Thursday 18 March 2010

LOS DESAPARECIDOS DE PALESTINA

DESERTPEACE
March 18, 2010 at 12:48 pm (Corrupt Politics, Human Rights, Occupation, Palestine, Rights of The Child, Soldier Brutality, zionist harassment) River to Sea

zioterrorists in action….
In Argentina, during the reign of the fascist coup they were simply called Los Desaparecidos (the disappeared).

In Palestine, under the fascist occupation they are called CHILDREN.

A forced disappearance occurs when force is used (by, for example, agents of a state) to cause a person to vanish from public view, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the deprivation of liberty (and/or by concealment of the fate or whereabouts of the disappeared person), thereby placing the victim outside the protection of law.

According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, which came into force on 1 July 2002, when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed at any civilian population, a “forced disappearance” qualifies as a crime against humanity, and thus is not subject to a statute of limitation.

On December 20, 2006, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.


Often forced disappearance implies murder. The victim in such a case is first kidnapped, then illegally detained, often tortured, then killed, and the corpse is then hidden.

Typically, a murder will be surreptitious, with the body disposed of in such a way as to prevent it ever being found, so the person apparently vanishes. The party committing the murder has deniability, as there is no body to prove that the victim is actually dead.



Taken FROM
The above came into being as a result of these instances in Argentina….. WHAT ABOUT PALESTINE?
Holy Land: Boys disappearing from Hebron Old City
By: Paulette Schroeder




Holy Land:  Boys disappearing from Hebron Old City | Christian  Peacemaker Teams, Pauletter Shroeder, Hebron

children encounter solders daily


I am most concerned these recent weeks in Hebron.  Young teens and even smaller children are disappearing from our neighbourhood in the Old City of Hebron. It’s not by kidnapping. It’s not by trafficking.  It’s not an unknown person with a criminal record perpetrating the crimes. Rather, the Israeli military is again pressing its boots down harder on the heads of the  Palestinian  people.  If restrictions on travel and commerce, land confiscations, home invasions, and forced business closures have not succeeded in convincing Palestinian families to leave their land, then MAYBE taking their children will.

 www.cpt.org

Our Palestinian neighbor sent her 15 year old son to buy bread.  Fifteen minutes later, Israeli soldiers blindfolded and handcuffed him, accusing him of throwing stones. The boy insisted he did not throw stone/s at the soldiers. Nevertheless, he is now spending time in the Israeli prison system.  Having spent the first 17 days in Ofir Prison among men who may/ may not have committed serious crimes, he continues to insist on his innocence.  He will spend four or five months in another Israeli prison until his court case is completed. All for the “crime” of supposedly throwing a stone at soldiers!

Mohammed, and Eissa too, were walking with the 15 year old.  Mohammed is 14 and Eissa is 19.  The Israeli authorities held Mohammed  in Ofir Prison until a donor contributed 2000 shekels. (This amounts to $500 approximately.) Eissa is also serving time in Ofir. Both these boys insist they did not throw a stone.

Near our CPT apartment soldiers accused a 12 year old boy of throwing stones. He too spent one week in Ofir prison.

Soldiers recently blindfolded and handcuffed an eight year old boy for stone throwing.  They forced him to spend eight hours with a dog behind a military gate.

A 14 year old neighbor boy was helping his dad in his store, cutting  cardboard boxes  filled with wares. The soldiers saw him with a knife, blindfolded him, whisked him away behind the military gate, holding him for two hours while the father pleaded at the gate.

A 15 year old boy in the neighbourhood ran an errand for his father.  The soldiers saw him running, grabbed him, and likewise detained him behind the military gate for 2 hrs. as his father also insisted his son did no wrong.

Besides the issue of the boys’ ages, and the severity of the sentences imposed, there is also the persistent need of the parents to travel two hours to the prison, their consequent loss of work, and  their  travel expenses  involved. (Approximately $15 each trip) Sometimes before a child’s case is settled, the parents must travel four or five times to the courtroom.

I have only begun to enumerate the stories of children recently taken from our midst.  Though the people’s patience has been great and their will to resist persists; yet anyone who witnesses these actions firsthand  will call them insanity, dehumanization, oppression, collective profiling.  From my point of view, this problem in Hebron and throughout the West Bank is  a matter of conscience, an embarrassment to humanity, and a horrid usage of tax dollars. It is urgent that the international community pressure  the state of Israel and  each one’s own government to put a stop to this madness.

Paulette is with Christian Peacemaker Teams -  an ecumenical initiative to support violence reduction efforts around the world.  To learn more about CPT’s peacemaking work, see:

No comments: