the physical intimidation of Zoubi, with the chamber echoing to cries like "Go to Gaza, traitor". "The appalling behaviour of many Jewish MKs in the debate - including some from the so-called centrist Kadima - signals just how endangered this venue for debate and interaction between the Palestinian minority and Jewish majority has become," says Israeli journalist and commentator Dmitry Reider. 'Aggressive political punch'
Post-flotilla, the knesset's house committee voted 7-1 in favour of revoking some of the privileges enjoyed by Zoubi as an MK - a decision which may well not be ratified. That same morning, MK Michael Ben-Ari had sent an email to Arab MKs boasting that "after we take care of her [Zoubi], it will be your turn". Ben-Ari would later describe the vote as "an aggressive political punch" and the "first step" toward "the expulsion of Israel's enemies from the knesset". During the committee's debate, the chairman MK Yariv Levin's own 'evidence' included the fact that Zoubi identifies as a Palestinian. Back in February, Levin expressed his belief that "a serious decision" must be made about "whether or not these parties [Arab MKs] can continue to sit in the Israeli parliament, even while they operate against the country". When the vote successfully passed, some of those present opened a bottle of wine in celebration. There are also disturbing developments regarding proposed legislation, with the ministerial committee approving for consideration two bills targeting Arab MKs. One is intended to more easily facilitate the dismissal of an MK for violating Article 7a of the 'Basic Law: The Knesset', whose prohibitions include opposing the Jewish character of the state. The second would require MKs to swear allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish, Zionist and democratic state, to its values and symbols". Palestinians targeted Meanwhile, Eli Yishai, the interior minister, has declared his support for a proposed bill that would mean stripping citizenship from anyone deemed to have taken actions that help a "state or terror organisation against the state of Israel". Post-flotilla, Yishai also announced that he approached Israel's attorney general regarding removing Zoubi's parliamentary immunity, in order to then revoke her citizenship. Other Palestinian leaders continue to be targeted. The four Palestinian citizens (aside from Zoubi) who participated in the flotilla - including Sheikh Raed Salah, the leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement - were detained and then subjected to house arrest. Their detention was condemned as "illegal" and based on "political considerations" by Adalah, a legal centre for Arab minority rights in Israel. Incitement against the Palestinian minority is an increasingly mainstream phenomenon. As finance minister in 2003, Binyamin Netanyahu, the current Israeli prime minister, described Palestinian citizens as a "demographic problem". Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's foreign minister, used campaign slogans like "only Lieberman understands Arabic" and in 2006 advocated the execution of Arab MKs who "collaborated" with the "enemy". As a recent Haaretz editorial put it, this trend "is surfacing in most of the parties in the knesset, with the enthusiastic encouragement of most ministers". A new identity Hillel Cohen noted in his book Good Arabs that historically the Israeli state has tried to "change the consciousness" of the Palestinian minority with the aim of creating a "new Israeli Arab identity". It is the failure of this effort - as evidenced by an assertion of Palestinian identity, solidarity with Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and increasing links to the global solidarity movement - that has provoked the anger of the political and security establishment. Israeli historian Ilan Pappe describes the current attack as "a link in a long chain that goes back to the foundation of the state of Israel" and a result of "the consensual Zionist mindset" which "could never accept Palestinians as equal citizens". As Zoubi remarked to The Guardian newspaper, this "is not something that started yesterday" but it has got "harder and harsher". This assessment is shared by Makhoul's wife Janan. "They are afraid of us, of our identity, and how the youth are proud to be Palestinian. I think we are entering a tough period and the people will pay the price." |
Why doesn’t Clinton care about my jailed husband?
13 July 2010
Janan Abdu with her two daughters outside a closed-door hearing on her husband Ameer Makhoul’s arrest, 12 May 2010. (Oren Ziv/ActiveStills)
I used to tell my husband, Ameer Makhoul, “One day, they’ll come for you.” As chairman of the Public Committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms he’d begun to organize an awareness-raising campaign to push back against the security services’ harassment of our community, the Palestinian citizens of Israel.
Come for Ameer they did, late one night this May, pounding at our door, ransacking our house and terrifying our two teenage daughters. And now I’ve joined the ranks of Palestinian prisoners’ wives, many thousands of us from the occupied territories as well as within Israel. His 13 July hearing — persecution really — could begin the legal nightmare that ruptures our family for many years. This is the likely course of events unless Ameer gets a fair trial and his coerced statements are rejected or suppressed by the court.
“Democracies don’t fear their own people,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her 3 July speech in Poland at the 10th anniversary meeting of the Community of Democracies. “They recognize that citizens must be free to come together to advocate and agitate.” But the head of Israel’s General Security Services said three years ago that Palestinian citizens’ organizational efforts for equality constitute a “strategic threat,” even if pursued by lawful means.
That’s not how democracy works. We may be a minority of 20 percent, but our rights to organize and insist on full equality and civil rights ought to be sacrosanct. That’s what our entire community believes. The Public Committee that Ameer chaired was established within the framework of the High Follow-up Committee for the Arab Citizens of Israel, the community’s overall coordinating body. It’s a vital position and the leading organization protecting our civil rights.
And now he faces the most serious charges leveled against a Palestinian citizen of Israel since the creation of the state in 1948. He is accused of being a spy (for the Lebanese militant group Hizballah) and having contact with a foreign agent. His trial will likely last for months.
After his arrest, Ameer was held incommunicado for 21 days and tortured. Then Israeli officials pressed their charges, based on the “confession” he made during this time, when he was deprived of sleep, shackled in a painful position to a small chair and not allowed to see his lawyers.
Ameer denies all charges. As he said in his first letter from Gilboa Prison, he was “forced to explain to them in a very detailed way how exactly I did what I didn’t do, ever.” And if the prosecution needs any more information to make its case, all they have to do is use “so-called secret evidence, which my lawyers and I have no legal right to know about.”
Clinton’s Krakow speech focused on civil society: Ameer is a civil society activist. He directs Ittijah, the Union of Arab-Based Community Associations — a coalition that brings together 84 nongovernmental organizations. Clinton criticized several governments by name — but not Israel — for intimidation and assassination of activists. Why does America’s drive to promote human rights stop at Israel’s door?
Throughout his life, Ameer has struggled for the rights of the Palestinian citizens of Israel — there are more than 35 laws on the books that discriminate against us — as well as those of the Palestinian people overall. He has the ability to lead and to convene diverse viewpoints, bringing them together across sect and ideology. His ability to network locally, at the Arab level, and internationally, coupled with his clear strategic vision — this is what Israel is trying to silence.
The youth also look to him for leadership, which infuriates the Israeli security services. They told Ameer so when they hauled him in for questioning during our community’s protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza in December 2008-January 2009.
During that interrogation they threatened to put him away if he kept up his activism, saying, “We can ‘disappear’ you. You should know that the next time we bring you in you will not see your family again for a long time.”
The few times we’ve been allowed to visit him thick glass has separated us and our meetings were taped. Ameer asked me for a copy of my new book to read in jail, but they wouldn’t let me even take him that. My daughters really miss their father. They often say, “If only we’d been able to hug him before they took him away.” That’s one of the things that hurts them most, not being able to hug their father.
Ameer still suffers from the torture and abuse inflicted on him, and they still try to break his spirit. They only allow 20 people into the courtroom even though it can hold many more, so when he sees it empty, he thinks no one cares. But far more people want to attend the trial than they allow in — family, community activists, politicians and supporters from all over the world.
I have never thought of myself as a “wife” but rather as Ameer’s partner in life and in activism. But these days, as I wait with the other wives for our allotted visit, I find myself reflecting on the traditional Christian marriage vows: “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” No man, I think, unless he’s an Israeli jailer.
Clinton spoke of “the cowardice of those who deny their citizens the protections they deserve.” Ameer deserves the protection of the law: the right to meet his lawyers in private — Israeli officials have been taping those meetings too; the right to see the evidence against him, much of which the prosecution plans to withhold on security grounds; freedom from torture; and inadmissibility of confessions secured under torture. When will Clinton call for a Palestinian activist’s human rights and an end to his persecution?
Janan Abdu is a social worker, feminist activist, and researcher with Mada al-Carmel, the Haifa-based Arab Center for Applied Social Research.
Janan Abdu, Issam Makhoul: Ameer Makhoul’s arrest is an assault on all Palestinians in Israel
Janan Abdu and supporters protesting the arrest of Ameer Makhoul
By Janan Abdu and Issam Makhoul, The Electronic Intifada – 26 May 2010
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11290.shtml
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article11290.shtml
Issam Makhoul
Today is the 21st day since the arrest of Ameer Makhoul at his home in Haifa, Israel, under the cover of darkness, by officers of the International Crimes Investigation Unit and General Security Service (GSS or Shabak). The arrest was conducted in a brutal and terrifying manner. Our house was raided, its contents ransacked and various pieces of equipment and objects of special value to us were confiscated. Violations of our fundamental rights to human dignity and privacy were committed, and physical, verbal and psychological violence were employed against us and in front of Ameer’s two daughters. On this day we, Ameer’s family, announce that we are extremely worried about what is happening to him and the conditions of his detention.
We know that Ameer has suffered and continues to suffer from acute pains in his head, his back and in both of his legs as a result of the severe torture he was subjected to, in breach of his most basic human rights. These include the rights to sleep, drink and eat, and the rights to dignity and not to be exposed to humiliating and degrading treatment. His complete isolation from the outside world, the control exercised over him by the GSS interrogators, and he has been interrogated for hours and days on end without sleep, while in shackles and bound by his hands and feet to a low chair in a way that does not allow him to move. This causes him severe pain, from which he still continues to suffer, resulting in his losing his sense of time and ability to think and concentrate, and in his mental disorientation. These methods are illegal under Israeli and international law.
For the past 21 days, the court has refused to allow Ameer’s attorneys to read the medical report written by a doctor who visited him twice during the interrogation. It also refused to allow an independent doctor sent from Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-I) to examine him, as demanded by Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, including Adalah, PHR-I and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. These refusals raise concerns and questions about the information that the GSS, with the backing of the court, wants to conceal regarding the conditions of his detention and their methods of interrogation.
We wonder what the GSS is hiding and why it is stalling. Is it in order to hide signs of the physical and psychological violence it has inflicted upon him? Why has the court given its consent to these procedures?
What particularly worries us is that Ameer continues to complain of acute pains, and his eyesight has deteriorated, which has compelled him to ask for a stronger pair of glasses. This raises the questions: How and why this severely diminished eyesight was caused during his detention? What methods of interrogation were used which led to this physical deterioration and caused him to experience and complain of acute pains?
Yet there are bigger questions, with implications not just for Ameer but for all Palestinians in Israel: what is the Israeli security establishment trying to cover up?
Why is the court colluding with the GSS and concealing the conditions of detention and methods of interrogation and torture that have been used against Ameer?
Why did the court block the publication of the details of Ameer’s affidavit as it relates to the illegal methods of interrogation used against him? Ameer discussed these interrogation methods in his initial meeting with his lawyers, which was held after almost two weeks of being banned from access to legal counsel.
We appeal to the local and international communities and to individuals to continue to act quickly to put pressure on the Israeli government and legal system to open an independent investigation into the methods used by the GSS interrogators against Ameer, and to demand the indictment of those responsible for the use of torture against him. We also call on the local and international communities to consider any indictment by the GSS to have been fabricated and extorted under torture and gained solely by obstructing democratic freedoms and human rights. These acts are invalid and illegitimate, and in flagrant violation of international law.
We call on the local and international communities to demand that the Israeli authorities immediately halt this trial, which is based on an investigation in which Ameer was prevented from defending himself in any genuine manner. Ameer has been denied the most fundamental basic human rights to which he is entitled under Israeli and international law. In addition, the independence of the judiciary and democratic freedoms were dangerously subjected to the dictates of the GSS in this case.
We greatly appreciate the community, institutional and individual solidarity with Ameer on the local and international levels, and all efforts to defend his freedom. We are aware of the importance of the role played by all political movements and political parties in challenging the circumstances of Ameer’s arrest, and this attack against the Arab public and its leadership, and on democratic freedom and human rights. We are also aware that the clear strategic choice of the Arab public in Israel has been and continues to be that of unyielding and legitimate political struggle.
The fact is that Ameer Makhoul does not belong to any specific political party. Rather, he reserves for himself an independent position, which is a clear indication that the main target of this attack is the Arab Palestinian public and their leadership, their rights and freedoms. Defending the freedom of Ameer and his rights as a detainee, and rejecting incitement against Arab citizens in light of his detention, are not an individual or class issue, but a national, democratic mission.
The real indictment is against the GSS and the Israeli establishment, which are trampling on democratic freedoms and human rights and resorting to illegal methods of interrogation and torture.
Janan Abdu is the wife and partner of Ameer Makhoul
Issam Makhoul is the brother of Ameer Makhoul and a former member of Israel’s Knesset
Issam Makhoul is the brother of Ameer Makhoul and a former member of Israel’s Knesset
The complete IOA coverage of the arrest of Ameer Makhoul and Omar Said
Interview Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “What cows are to India, security is to Israel: when they call in security, human rights vanish"
Janan and her daughters at a courtroom hearing
Interview Janan Abdu-Makhoul, wife of Ameer Makhoul
Janan Abdu is the wife of Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a well-known human rights and civil society activist. Earlier this year, Ameer was convicted on various counts of having contact with enemies of Israel and espionage after a plea bargain agreement at his trial. The confession on which Ameer's conviction and sentencing were based, was admitted as evidence by the court, despite allegations that he was tortured during his interrogation. Ameer was arrested by the Israeli security services and police on 6 May 2010. Amnesty International raised concerns that his arrest and continued detention smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work. Ameer was brutally arrested at his home. Janan herself is a human rights activist and therapist for violated children and women. Following the sentencing of her husband, she has not been able to resume her work. We had a moving conversation with her in her hometown Haifa.
Who is Ameer Makhoul?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer is a well known human rights defender and political leader here in Israel..He is also the chairman of the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms within the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, a representative body which includes all Arab political parties and municipality mayors of Arab villages/Towns in Israel and representative of other organizations. Ameer is the director of Ittijah, a union of Arab Community Based Associations including 85 NGOs. Ameer writes about his political views and his ideas of a one State solution and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Maybe his influence as a human rights defender was too big, so Israel got scared.”
He was charged with espionage. Do you think it is related to his work as a human rights defender?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer was accused of spying for Hezbollah. But investigators who checked 30.000 of his phone calls since one year ago, could not find any call linking to Hezbollah! In his laptops they couldn’t find anything either, not a single e-mail or skype call or any other evidence linking him to Hezbollah. The security services already announced that they had been following him since one year and a half before his arrest and they never found anything. That is why they needed another kind of evidence and why they tortured him, to force him to confess.
The charge is ridiculous. I can only conclude that it is an excuse for intimidating him and other human rights defenders. They took a well-known leader of Palestinian civil society as a message to the rest of Palestinian civil society, to make us afraid to engage in legal, democratic human rights activism in Israel. Ameer was already found guilty by the media and Israeli public opinion even before his trail began, because of the holy security declared by the state. No Arab facing security charges was eventually found innocent in this country.”
When did this intimidation start?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After the Israeli attack on Gaza in the beginning of 2009, General Security Services came to Ameer. They threatened him saying: ‘Next time we will catch you and you can say goodbye to your family for a long time.’ On 21 April, Ameer wanted to travel Jordan, but he received a travel ban because of security reasons. 3 weeks later, on the 6th of May, he arrived from al-Arakib, the Bedouin village that was completely destroyed by Israeli police. He had promised to bring international support to the village, as chairman of the Committee of political freedoms and director of Ittijah. On that day they came to arrest him. He disappeared for 2 weeks. Even his lawyer was not allowed to see him.”
How did they arrest Ameer?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “The way he was arrested, amounts to kidnapping. At 3am we heard knocking on the door. When we opened, we saw a large group of policemen and security personnel (GSS) in civilian clothing. They invaded our home and immediately took Ameer. I was in my sleeping dress. Police, 15 men and 1 woman, came into the bedroom and my daughters bedrooms. They were terrified. Police told me: ‘We are arresting your husband and searching your house.’ I know my rights, so I asked them to identify themselves. They refused to do so. I said: ‘Who are you? You are like thieves, coming to my house in the middle of the night, I want to see your police identification.’ They responded by laughing in my face.”
“One of them showed me his ID, but not long enough to read it. I also asked for the court order to search our house. They had one, but I received it just in the end of the search. It was dated 22 April. It means my husband’s arrest had not been not urgent. ŰIt means they planned it well in advance. It was pure intimidation, also because they did it in the middle of the night, in our private home. They could’ve arrested him in his office. It was a message to Ameer and to other Palestinian human rights defenders in Israel.”
How did police and security staff treat you and your daughters?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “While they some of them were searching the house, others had already taken Ameer away. 3 of them went to my daughters, and 3 stayed with me. They forced us to sit down and be quiet. When we resisted, they shouted: ‘If you want violence, you can get violence.’ I said: ‘What you are doing in our home is violence, violating the private sphere of our home, terrifying us.’ The dog was so scared that he urinated on the floor. I wanted to sweep it with a cloth, but they took it with force, twitching my arms. They stayed for 2 hours, until the morning. They searched the whole house and made a complete mess of everything. They forced my daughters to stay awake while they took me from room to room to search everything.”
“My daughter was in the middle of her exam period. They threw all her books and stuff on the ground. My daughter said she had exams. She asked the police to keep everything in its place. The policeman promised her to do so, but in the end he didn't. They confiscated all our mobile phones and laptops. We still don’t have them back. When the phone rang and I wanted to answer, police violently took the phone from my hand. Everything they do, they do with force. I was afraid this could be the medical staff of the hospital where my mother was hospitalized. I told the policemen she was dying. They didn’t even allow me to answer. Some weeks later she died. This was the worst month in my life. On 6 May Ameer was arrested, on 31 May my father died, on 14 June I lost my mother.”
What is the impact on your life?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “In our family, we talk of before and after 6 May 2010. Our lives changed completely. The state pushed us, not to the limit, but beyond. I can’t work anymore as a therapist, because I was myself experiencing trauma and I was investing all my time and energy in the campaign to free Ameer. When I’d treat Jewish women at the shelter where I work, I could be seen as ‘the wife of…’. I’m proud of Ameer, of what he is. I believe in him. So my basic income is gone. Our case was all over the media in Israel. Our privacy was taken away. Some websites even published our names, address and phone number. Even my daughters’ picture was in the newspaper. They are 13 and 17. I received threats over the phone and through letters. One letter had a picture of Hitler. I had to change my phone number.”
“Many of my friends say I should go to the police to report it, but I don’t trust the system anymore. How could I after what they have done to us, my daughters and husband. It’s all one system, the system that kidnapped and tortured my husband. We don’t have any protection against the overwhelming power of the State. The right to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, I doubt if the right to a fair trial, means anything here. Israeli courts legalize these violations of fundamental human rights and allow large derivations from it. What cows are to India, security is to Israel: when they call in security, human rights vanish. This is what makes us afraid, because human rights should be a protection against abuse of power by the State.”
“The order to search our home was given by a judge. There was a gag order for the press. Ameer did not get permission to see his lawyer for 2 weeks. The judge refused a blood test after he claimed to be tortured. How can I trust the legal system? I want to believe in justice. I am a social worker and all my life I worked to help victimes, children, women, Arabs and Jews. But now I became very suspicious of the system from my own experience.”
How do you deal with the situation?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “All this did not break us. I feel more motivated to struggle, to free Ameer, to expose the racism in the Israeli regime. We have nothing to hide or to be afraid of. We believe in our right to be free in our homeland, to live with dignity and without fear.”
How did the detention go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “For 12 days Ameer was secretly held by Shin Bet (General Security Services) in Petah Tikvah prison without access to a lawyer. Even doctors from Physicians for Human Rights were not allowed. There was a gag (media reporting) order for 12 days. During those days he was tortured. ŰTorture in Israeli prisons looks like this: he was tied with hands and feet in a painful position to a small chair. Ameer is 1m90. He was forced to stay awake in that position for over 24 hours, during which he underwent ‘violent interrogations’. He had no feelings in his hands and fingers anymore. Every time he dozed off to sleep, they pulled his head back up by his hair.”
“He felt extremely weak. He feared they had drugged him one night. He smelled some kind of DDT through the air-conditioning. During torture he couldn’t remember how I looked like. It was a blackened period. At one point the interrogator said: ‘You feel you have to throw up, so do it.’ How did he know what Ameer was feeling? He must have known Ameer was given a substance. Ameer asked for a blood test after day 4, but it was refused even in court. There urgently needs to be a study about what is going on with political prisoners in Israeli prisons.”
What happened after those initial 12 days?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After 12 days he was moved to Gilboa prison between Afula and the Jordan river after he was charged with all those charges. Now we could meet him once a week behind glass for half an hour. As a political prisoner he was not allowed to get Arab newspapers or books. We wanted to give him the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, ‘My way to freedom’, but it was refused. They have to wear prison clothes when they are brought to court or even at our meetings. Family cannot send food and clothes. He is forced to buy from the shop in the prison. He was refused even a hat to protect against the sun. The doctor needs to give him permission for that. The prison guards said: “You can stay inside if you suffer from the sun.”
What are you doing to resist?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We established a Committee for the Defense of Ameer. Its members are activists and public figures. We organize solidarity evenings, international and local campaigns to free Ameer. People send solidarity letters and cards to Ameer. The prison authorities need to read everything. They said that my letters are too long. They even suggested me to summarize it. I write articles and reports about Ameer’s humiliation and what the prison authorities do. I expose this in meetings with people who are interested in Ameer's case and political prisoners issues, I am working to keep the issue on the agenda of the international community, I am asking Amnesty to keep following Ameer's case. We need a website updating and reporting on his situation, but I need help with that. It's important to have all the material published in English,”
Do you receive a lot of support?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We feel so much support, also from Amnesty International and other international groups and organizations, Ameer was nominated by some of them for a human rights award. People that me me or Ameer didn’t know before send solidarity cards, It helps me to keep the courage. Despite everything, I am getting stronger. I feel I have nothing more to lose. I have no choice but to keep fighting for Ameer’s freedom and to keep believing in him and his right to be free. Everytime Ameer is taken to court there are demonstrations supported by Arabs and Jewish Israelis."
"There were many demonstrations. A lot of web pages are dedicated to Free Ameer Makhoul. There is also a facebook page which has 4000 members. Jewish American groups support the campaign. I don’t only get threat letters from Jewish Israelis. I received letters of support from Israeli and American Jews, even from rabbis, saying they are ashamed. I answer them that we don’t blame Jews, but the State that is harming democracy. It’s a problem of Israel, but Palestinians are paying the price. If things like this can happen in Israel, then it should stop calling itself democratic.”
A democracy also applies the principles of a fair trial. How did the legal procedures go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “When he was in pre-trial detention he wasn’t allow to see his lawyer for 12 days. During those 12 days he was tortured and taken to court (to renew the detention order) by the same security services staff who also tortured him. He had to face the judge sitting next to his torturers without the presence of a lawyer. Lawyer and detainee weren’t allowed to be in the court room at the same time. First the lawyer gets in, then he goes out and the GSS and Ameer come in. What kind of a hearing is this when the lawyer can't be there for his client?”
“The evidence brought against him is secret, so our space to influence the court is so limited. This treatment is reserved to political prisoners because they are said to be out to harm Israeli democracy. So, violations of the fundamental democratic right to a fair trial are legalized by the judge. It is against any principle of the rule of law and the right to a fair trial. His lawyer Husen Abu Husen and staff from Adalah (legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel) defended Ameer, but they boycotted the trial because they were not allowed to visit him. When they were eventually allowed to visit him and saw Ameer, it was not him. They were chocked to see him. He seemed very tired. He had yellow spots on his skin due to lack of sleep. In court he was absent.”
Are you still in contact with him?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Every week I am writing him letters, but during Sukkot (Jewish holliday) and other Jewish holidays he didn’t get any letter for 1 month. So far I have written him 21 letters. Every letter is 20 pages long. I am explaining him about family life, to keep him up-to-date on daily life things. All these letters go through censorship at the prison. They have to read every word of every letter, so I can’t write personal things or feelings. Sometimes they take certain pages from the letters. Ameer, as a political prisoner, can send 2 letters every month, each one maximum 12 pages. Normally political prisoners can meet family members directly when someone in the family of the prisoner is dying. When both of my parents died within one month after Ameer’s arrest, I needed support of my husband. But we wasn’t allowed to have this direct meeting. The claim was that they were my parents, not his. I need to forgot that he exist.”
There are about 7000 Palestinian political prisoners like Ameer in Israeli jails. Israel calls them Security prisoners. 7000 similar stories, 7000 families destroyed. Amnesty International is concerned at the broad definitions of espionage in Israeli law and by the Israeli courts’ practice of admitting statements which have been allegedly been obtained under duress. It also condemns the practice of prohibiting “security suspects” from meeting their lawyers for specific periods. Following Ameer Makhoul’s arrest on 6 May 2010 he was prevented from meeting with his lawyers for 12 days, during which time he was interrogated by the General Security Service (GSS, also known as the Israel Security Agency or ISA) in Petah Tikva.
Ameer Makhoul had previously told his lawyers that during his interrogation he was subjected to sleep deprivation, forced into painful stress positions, and threatened. AI would consider such methods to amount to torture, inhumane and degrading treatment. During his interrogation Ameer Makhoul was also prevented from seeing an independent doctor. AI is also concerned by the use of gag orders to initially restrict information concerning the arrest and interrogation of Ameer Makhoul.
On Ameer Makhoul Amnesty International sent out two statements
Israel must stop harassment of human rights defender (2010-05-12)
Palestinian human rights activist jailed (2011-01-30)
More information
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=436
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/…story.aspx?id=553
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=551
http://www.stoptorture.org.il/en/skira90-99
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r44auLB4VTU
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-05-06/ameer-makhoul-israels-repression-of-its-palestinian-citizens-unites-us-in-struggle/
Janan Abdu is the wife of Ameer Makhoul, a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a well-known human rights and civil society activist. Earlier this year, Ameer was convicted on various counts of having contact with enemies of Israel and espionage after a plea bargain agreement at his trial. The confession on which Ameer's conviction and sentencing were based, was admitted as evidence by the court, despite allegations that he was tortured during his interrogation. Ameer was arrested by the Israeli security services and police on 6 May 2010. Amnesty International raised concerns that his arrest and continued detention smacks of pure harassment, designed to hinder his human rights work. Ameer was brutally arrested at his home. Janan herself is a human rights activist and therapist for violated children and women. Following the sentencing of her husband, she has not been able to resume her work. We had a moving conversation with her in her hometown Haifa.
Who is Ameer Makhoul?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer is a well known human rights defender and political leader here in Israel..He is also the chairman of the Popular Committee for the Defense of Political Freedoms within the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel, a representative body which includes all Arab political parties and municipality mayors of Arab villages/Towns in Israel and representative of other organizations. Ameer is the director of Ittijah, a union of Arab Community Based Associations including 85 NGOs. Ameer writes about his political views and his ideas of a one State solution and the right of return of Palestinian refugees. Maybe his influence as a human rights defender was too big, so Israel got scared.”
He was charged with espionage. Do you think it is related to his work as a human rights defender?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Ameer was accused of spying for Hezbollah. But investigators who checked 30.000 of his phone calls since one year ago, could not find any call linking to Hezbollah! In his laptops they couldn’t find anything either, not a single e-mail or skype call or any other evidence linking him to Hezbollah. The security services already announced that they had been following him since one year and a half before his arrest and they never found anything. That is why they needed another kind of evidence and why they tortured him, to force him to confess.
The charge is ridiculous. I can only conclude that it is an excuse for intimidating him and other human rights defenders. They took a well-known leader of Palestinian civil society as a message to the rest of Palestinian civil society, to make us afraid to engage in legal, democratic human rights activism in Israel. Ameer was already found guilty by the media and Israeli public opinion even before his trail began, because of the holy security declared by the state. No Arab facing security charges was eventually found innocent in this country.”
When did this intimidation start?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After the Israeli attack on Gaza in the beginning of 2009, General Security Services came to Ameer. They threatened him saying: ‘Next time we will catch you and you can say goodbye to your family for a long time.’ On 21 April, Ameer wanted to travel Jordan, but he received a travel ban because of security reasons. 3 weeks later, on the 6th of May, he arrived from al-Arakib, the Bedouin village that was completely destroyed by Israeli police. He had promised to bring international support to the village, as chairman of the Committee of political freedoms and director of Ittijah. On that day they came to arrest him. He disappeared for 2 weeks. Even his lawyer was not allowed to see him.”
How did they arrest Ameer?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “The way he was arrested, amounts to kidnapping. At 3am we heard knocking on the door. When we opened, we saw a large group of policemen and security personnel (GSS) in civilian clothing. They invaded our home and immediately took Ameer. I was in my sleeping dress. Police, 15 men and 1 woman, came into the bedroom and my daughters bedrooms. They were terrified. Police told me: ‘We are arresting your husband and searching your house.’ I know my rights, so I asked them to identify themselves. They refused to do so. I said: ‘Who are you? You are like thieves, coming to my house in the middle of the night, I want to see your police identification.’ They responded by laughing in my face.”
“One of them showed me his ID, but not long enough to read it. I also asked for the court order to search our house. They had one, but I received it just in the end of the search. It was dated 22 April. It means my husband’s arrest had not been not urgent. ŰIt means they planned it well in advance. It was pure intimidation, also because they did it in the middle of the night, in our private home. They could’ve arrested him in his office. It was a message to Ameer and to other Palestinian human rights defenders in Israel.”
How did police and security staff treat you and your daughters?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “While they some of them were searching the house, others had already taken Ameer away. 3 of them went to my daughters, and 3 stayed with me. They forced us to sit down and be quiet. When we resisted, they shouted: ‘If you want violence, you can get violence.’ I said: ‘What you are doing in our home is violence, violating the private sphere of our home, terrifying us.’ The dog was so scared that he urinated on the floor. I wanted to sweep it with a cloth, but they took it with force, twitching my arms. They stayed for 2 hours, until the morning. They searched the whole house and made a complete mess of everything. They forced my daughters to stay awake while they took me from room to room to search everything.”
“My daughter was in the middle of her exam period. They threw all her books and stuff on the ground. My daughter said she had exams. She asked the police to keep everything in its place. The policeman promised her to do so, but in the end he didn't. They confiscated all our mobile phones and laptops. We still don’t have them back. When the phone rang and I wanted to answer, police violently took the phone from my hand. Everything they do, they do with force. I was afraid this could be the medical staff of the hospital where my mother was hospitalized. I told the policemen she was dying. They didn’t even allow me to answer. Some weeks later she died. This was the worst month in my life. On 6 May Ameer was arrested, on 31 May my father died, on 14 June I lost my mother.”
What is the impact on your life?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “In our family, we talk of before and after 6 May 2010. Our lives changed completely. The state pushed us, not to the limit, but beyond. I can’t work anymore as a therapist, because I was myself experiencing trauma and I was investing all my time and energy in the campaign to free Ameer. When I’d treat Jewish women at the shelter where I work, I could be seen as ‘the wife of…’. I’m proud of Ameer, of what he is. I believe in him. So my basic income is gone. Our case was all over the media in Israel. Our privacy was taken away. Some websites even published our names, address and phone number. Even my daughters’ picture was in the newspaper. They are 13 and 17. I received threats over the phone and through letters. One letter had a picture of Hitler. I had to change my phone number.”
“Many of my friends say I should go to the police to report it, but I don’t trust the system anymore. How could I after what they have done to us, my daughters and husband. It’s all one system, the system that kidnapped and tortured my husband. We don’t have any protection against the overwhelming power of the State. The right to freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, I doubt if the right to a fair trial, means anything here. Israeli courts legalize these violations of fundamental human rights and allow large derivations from it. What cows are to India, security is to Israel: when they call in security, human rights vanish. This is what makes us afraid, because human rights should be a protection against abuse of power by the State.”
“The order to search our home was given by a judge. There was a gag order for the press. Ameer did not get permission to see his lawyer for 2 weeks. The judge refused a blood test after he claimed to be tortured. How can I trust the legal system? I want to believe in justice. I am a social worker and all my life I worked to help victimes, children, women, Arabs and Jews. But now I became very suspicious of the system from my own experience.”
How do you deal with the situation?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “All this did not break us. I feel more motivated to struggle, to free Ameer, to expose the racism in the Israeli regime. We have nothing to hide or to be afraid of. We believe in our right to be free in our homeland, to live with dignity and without fear.”
How did the detention go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “For 12 days Ameer was secretly held by Shin Bet (General Security Services) in Petah Tikvah prison without access to a lawyer. Even doctors from Physicians for Human Rights were not allowed. There was a gag (media reporting) order for 12 days. During those days he was tortured. ŰTorture in Israeli prisons looks like this: he was tied with hands and feet in a painful position to a small chair. Ameer is 1m90. He was forced to stay awake in that position for over 24 hours, during which he underwent ‘violent interrogations’. He had no feelings in his hands and fingers anymore. Every time he dozed off to sleep, they pulled his head back up by his hair.”
“He felt extremely weak. He feared they had drugged him one night. He smelled some kind of DDT through the air-conditioning. During torture he couldn’t remember how I looked like. It was a blackened period. At one point the interrogator said: ‘You feel you have to throw up, so do it.’ How did he know what Ameer was feeling? He must have known Ameer was given a substance. Ameer asked for a blood test after day 4, but it was refused even in court. There urgently needs to be a study about what is going on with political prisoners in Israeli prisons.”
What happened after those initial 12 days?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “After 12 days he was moved to Gilboa prison between Afula and the Jordan river after he was charged with all those charges. Now we could meet him once a week behind glass for half an hour. As a political prisoner he was not allowed to get Arab newspapers or books. We wanted to give him the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, ‘My way to freedom’, but it was refused. They have to wear prison clothes when they are brought to court or even at our meetings. Family cannot send food and clothes. He is forced to buy from the shop in the prison. He was refused even a hat to protect against the sun. The doctor needs to give him permission for that. The prison guards said: “You can stay inside if you suffer from the sun.”
What are you doing to resist?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We established a Committee for the Defense of Ameer. Its members are activists and public figures. We organize solidarity evenings, international and local campaigns to free Ameer. People send solidarity letters and cards to Ameer. The prison authorities need to read everything. They said that my letters are too long. They even suggested me to summarize it. I write articles and reports about Ameer’s humiliation and what the prison authorities do. I expose this in meetings with people who are interested in Ameer's case and political prisoners issues, I am working to keep the issue on the agenda of the international community, I am asking Amnesty to keep following Ameer's case. We need a website updating and reporting on his situation, but I need help with that. It's important to have all the material published in English,”
Do you receive a lot of support?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “We feel so much support, also from Amnesty International and other international groups and organizations, Ameer was nominated by some of them for a human rights award. People that me me or Ameer didn’t know before send solidarity cards, It helps me to keep the courage. Despite everything, I am getting stronger. I feel I have nothing more to lose. I have no choice but to keep fighting for Ameer’s freedom and to keep believing in him and his right to be free. Everytime Ameer is taken to court there are demonstrations supported by Arabs and Jewish Israelis."
"There were many demonstrations. A lot of web pages are dedicated to Free Ameer Makhoul. There is also a facebook page which has 4000 members. Jewish American groups support the campaign. I don’t only get threat letters from Jewish Israelis. I received letters of support from Israeli and American Jews, even from rabbis, saying they are ashamed. I answer them that we don’t blame Jews, but the State that is harming democracy. It’s a problem of Israel, but Palestinians are paying the price. If things like this can happen in Israel, then it should stop calling itself democratic.”
A democracy also applies the principles of a fair trial. How did the legal procedures go?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “When he was in pre-trial detention he wasn’t allow to see his lawyer for 12 days. During those 12 days he was tortured and taken to court (to renew the detention order) by the same security services staff who also tortured him. He had to face the judge sitting next to his torturers without the presence of a lawyer. Lawyer and detainee weren’t allowed to be in the court room at the same time. First the lawyer gets in, then he goes out and the GSS and Ameer come in. What kind of a hearing is this when the lawyer can't be there for his client?”
“The evidence brought against him is secret, so our space to influence the court is so limited. This treatment is reserved to political prisoners because they are said to be out to harm Israeli democracy. So, violations of the fundamental democratic right to a fair trial are legalized by the judge. It is against any principle of the rule of law and the right to a fair trial. His lawyer Husen Abu Husen and staff from Adalah (legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel) defended Ameer, but they boycotted the trial because they were not allowed to visit him. When they were eventually allowed to visit him and saw Ameer, it was not him. They were chocked to see him. He seemed very tired. He had yellow spots on his skin due to lack of sleep. In court he was absent.”
Are you still in contact with him?
Janan Abdu-Makhoul: “Every week I am writing him letters, but during Sukkot (Jewish holliday) and other Jewish holidays he didn’t get any letter for 1 month. So far I have written him 21 letters. Every letter is 20 pages long. I am explaining him about family life, to keep him up-to-date on daily life things. All these letters go through censorship at the prison. They have to read every word of every letter, so I can’t write personal things or feelings. Sometimes they take certain pages from the letters. Ameer, as a political prisoner, can send 2 letters every month, each one maximum 12 pages. Normally political prisoners can meet family members directly when someone in the family of the prisoner is dying. When both of my parents died within one month after Ameer’s arrest, I needed support of my husband. But we wasn’t allowed to have this direct meeting. The claim was that they were my parents, not his. I need to forgot that he exist.”
There are about 7000 Palestinian political prisoners like Ameer in Israeli jails. Israel calls them Security prisoners. 7000 similar stories, 7000 families destroyed. Amnesty International is concerned at the broad definitions of espionage in Israeli law and by the Israeli courts’ practice of admitting statements which have been allegedly been obtained under duress. It also condemns the practice of prohibiting “security suspects” from meeting their lawyers for specific periods. Following Ameer Makhoul’s arrest on 6 May 2010 he was prevented from meeting with his lawyers for 12 days, during which time he was interrogated by the General Security Service (GSS, also known as the Israel Security Agency or ISA) in Petah Tikva.
Ameer Makhoul had previously told his lawyers that during his interrogation he was subjected to sleep deprivation, forced into painful stress positions, and threatened. AI would consider such methods to amount to torture, inhumane and degrading treatment. During his interrogation Ameer Makhoul was also prevented from seeing an independent doctor. AI is also concerned by the use of gag orders to initially restrict information concerning the arrest and interrogation of Ameer Makhoul.
On Ameer Makhoul Amnesty International sent out two statements
Israel must stop harassment of human rights defender (2010-05-12)
Palestinian human rights activist jailed (2011-01-30)
More information
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=436
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/…story.aspx?id=553
http://www.acri.org.il/eng/story.aspx?id=551
http://www.stoptorture.org.il/en/skira90-99
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r44auLB4VTU
http://www.israeli-occupation.org/2010-05-06/ameer-makhoul-israels-repression-of-its-palestinian-citizens-unites-us-in-struggle/
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