Mr. Muhammad Srour and Mr.Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli solidarity activist, testified to the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict in Geneva on 6 July 2009 about the murder of 2 young men by Israeli forces during a demonstration in Ni’lin.
Mr. Srour, a member of the Ni’lin Popular Committee Against the Wall, and Pollack were witness to the shooting of 2 Nilin residents (Arafat Rateb Khawaje and Mohammed Khawaje) on 28 December 2008, during a Demonstration in solidarity with Gaza. Muhammad Srour anticipated already in his testimony to the UN at minute 4 of his statement that I know full well that I will pay the price for this testimony when I return at Israeli crossing points in my journey of return after this hearing. Srour was then effectively arrested at the border crossing of the Allenby Bridge and taken to Ofer prison. Today, he was interrogated by Israeli forces and his lawyer has requested an urgent hearing for Thursday. He will likely be taken to court on Thursday, 23 July 2009 to hear the charges against him.
Whatever the charges – if any – that will be brought forward by the Israeli authorities, the motivation for his arrest is clearly a reprisal against his testimony at the UN. In view of Israeli non cooperation with the UN Fact Finding Mission and to ensure he would be allowed to leave the country, it was arranged that against normal procedures Srour would receive his visa to Switzerland only from Jordan after having crossed the Israeli border. In fact, the Israeli authorities did not arrest him on his way out. So, the ‘crimes’ for which Srour is held currently in prison must have occurred between the moment he left the country and he wanted to enter again, i.e. his testimony to the UN.
This arrest is as well in line with the increasing Israeli repression of Palestinian communities protesting against the Wall. This has lead to the Palestinian communities affected by the Wall to be not only dispossessed and ghattoized by the Wall but to be subjected to what amounts in certain cases to low intensity warfare. (For more see our latest report ‘Repression allowed, resistance denied’ at:
http://www.stopthewall.org/downloads/pdf/repress.pdf)
The UN officials in Palestine are aware of the case, however, it has become clear that because of their as well rather difficult situation there is no space for a public statement in defense of Srour and all the other witnesses testifying for the UN from their side.
We believe that even if Srour is released soon (and we do hope so), the mere fact that UN witnesses have to suffer arrest and interrogation for days is a practise that penalizes Palestinians for cooperation with UN institutions and severely undermines the UN’s capacity to fulfill its mandate. The UN cannot limit itself to behind the scene phone calls to Israeli officials to attain at best an early release of prisoners held because of their cooperation with the UN. This simply creates a system whereby Israel can without any negative impact deter Palestinians through arrest from working with the UN and limit the UN’s efforts to investigate Israeli abuses of Human Rights and international law. Israeli officials do not mind phone calls from UN staff, they do mind however public exposure.
I am sure that UN officials, members of the panel that heard the witnesses and members of the Human Rights Council know about effective ways to counter this practice. We believe it would be crucial for them to publicly denounce this practice of reprisal against a Palestinian witness to the UN. This could be done best through their own press releases and channels or if this is not possible by agreeing to give a statement to the Popular Committee against the Wall in Ni’lin and the national coordination body of the committees, the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
I hope you can pass this message on to the relevant people, such as Hina Jilani who was part of the panel that heard the witnesses, in the hope that we can at least expose and challenge this other face of Israeli abuses and protect Palestinian witnesses of Israeli crimes.
Statement from Mr. Jamal Juma’, coordinator of the Palestinian grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign- global@stopthewall.org
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