SENZA CENSURA n.15
Italy, november 2004
PALESTINE: CHAIRMAN OF ADDAMEER DETAINED
Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Addameer Detained by Israeli Army
On Thursday 29 July 2004, the Israeli army arrested Abdul Latif Gheith, Chairman
of the Board of Trustees of Addameer Prisoners Support and Human Rights
Association, at Qalandiya military checkpoint. Mr. Gheith, 63 years old, was
attempting to cross Qalandiya military checkpoint at approximately 2 PM when he
was arrested by Israeli soldiers positioned at the checkpoint.
Today, Wednesday 04 August 2004 at 2 PM, Addameer's Attorney Adv. Mahmoud Hassan
was able to visit Abdul Latif Gheith, who has been denied legal counsel since
his arrest. In his affidavit to Adv. Hassan, Gheith stated that he had been
detained at the checkpoint for some time before an Israeli General Security
Services (Shabak) officer arrived to question him at the military checkpoint.
The Shabak officer questioned him for 15 minutes about his work at Addameer, the
work and activities of Addameer, and employees at Addameer. Shortly after the
interrogation, Israeli army soldiers transported Gheith to the Israeli
settlement of Giva'at Ze'ev near Jerusalem, and from there he was then
transferred to Benyamin Military Detention Camp at the Ofer military base, on
the outskirts of the city of Ramallah.
From the moment of his arrest, Gheith was not given any reason for his detention
and has not been charged with any offence. Israeli military regulations
effective in the Occupied Palestinian Territories allow for the Israeli army to
detain any Palestinian for a period of 8 days without providing reason for the
detention. Although Gheith is a resident of Jerusalem and holds a Jerusalem ID
card, and therefore governed by differing regulations of detention, the Israeli
occupation authorities have dealt with Gheith based on military regulations in
effect for holders of West Bank ID cards.
At 4 PM today, 04 August 2004, Adv. Mahmoud Hassan was informed that the Israeli
Military Commander of the West Bank had issued an administrative detention order
against Gheith. The order, signed on 04 August 2004, states that ìMr. Gheith,
born in 1941 and a resident of Shu'fat, Jerusalem, is to be administratively
detained from 05 August 2004 until 04 February 2005 because he forms a danger to
the security of the region.î Gheith joins over 700 other Palestinians who are
currently arbitrarily detained under administrative detention orders, imprisoned
without charge or trial, some of whom have spent over 3 years in administrative
detention.
Abdul Latif Gheith, a prominent public figure in Jerusalem and the Palestinian
community at large, has devoted his life to the protection of human rights and
social justice activities. He has most recently focused much of his energy and
activism on social justice and human rights issues as relate to violations of
the rights of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, particularly against the
Annexation Wall that has created enclaves of Palestinian residential areas and
suffocated Palestinian society. Mr. Gheith is a member of the Palestinian Civil
Society Committee on Jerusalem and a member of the Higher Palestinian National
Committee on Political Prisoners.
The spectre of administrative detention is not unfamiliar to Gheith who, like
thousands of other Palestinian activists, has been targeted by this form of
arbitrary and debilitating punishment. In 1988, with the beginning of the first
Intifada, Gheith was arbitrarily detained for 6 months and, following a brief
release, was detained again in 1989 for another 6 months of administrative
detention.
Addameer views the administrative detention of Gheith as part of an ongoing,
systematic oppressive campaign by Israel to use arbitrary detention to silence
the work of Palestinian social activists, with the aim of destroying the social
fabric of Palestinian society as a whole. Like the over 700 Palestinians
currently in administrative detention, and the thousands of others who have been
subject to this form of arbitrary punishment over the past few decades, Gheith
is detained in a military detention camp, renown for their inhumane conditions
of detention, and is subject to the physical and psychological torment of
imprisonment for indefinite periods of time, without knowing the reasons for his
detention or the opportunity to defend himself against charges brought against
him.
Addameer demands the immediate release of Abdul Latif Gheith, and all
administrative detainees who continue to be held without charge or trial, and
for the Israeli Occupation Authorities to immediately cease their systematic use
of arbitrary detention.
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ADDAMEER Prisoners Support and Human Rights Association
P.O.Box 17338, Jerusalem
E-mail: addameer@planet.edu
URL: http://www.addameer.org/
Ramallah Office: Al-Isra' Bldg., 7th floor, Al-Irsal St.
Tel: +972-2-2960446 Fax: +972-2-2960447
eMail: addameer@p-ol.com
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tratto da: http://www.addameer.org/press/04aug04.html