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>Subject: [Fsmed-general] American peace activist arrested inTel-Aviv,
> about to be deported
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>
>GUSH SHALOM pob 3322, Tel-Aviv www.gush-shalom.org
>
>
>Press Release 5/12/2003
>
>American peace activist Radika Sainath has been detained by police
>yesterday afternoon in Tel-Aviv and is held in the deportation cells at Ben-
>Gurion Airport, in preparation for being deported from the country. This
>morning (Friday, Dec, 5) at 9.00 AM, her lawyer, Adv. Shamai Leibovitz,
>will appeal to the Duty Detentions Judge at room 359 of the Tel-Aviv
>Courts Building (corner of Weitzmann and King Saul, Tel-Aviv).
>
>Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc) and other groups appealed to their
>activists to be present at the courtroom to exprss their solidarity, and of
>course there will be there members of the ISM (International Solidarity
>Movement) to which Radika Sainath belongs.
>
>Sainath was picked up by police yesterday afternoon, soon after leaving
>the same court building - but then she had been there in a completely
>different capacity, as a witness in the compensation suit she had
>presented against the Israeli police, asking for 50,000 Shekels (about
>$10,000) in damages for wrongful detention.
>
>The suit referred to events taking place a year ago, in November 2002, at
>the West Bank village of Jayous, on whose lands a section of Sharon's
>"Separation Wall" was being built at the time, causing the outright
>confiscation of village lands, the cutting down of numerous olive trees
>and destruction of various agricultural installations, and also involving the
>threat - since then realized - of cutting the villagers off from much of their
>land which was not officially confiscated.
>
>Radika Sainath had been among a large group of international and Israeli
>activists which joined the Jayous villagers in a non-violent protest march.
>The army commander on the spot ordered the demonstrators to disperse -
>but before they even had time to think whether or not to obey, the soldiers
>opened up with tear gas and "rubber" bullets (i.e., rubber-coated metal
>bullets). Afterwards, police roughly pushed Sainath and several fellow
>demonstrators down on the ground, handcuffed them and took them off to
>the Ariel Police Station, where she spent 30 hours until the Supreme Court
>in Jerusalem ordered her release.
>
>Judge David Geldstein of the Tel-Aviv court listened patiently when she
>related at length all of the above. When she mentioned the army
>onslaught, the judge asked: "But why did you not run away?" to which
>Sainath answered: "We could not. We had come there in order to defend
>the Palestinian villagers, to insert ourselves between them and the army -
>because we knew that the soldiers might be far more rough to them them
>to citizens of Israel or of Western countries".
>
>Later, the state representative tried to depict Sainath as "a provocateur
>who is in the habit of lying down in front of bulldozers" and described the
>ISM as "an anti-Israeli organization". But the judge did not seem
>impressed, stating: "What she may have done or not done at other times
>and places is not relevant here, nor is the ideology of organizations to
>which she may belong. So far, as regards the facts of the case here
>considered, I heard evidence indicating that she was engaged in a lawful,
>non-violent protest which was wrongly broken up. I have yet to hear
>evidence to the contrary". The judge added, however, an aside to Sainath
>herself: "You see how enlightened is the state of Israel. Which other state
>would have allowed you to sue it in this way?". Then he fixed the next
>session for April 2004, when the state is supposed to bring testimonies
>from the soldiers and police who were at Jayous on that day.
>
>All seemed over for the day. Sainath and her friends went out of the court
>building and boarded a bus. Two men - who later turned out to be plain-
>clothes police - boarded the bus after them. When they got off, the two
>again followed, approached Sainath, told her she was under arrest for
>being illegally in Israeli territory, used some force to beat off the Israeli and
>international activists present, and then pushed her into an unmarked car
>and whisked her off directly to the cells at Ben Gurion Airport. It seems
>these two were adept at such operations, being - as it turned out -
>members of the notorious Immigration Police which is terrorizing migrant
>workes, kidnapping them off the streets as well as in midnight raids to
>apartements in the slums of south Tel-Aviv.
>
>The authorities intended to put Radika Sainath on a plane then and there,
>but quick action by her Israeli lawyer Shamai Leibovitz gained a temporary
>injunction, pending this morning's session. "This is pure, small-minded
>vindictivness on the part of the police" says Leibovitz, a veteran of
>numerous hard-fought human rights cases. "It is true that her visa expired
>some days ago. She openly declared this to the court, saying that she
>extended her stay in order to testify at her compensations suit and
>showing the court the return ticket she has for December 12 and which she
>fully intends to use. This arrest and attmepted deportation is pure
>vindictivness, they were so angry that she dared sue them that they
>wanted to get back at her at all costs."
>
>For updates on the case, call Adv. Leibovitz +972-64-414505, Ronen
>Edelman +972-53-561580, Adam Keller +972-3-5565804 or +-972-56-709603.
>
>-
>http://www.gush-shalom.org/ (Ú·¯È)
>http://www.gush-shalom.org/english/index.html
>(English)
>
>with
>\\photos - of actions
>\\the weekly Gush Shalom ad - in Hebrew and
>English
>\\the columns of Uri Avnery - in Hebrew, Arab and
>English
>\\position papers & analysis (in "documents")
>\\and a lot more
>
>######################
>Petitions against the Wall:
>
>http://www.gader.org/Main/engPetition.asp (for
>Israelis)
>http://www.petitiononline.com/stw/petition.html
>(international petition)
>######################
>
>N.B.:
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>Spanish
>
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Paola Manduca
