RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — Israeli forces detained at least 24 Palestinians during predawn raids across the occupied territory on Sunday, including two Palestinian parliamentarians, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.
Dag: 6 maart 2017
Palestinians minors fined $15,400 by Israel
Israeli forces violently arrest a Palestinian youth [file photo]
Israeli courts fined Palestinian minors imprisoned in the Ofer detention centre a total of 57,000 shekels ($15,420) in February alone, the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners’ Affairs said yesterday, adding that at least 49 had been detained in February.
Committee lawyer Luay Akka said that of at least 49 Palestinian minors who were imprisoned in February and taken to Ofer, 27 of them were detained during home raids, nine in the streets, five after being summoned for interrogation, four at checkpoints and four in Israel for not having permits.
Read: Report: Israel kills 26 Palestinian students, arrests 198 in 2016
He added that the sentences issued against 25 minors during the month ranged between one and 24 months in prison, with at least one teen – 15 year-old Ahmad Hanatsha – being sentenced to administrative detention without trial or charges.
Palestinian minors detained in Ofer said that they were being held in poor conditions, and lacked access to necessities such as clothing, bed sheets and towels.
In January, the committee reported the detention of at least 63 minors, who were collectively fined some 52,000 shekels ($14,000).
(Source / 06.03.2017)
Report: Israeli forces arrested 498 Palestinians last February
Palestinian human rights institutions reveled, in a statement on Monday that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) arrested last February 498 Palestinians including 108 minors, 19 women and a journalist man. In addition to the martyrdom of the Palestinian prisoner Mohammad al-Jallad who died after being shot by Israeli soldiers.
The statement pointed out that 161 of the arrested were from Occupied Jerusalem, 90 from al-Khalil, 55 from Bethlehem, 43 from Ramallah and al-Bireh, 39 from Nablus, 32 from Qalqilya, 25 from Jenin, 22 from Tulkarem, 10 from Tubas, 9 from Gaza Strip, 7 from Jericho and 5 from Salfit.
Israeli Occupation Authority (IOA) issued 99 orders of the illegal administrative detention with no charge or trial including 25 new orders, the statement added.
According to the report, which was issued by four human rights institutions, the number of Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails jumped to 7000 including 61 female captives with 12 minors. The number of prisoners of children reached 300; while the number administrative captives was 516 and the number of journalist detainees jumped to 23.
The report warned of the serious conditions inside Israeli prisons due to punitive measures. It called for exerting more efforts by Arab and international organizations in order to pressure for halting Israeli offensive practices against Palestinian prisoners and liberating them from Israeli jails.
(Source / 06.03.2017)
Assad Regime Torture Victims File Criminal Case in Germany
Seven Syrian torture survivors, two lawyers and a human rights group have filed a criminal complaint in Germany against officials of Bashar al-Assad’s secret service.
The complaint names and seeks international arrest warrants against six high-level officials of the Assad regime’s Military Intelligence Service, in whose Damascus prisons the claimants say they were tortured or witnessed torture.
According to witness testimony, prisoners were beaten with pipes, sticks and meat hooks on chains, given electric shocks, burnt with cleaning chemicals and stabbed with pencils, the broken-off tips left inside their flesh.
“We cannot just look on at the horror of Syria,” said Wolfgang Kaleck, head of the Berlin-based non-profit legal organization that launched the case, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).
“We have to start describing what is happening in Syria with words and legal categories,” Kaleck said in a statement.
“Germany can and must react to grave human rights violations such as torture, massacres and sexual violence in Syria.”
The case accuses the Assad regime of having carried out “systematic and widespread torture targeting opponents and activists… for several decades”.
Germany’s federal prosecution service welcomed the complaint, with a spokeswoman saying it may provide further evidence to support its own ongoing investigation into Syrian war crimes launched in 2011.
The new complaint alleges crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in three Damascus prisons between October 2011 and July 2015, based on the testimonies of 12 witnesses, seven of whom are complainants.
The complaint was launched under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the German judiciary to become active in cases where neither the victims nor the perpetrators are German citizens, said the ECCHR.
(Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies / 06.03.2017)
Palestinian security spokesman: 4 meetings held in the region’s capital against Abbas
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of Yasser Arafat Museum in Ramallah, West Bank on November 09, 2016
A Palestinian security official hinted on Sunday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is being plotted against.
“The holding of four meetings in the region’s capitals in the past four months proves that Palestinian legitimacy is targeted,” Adnan Damiri said, according to the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
“The national cause is subjected to a conspiracy against Palestinian legitimacy, especially that Palestinian Liberation Organisation [PLO], the legitimate and only representative of the Palestinian people,” he added.
Besides being the Palestinian president, Abbas also heads the PLO and is a member of the Fatah movement.
Read: Is the PLO still the sole, legitimate representative of the Palestinians?
The security official said that the four meetings were held in Tehran, Iran; Istanbul, Turkey; and Ain Al-Sukhna, Egypt, adding that those who attended the meetings do not represent Palestinians, and were invited to these meetings in secret, which constitutes “a desperate attempt to search for alternatives for the Palestinian Liberation Organisation and to undermine its status.”
He called for strengthening joint work between Palestinian society’s political and social segments, as well as civil society and security bodies, in order to protect the nation from divisions. Damiri stressed the importance of Palestinian unity in the face of the challenges that emanate from occupation and the Israeli settler activity, in addition to challenges posed by outlaws.
“Security forces will pursue the outlaws … wherever they are to refer them to the judiciary, which ultimately makes decisions on the accusations levelled against them,” the Palestinian official said, adding that all Palestinians are equal before the law.
(Source / 06.03.2017)
Geneva Charade: Regime is the Opposition
For Nazi Germany to control occupied France during World War II, it used some Frenchmen and formed a government of dummies, also called the Vichy government, in an attempt to legalize its presence.
This is what the regime in Damascus is doing.
When the Syrian regime realized that the opposition had more legitimacy than it did, it resorted to a trick of inventing groups that claim to belong to the opposition. Then, the regime allowed these groups to work in Damascus and sent them to capitals like Tehran and Moscow to negotiate on behalf of the opposition.
For over three years, no one believed this charade called Moscow’s and Cairo’s platform. It is only an accessory to the Syrian regime.
With the help of Russia, the Syrian regime insisted to impose these fake groups in the Geneva negotiations. After the international envoy had agreed to include them, Moscow now calls for their integration within the actual opposition delegation. When the real opposition refused, they were accused of sabotaging the negotiations.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a news briefing in Moscow that: “The so-called High Negotiations Committee is refusing to cooperate equally with the Moscow and Cairo platforms and is in fact sabotaging fully fledged dialogue.”
After the inclusion of Russia and Egypt’s platforms, Geneva negotiations became the worst unprecedented political charade in history.
Even Vichy’s fake government had more integrity than them.
There is no point for the opposition, High Negotiations Committee, to proceed after they had deprived it from everything, even the right to represent itself as an opposition.
Everything that represents the regime is fake. The army isn’t its army and neither is the opposition, which it insists on negotiating with.
Assad’s regime is known for fabricating slogans about Arabism, nationalism and democracy. It is also known for forging the elections and creating organizations like Fatah al-Sham instead of the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad in Gaza, Palestine.
When the regime assassinated former Lebanese prime minister Rafik al-Hariri in 2005, it invented an organization named “Jund al-Sham” and produced a video where a man named Abu Adas claimed he assassinated Hariri.
The whole world realized later on that this was a fake story. International investigations revealed the actual names of criminals involved with the regime in Damascus.
The regime did more than that during the Iraqi war after the US invasion. In collaboration with Iran, it established organizations that claimed to be Islamic and Baathist.
These opposing platforms are just fronts that heed to the requests of the regime and defend it. As long as Russia and Iran are supporting these Moscow and Cairo groups, it is better to sign the deal in Tehran and get over with this charade.
(Source / 06.03.2017)
Limited Israeli incursion east of Deir al-Balah
Israeli army vehicles launched on Monday a limited incursion east of Deir al-Balah city in the central Gaza Strip.
Local sources said that 4 Israeli bulldozers raided the area and started leveling Palestinian lands there amid intensive overflight by Israeli drones.
Israeli army vehicles deliberately launch incursions every now and then into the border areas north and east of the Gaza Strip and prevent Gazan farmers from approaching them.
(Source / 06.03.2017)
Israeli settlers attack Palestinian farmers, injure woman in northern West Bank
NABLUS (Ma’an) — Israeli settlers assaulted and injured a Palestinian woman who was working on her agricultural lands in the northern occupied West Bank on Monday, Palestinian and Israeli sources said.
Only the Israeli dead matter: Israel’s failure at investigating its bloody wars
Palestinian prisoner held by PA dies after 2 days on hunger strike
RAMALLAH (Ma’an) — A Palestinian prisoner held by the Palestinian Authority (PA) died on Sunday, reportedly from health complications after two days on hunger strike.