URGENT ACTION Serious Problem in Azzoun requires your help
Child prisoner action - below. 30 Jan 2012 21:22
Dear All, please see below for information about our connection with Azzoun village and their pleas for help in getting their children released. We need you to ring or email the Israeli Embassy about the children - see below for details. Love and peace, Angie.
Serious Problem in Azzoun requires Urgent Attention.
The Knighton Palestine Links Group is now twinned with Azzoun in the West Bank. Azzoun is between Nablus and Qualqilya, and has a population of 9,000 including 3,575 refugees.
Our contacts in Azzoun have told us that in the past 3 weeks more than 30 detainees of all ages have been arrested – mostly in the middle of the night. They and their family members have suffered severe beatings with some family members suffering broken legs and ribs. Their homes have also been damaged. We have been sent pictures of the broken furniture and mess left by the Israeli forces doing the arrests.
We know of 16 children of 18 years and younger (8 of whom are between the ages of 13 and 15) who have been arrested in these raids. The villagers have now discovered that they may be in either one of two Israeli jails - Megiddo or Hasharon – but so far only 3 have been released and the Red Cross cannot get any further information for them.
The names and ages of the children are:
1 - Mohamed Osman Ahmed Radwan, 14 years
2 - Adnan Hamza Mazuz Shebeita, 18 years
3 - Ansar al-Said Mohamed Radwan, 18 years
4 - Saad Mansour, 15 years
5 - Alaa Asim Mansoor, 16 years
6 - Qusay Shaher, 14 years
7 - Nagi Radwan, 18 years
8 - Rashad leading Shebeita, 13 years
9 - Ehab Mahmoud Meshaal. 17 years
10 - Ibrahim Ahmad Shehadeh, 17 years
11 - Abu Haniyeh, 14 years
12 - Mohamed Hussein, 15 years
13 – Abdel-Latif Radwan Muawiya,
14 - Rebel Rizwan Masood, 17 years
15 - Abdul Rahman Mohammed Dahbour 15 years
16 - Samir Maher Hassan Abu Haniyeh, 14 years
The residents of Azzoun have told us that the main reasons for the attacks on Azzoun by the Israeli forces is their intention to take over hundreds of acres of Azzoun land, which would also include the artesian
well and the local hospital. The Azzoun population have been subjected to numerous arrests and beatings and the families of those arrested are subjected to continuing harsh treatment.
Over the last decade there have been frequent reports from women we have met in many Palestinian villages and towns. They tell of the terrifying experiences that children arrested go through and the worry and fear of their parents.
The report in The Guardian by Harriet Sherwood on 22 Jan 2012 gives some insight into the problem but women we have spoken to say their children (especially the sons) are often tortured or subject to
such inhumane conditions that they confess to anything. Some are then told they are traitors and begin to feel they are then 'collaborators', for some few this has led to becoming a suicide bomber to overcome the shame. Many women talk of the bed-wetting and lack of concentration their children come back with. There is a lack of legal redress, weeks of waiting to even hear of what the charges are and many problems encountered in trying to visit even once they know where their children are. This is in stark contrast to any Israeli children who are arrested and who are never interrogated without their parents present and whose rights are meticulously respected.
One good source of information is the Israeli human rights organisation called B'tselem. See their report 'No Minor Matter' on the Violation of the Rights of Palestinian Minors Arrested by Israel on Suspicion of Stone-Throwing. (July 2011).
All of this information should be read in the light of the gross human rights abuses perpetrated by the Israeli settlers who throw stones repeatedly at Palestinians, steal their donkeys, sheep and olives, shoot live bullets into their homes, and who are seldom taken to court even when the Israeli police are presented with film footage and eye-witness accounts.
This is on top of the many abuses, killings and woundings caused by the frequent Israeli Armed Force incursions in to the villages and towns and the ongoing theft by Israelis of Palestinian agricultural land and water resources for the numerous illegal Israeli settlements.
These villagers need help and we have asked our MP Roger Williams to raise our concerns with the Foreign Office and ask that the UK put pressure on the Israeli Government to find out where these children are
and to release them immediately. He has agreed to help. The UK Government should insist that Israel adheres to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (which it signed and ratified) and treat Palestinian
children no differently to Israeli children.
We are also urgently requesting that you personally write, phone or email the Israeli Embassy about these children and ask politely where they are and why their rights to have their parents with them when
interrogated (like Israeli children) are not being respected. The contact details are:-
HE Ambassador, Daniel Taub, Embassy of Israel in London, 2 Palace Green, London W8 4QB. Tel No 020-7957-9500. E-mail Den här e-postadressen skyddas mot spambots. Du måste tillåta JavaScript för att se den.
Angie Zelter, 6 Church St, Knighton, Powys, LD7 1AG. UK. Tel: +44(0)1547-520929.
BRITAIN PALESTINE TWINNING NETWORK
promoting twinning and friendship links
Twinning Network events 2012: April - conference in Palestine, July 8th, Picnic for Palestine, November 24th, national conference in Britain
twinningwithpalestine@googlegroup