Targeting Peace Activists: Stop The Wall Offices Raided

Photo: Stop The Wall

Following a three-hour search, Israeli soldiers confiscated computer hard disks, laptops, and video cameras along with paper documents, CDs, and video cassettes.

Photo: Stop The Wall

During the press conference held on Monday at Wattan TV building, the Coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign commented:

“This is part of the continuous targeting of the popular grassroots movement and the struggle of the Palestinian human rights defenders to hold Israel accountable for human rights violations.” Palestinians will not be intimidated by this. The struggle against the Wall will only stop once the decision of the International Court of Justice, which calls for the Wall to be torn down, is implemented. We call on the international community and in particular the European Union to step up pressure on Israel to ensure it respects international law and human rights and ends its repression of Palestinian and international human rights defenders working on the ground.”

This attack on the Campaign offices comes after the arrests of Jamal Juma’ and Mohammed Othman, the youth coordinator with Stop the Wall, who were both released following a period of detention and significant international pressure. (see Palestine Monitor’s article about Jamal Juma’s detention’s conditions : http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spi...

Currently, some 40 anti-Wall activists are held for their grassroots mobilizing and international advocacy efforts in Israeli jails.

The most staggering wave of Israeli repression of grassroots activists has lately occurred in Ni’lin. To date some 130 residents - whether protesting or not - have been arrested, some 500 injured (50 with life bullets), 10 permanently injured and 5 killed since their demonstrations began. 20 people were arrested in January. One has been released, and the rest remain jailed. 15 were arrested between January 12 and January 24, in what has been the most serious campaign of arrests targeting the grassroots anti-Wall movement in the village. 80,000 NIS in fines and bails have been paid to the Occupation authorities.

The arrests and violence inflicted on individuals is not sporadic or accidental but instead follow an established pattern.

Stop the Wall and Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association have issued “Repression Allowed, Resistance denied”, a detailed report on the repression of activists and communities involved in the popular resistance against the Apartheid Wall. The report can be downloaded at: http://stopthewall.org/activistreso...