March 14, 2011, Palestinian activist Abdallah Abu Rahmah released from Israeli prison.
Photo: Iyas Abu Rahmah. Palestinian community activist Abdallah Abu Rahmah upon release from Israeli prison.
Palestinian community activist Abdallah Abu Rahmah, from Bil’in, Palestine, has been released from Israeli prison after being jailed for sixteen month as a political prisoner. Abu Rahmah visited Canada in 2009 to speak in Montreal on a lawsuit launched by Bil’in village against two companies registered in Quebec, Green Mount International and Green Park International, due their involvement in constructing Israeli settlements on agricultural lands belonging to Bil’in, which had been confiscated previously by the Israeli state.
Report Defence for Children International – DCI Palestine October 2010 download PDF
Photo Israeli occupation forces patrol the Old City of Hebron, in occupied Palestine.
In October, DCI-Palestine collected information relating to the arrest of 17 children from the Silwan neighbourhood in occupied East Jerusalem, although lawyers and fieldworkers for DCI-Palestine estimate that the overall number of children arrested in the Silwan neighbourhood in October is considerably higher.
Human rights groups issued a report saying that the Israeli military police, better known as the border police, arrested 100 Palestinian children from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan in October.
Bil’in protest organizer Abdallah Abu Rahmah was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment today, for his involvement in his village’s unarmed struggle against the wall.
Abdallah Abu Rahmah was sentenced today to 12 months in prison, plus 6 months suspended sentence for 3 years and a fine of 5,000 NIS. In the sentencing, the judge cited the non-implementation of an Israeli High Court ruling which declared the current route of the wall on Bil’in’s land illegal as a mitigating factor.
Photo Lazar Simeonov Palestinian activist & political prisoner Adeeb Abu Rahma
For over five years the Palestinian village of Bil’in has sustained a grassroots struggle for land and livelihood. Every Friday, Palestinian villagers brave a volley of sound grenades, tear gas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets to stage demonstrations against the apartheid wall and the construction of Israeli settlements on Palestinian agricultural lands.
In many ways, Bil’in’s creative tactics have captured the imaginations of thousands of people both in Quebec and around the world, and have inspired other Palestinian villages across the West Bank. Resistance remains ongoing despite considerable repression on the part of Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF).
The Spanish Parliament followed the footsteps of the EU and the Desmond Tutu of the Elders, and joined the rising tide of international criticism over Abu Rahmah’s conviction of incitement by an Israeli military court.
The Spanish Parliament’s Intergroup for Palestine issued a statement that expressed their “deep concern that Abdallah Abu Rahmah’s potential incarceration aims at preventing him and other Palestinians from exercising their legitimate right to protest against the existence of the Wall in a non violent manner.” (full text of the statement is available below or here in the Spanish original)
On 29 July 2010, the UN Human Rights Committee (the Committee) issued Concluding Observations after reviewing the State of Israel’s compliance with the Convention on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR) earlier this month. Compliance by parties to the Convention is reviewed every four years by the Committee, which consists of 18 independent and internationally recognised experts. During its 99th Session in July, the Committee also considered compliance with the Convention by three other states under the periodic review process.
following letter was sent to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on 26 July 2010:
As human rights advocates and representatives of nongovernmental organizations working to promote internationally recognized human rights standards in the US and around the world, we welcomed the important message you delivered to the Community of Democracies in Krakow on 3 July 2010. We wholeheartedly agree that civil society is an essential element in a free nation and plays an important role in identifying and eradicating injustices. As you rightly noted, it was through the critically important work of human rights activists and civil society that the US was able to be put on the path of racial equality.
