September, 08 2010, 11:51am EDT
Israel: Activist Convicted After Unfair Trial
Leader of Protests on Unlawful Land Confiscation Faces 20 Years in Jail
WASHINGTON
An Israeli military court's conviction of Abdullah Abu Rahme, an
advocate of nonviolent protests against Israel's de facto confiscation
of land from the West Bank village of Bil'in, raises grave due process
concerns, Human Rights Watch said today. On August 24, 2010, Abu Rahme,
who has been detained for more than eight months, was convicted on
charges of organizing and participating in illegal demonstrations and
inciting protestors to damage the separation barrier, throw stones at
Israeli soldiers, and participate in violent protests.
The convictions were based on allegations that did not specify any
particular incidents of wrongdoing and on statements by children who
retracted them in court, alleging they were coerced, and who did not
understand Hebrew, the language in which Israeli military interrogators
prepared the statements they signed. Abu Rahme, a 39-year-old
schoolteacher, helped organize protests against the route of the Israeli
separation barrier that has cut off Bil'in villagers' access to more
than 50 percent of their agricultural lands, on which an Israeli
settlement is being built. He remains in custody pending sentencing, and
could face 20 years in prison.
"Israel's conviction of Abu Rahme for protesting the unlawful
confiscation of his village's land is the unjust result of an unfair
trial," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights
Watch. "The Israeli authorities are effectively banning peaceful
expression of political speech by convicting supporters of nonviolent
resistance."
Human Rights Watch reported
in March that Israel has detained dozens of Palestinians who advocate
nonviolent protests against the separation barrier and charged them
based on questionable evidence, including allegedly coerced confessions
from minors.
Israeli soldiers arrested Abu Rahme on December 10 at 2 a.m., when
seven military jeeps surrounded his home in Ramallah, where he had
resided for two years. An Israeli military court indicted Abu Rahme on
December 21 on charges of incitement, stone throwing, and illegal
possession of weapons. The arms possession charge was based on an art
exhibit, in the shape of a peace sign, that Abu Rahme constructed out of
used M16 bullet cartridges and tear gas canisters that the Israeli army
had used to quell protests in Bil'in. Abu Rahme was ultimately
acquitted of this charge. On January 18, military prosecutors added the
charge of organizing and participating in illegal demonstrations to the
indictment. Because Abu Rahme's interrogation had already ended, he was
never questioned about this charge.
Demonstrations against the separation barrier often turn violent,
with Palestinian youths throwing rocks at Israeli soldiers. Violence at
demonstrations may result in the arrest of those who participate in or
incite violence, but it does not justify the arrest of activists who
have simply called for or supported peaceful protests against the wall,
Human Rights Watch said. Under international law, authorities can
prosecute organizers of demonstrations or other assemblies only if
evidence exists that the organizers of the assembly are themselves
directly responsible for violence or incitement to violence. The
authorities have a duty to ensure the protection of the right to
assembly even if a demonstration leads to violence by others.
The indictment states that from August 2005 to June 2009, Abu Rahme
was a member of a popular committee that, on Fridays, led villagers from
Bil'in "in mass marches meant to disturb order" by attempting to damage
the separation barrier and by "instructing" youth from the village to
"throw stones at the [Israeli] security forces."
"The defendant also prepared bottles and balloons filled with chicken
feces, which the protestors then threw at the security forces," the
indictment stated.
Abu Rahme's conviction on both the incitement and the organizing and
participating in illegal demonstration charges raises serious due
process concerns.
Abu Rahme was convicted of offenses that the prosecution alleged he
committed at various, unspecified times over the course of four years -
from 2005 to 2009 - rather than on any particular dates, which made
it impossible for the defendant to provide an adequate defense for his
actions. The prosecution failed to specify when supposed offenses took
place and what the form the offenses took, and the interrogators did not
ask specific questions regarding the defendant's role in the alleged
incitement and organization of protests. The verdict acknowledged that
"the witnesses' interrogations should have been more comprehensive and
exhaustive and should have gone to more details regarding the offenses."
The only evidence that Abu Rahme incited others to throw stones was a
statement by one 16-year-old child to this effect, and by another
16-year-old that Abu Rahme prepared balloons filled with chicken feces
for protestors to throw at soldiers. Both youths later retracted their
statements, saying that they were threatened and beaten by their
interrogators. The interrogators denied threatening and abusing them in
detention, and the court accepted the interrogators' account rather than
the boys'. However, the state did not contest that the interrogations
of both youths occurred in highly threatening circumstances. They were
interrogated the morning after being arrested by the Israeli military
during raids on their homes, between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m., and having been
accused of throwing stones.
The state did not contest that the children's parents or guardians
were not present during their interrogations, in violation of an Israeli
court ruling on the issue. The boys were denied access to lawyers until
after their interrogations. Neither youth could read Hebrew, the
language in which the statements they signed were written. The
interrogating officers admitted that they had received no training in
questioning minors, that the minors did not read Hebrew, and that they
had neglected to ask the witnesses many relevant and specific questions
concerning the charges brought against the defendant.
One other child witness whose statements the court also admitted as
evidence claimed only that Abu Rahme was a member of the Bil'in popular
committee and that he participated in the protests.
All the child witnesses claimed to have been abused during
interrogation. H. Y., 16, claimed in court that the soldiers who
arrested him beat him and that from the time he was arrested until the
next day when his interrogation began, he was left handcuffed and
blindfolded on the ground, without food. The children stated in court
that their signed statements incriminating Abu Rahme were prepared by
their interrogators in Hebrew, a language they could not read. A.B., a
fourth witness who was not a minor, testified that he signed his
"confession" after his interrogator threatened to beat him and to put
him in solitary confinement. K.H., 16, said he signed his confession
after the interrogating officer yelled at him, threatened to hurt his
parents, and hit him.
The military court declared the children to be "hostile witnesses"
for contradicting the statements they had signed during their
investigation, and accepted their statements as evidence. The verdict
states that there was no need to take into account the alleged
"circumstances of the arrest," because the youths did not mention those
circumstances in the trial or during their interrogation, and did not
complain that their judgment had been "impeded." The verdict further
argued that the children's testimony during the trial was not credible,
noting that two of them "smiled" during the trial and that three had
lied and given "dishonest testimonies." For example, one witness stated
there was no "popular committee" in Bil'in, but later said the
"committee members" were angry at him for throwing stones. By contrast,
the verdict found that the witnesses' statements to the police had an
"inner logic," without acknowledging that these statements were prepared
by an Israeli security official in a language the witnesses could not
read, and that they signed these statements in a coercive atmosphere
after having been arrested in the middle of the night and interrogated
in violation of Israeli law.
The court chose to disregard statements by character witnesses
indicating that Abu Rahme has long been committed to nonviolent protest.
Dov Khenin, a member of the Israeli parliament, and Dr. Gershon Baskin,
founder and director of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and
Information, testified on the defendant's behalf as character witnesses.
An Israeli protester, Jonathan Pollack, acknowledged Palestinian youths
often have thrown stones but told Human Rights Watch that he had
attended "dozens" of protests with Abu Rahme and had never seen him
incite others to violence.
On December 10, 2008, one year before Abu Rahme's arrest, he received
the Carl Von Ossietzky Medal for Outstanding Service in the Realization
of Basic Human Rights, awarded by the International League for Human
Rights in Berlin. European Union (EU) High Representative Catherine
Ashton said in August 2010 that the EU considered Abu Rahme to be "a
Human Rights Defender committed to nonviolent protest."
Abu Rahme was convicted of incitement to throw stones and of
organizing illegal protests, based on article 7(a) of Israeli military
order 101 of 1967, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years and
prohibits "attempting, whether verbally or otherwise, to influence
public opinion in the Area [of the West Bank] in a way that may disturb
the public peace or public order." Abu Rahme was also convicted of
organizing and participating in illegal protests under the same military
order (articles 1, 3, and 10), which requires obtaining a permit for
any gathering of 10 people or more listening to a speech "that can be
interpreted as political," or for any 10 people or more walking together
for a purpose "that can be viewed as political." Persons who call for
or "support" such gatherings are subject to the same penalties. The
civil law applied within Israel, by contrast, requires a permit only for
"political" gatherings of more than 50 people.
Another Bil'in resident, Adeeb Abu Rahme, was the first person to be
charged by Israeli military prosecutors with organizing illegal
demonstrations and with incitement since the first Palestinian intifada,
which ended in 1993, according to Abdullah Abu Rahme's lawyer, Gaby
Lasky, and to the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, of
which Abdullah Abu Rahme is a leader. The same charges have been used
against four members of Bil'in's popular committee, including Abdullah
and Adeeb Abu Rahme, and these represent the first such charges in close
to 20 years. Abdullah Abu Rahme's conviction and the subsequent use of
these offenses to charge other protestors raise concerns that Israeli
authorities are applying the law selectively to stifle non-violent
protest leaders.
Sentencing is scheduled for next month, after which Abu Rahme will appeal the conviction.
Background
Israel's separation barrier - in some places a fence, in others an
eight-meter-high concrete wall with guard towers - was ostensibly built
to protect against suicide bombers. However, unlike a similar barrier
between Israel and Gaza, it does not follow the 1967 border between
Israel and the West Bank. Instead, 85 percent of the barrier's route
lies inside the West Bank, separating Palestinian residents from their
lands, restricting their movement, and in some places effectively
confiscating occupied territory, all unlawful under international
humanitarian law.
In Bil'in, the wall cuts villagers off from 50 percent of their land,
putting the land on the "Israeli" side. The Israeli settlement of
Mattityahu East is being built on the land to which the village no
longer has access. In September 2007, after years of protests organized
by Bil'in's Popular Committee, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the
separation barrier in Bil'in must be rerouted to allow Bil'in villagers
access to more of their land; the military only recently began survey
work preliminary to rerouting the barrier.
The International Court of Justice ruled in a 2004 advisory opinion
that the wall's route was illegal because its construction inside the
West Bank was not justified by security concerns and contributed to
violations of international human rights law and international
humanitarian law applicable to occupied territory by impeding
Palestinians' freedom of movement, destroying property, and contributing
to unlawful Israeli settlement practices. Israel's High Court of
Justice has ruled that the wall must be rerouted in several places,
including near Bil'in, because the harm caused to Palestinians was
disproportionate, although the rulings would allow the barrier to remain
inside the West Bank in these and other areas.
In contrast to its treatment of those protesting the route of the
wall and other unlawful Israeli practices in the Occupied Territories
with overwhelmingly peaceful means, in January 2010 the Israeli Knesset
approved a wholesale amnesty to protesters involved in violent protests
in connection with the 2005 evacuation of Jewish settlements from Gaza.
In 2005, Abu Rahme's brother, Rateb Abu Rahme, was shot in his foot
and arrested for assaulting a border policeman and stone-throwing.
During the trial, the court ruled, based on filmed evidence, that the
border policeman had given false testimony. The Police Officers
Investigations Unit then indicted the soldier, who confessed that he had
fabricated the event; the border policeman was released after the
conclusion of the investigation and transferred to a different unit
within the Israel Defense Forces. Rateb Abu Rahme was acquitted.
Earlier this year, a military court decided not to investigate the
death of a relative of Abdullah Abu Rahme, Bassem Abu Rahme, who was
killed by a tear-gas canister during a Bil'in protest on April 17, 2009.
In July 2010 the Military Advocate General agreed to investigate the
event after the Abu Rahme family's lawyer threatened to petition the
High Court of Justice and after receiving the findings of forensic
experts, indicating that the canisters were fired directly at the
protester in violation of the open-fire regulations.
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
Sabreen, Baby Girl Rescued From Mother's Womb After Israeli Airstrike, Dies
The baby was born last week via an emergency Caesarean section, but doctors were ultimately unable to save her.
Apr 26, 2024
A grieving family and a team of medical providers in Rafah, Gaza were desperate this week for a miracle, hoping that newborn Sabreen al-Rouh Jouda would survive after being delivered prematurely moments after her mother died of injuries sustained in an Israeli airstrike.
On Friday, it became clear that the family's hopes would not be realized as doctors announced Sabreen's death.
Dr. Muhammad Salama, head of the emergency neonatal department at Emirati Hospital, where Sabreen was born last week via a Caesarean section that was caught on film and widely reported as outlets searched for any bit of hopeful news out of Gaza, said the baby's lungs were not able to fully absorb oxygen because she was born at just 30 weeks' gestation.
"Every day we have a sad story; every day we have a horrible story," Salama toldNBC News, gesturing to other babies whom doctors and nurses are struggling to care for amid Israel's destruction of the territory's healthcare system. "This baby right here, his father has died. This baby's mother has died. Another two babies in the ICU, one of them came and we cannot know, sadly, if his mother or father is alive."
Sabreen is now one of 16 children killed in two airstrikes last weekend at a housing complex in Rafah, where Israeli officials have said they plan to move forward with a planned ground invasion.
Sabreen's parents and their three-year-old daughter, Malak, were also killed.
Her mother, Sabreen al-Sakani, was rushed to the hospital on Saturday night with extensive injuries that she succumbed to just before doctors performed the emergency Caesarean section.
Sabreen weighed just 3.1 pounds at birth and was in severe respiratory distress, but doctors were able to temporarily stabilize her condition.
Her grandmother was filmed speaking to her as she lay in an incubator earlier this week.
"I swear I will lock you inside my heart," she said. "You will live in blessing."
At least two-thirds of the 34,356 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since last October have been women and children, according to the local health ministry. Israel and the U.S., which has contributed billions of dollars in weapons to the IDF, have repeatedly claimed the military is precisely targeting Hamas fighters.
As Common Dreams reported earlier this month, the IDF has relied on an AI targeting system to identify Hamas targets, but considers bombing suspected militants in their homes "a first option," and has officially considered the killing of up to 100 civilians for every Hamas target an acceptable level of precision.
Israel has also claimed it has designated so-called safe zones, but Palestinians have been killed after moving to areas where the IDF said it wouldn't carry out bombings.
"There are no safe places at all, they are liars, liars," Sabreen's uncle, Rami Jouda, told NBC News. "There is no safe place in Gaza. We are all living under the menace of death."
Keep ReadingShow Less
ACLU Sues to Uncover 'What the NSA Is Hiding' About Its Use of Artificial Intelligence
"AI tools have the potential to expand the NSA's surveillance dragnet more than ever before," the civil liberties group warned.
Apr 26, 2024
The ACLU on Thursday sued the National Security Agency in an effort to uncover how the federal body is integrating rapidly advancing artificial intelligence technology into its mass spying operations—information that the agency has kept under wraps despite the dire implications for civil liberties.
Filed in a federal court in New York, the lawsuit comes over a month after the ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request seeking details on the kinds of AI tools the NSA is using and whether it is taking any steps to prevent large-scale privacy abuses of the kind the agency is notorious for.
The ACLU said in its new complaint that the NSA and other federal agencies have yet to release "any responsive records, notwithstanding the FOIA's requirement that agencies respond to requests within twenty working days."
"Timely disclosure of the requested records [is] vitally necessary to an informed debate about the NSA's rapid deployment of novel AI systems in its surveillance activities and the safeguards for privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties that should apply," the complaint states, asking the court for an injunction requiring the NSA to immediately process the ACLU's FOIA request.
In a blog post on Thursday, the ACLU's Shaiba Rather and Patrick Toomey noted that AI "has transformed many of the NSA's daily operations" in recent years, with the agency utilizing AI tools to "help gather information on foreign governments, augment human language processing, comb through networks for cybersecurity threats, and even monitor its own analysts as they do their jobs."
"Unfortunately, that's about all we know," the pair wrote. "As the NSA integrates AI into some of its most profound decisions, it's left us in the dark about how it uses AI and what safeguards, if any, are in place to protect everyday Americans and others around the globe whose privacy hangs in the balance."
"That's why we're suing to find out what the NSA is hiding," they added.
BREAKING: We just filed a FOIA lawsuit to find out how the NSA — one of America's biggest spy agencies — is using artificial intelligence.
These are dangerous, powerful tools and the public deserves to know how the government is using them.
— ACLU (@ACLU) April 25, 2024
The ACLU filed its lawsuit less than a week after Congress approved a massive expansion of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), warrantless spying authority that the NSA has heavily abused to sweep up the communications of American journalists, activists, and lawmakers.
With their newly broadened authority, the NSA and other intelligence agencies will have the power to enlist a wide range of businesses and individuals to participate in their warrantless spying operations—a potential catastrophe for privacy rights.
Rather and Toomey warned Thursday that the growing, secretive use of artificial intelligence tools has "the potential to expand the NSA's surveillance dragnet more than ever before, expose private facts about our lives through vast data-mining activities, and automate decisions that once relied on human expertise and judgment."
"The government's lack of transparency is especially concerning given the dangers that AI systems pose for people's civil rights and civil liberties," Rather and Toomey wrote. "As we've already seen in areas like law enforcement and employment, using algorithmic systems to gather and analyze intelligence can compound privacy intrusions and perpetuate discrimination."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Right-Wingers Plot to Give Trump Control Over Federal Reserve If Reelected
"Under such an approach, the chair would regularly seek Trump's views on interest-rate policy and then negotiate with the committee to steer policy on the president's behalf," The Wall Street Journal reported.
Apr 26, 2024
Right-wing allies of former U.S. President Donald Trump are reportedly crafting a plan to give the executive branch control over Federal Reserve policy decisions, an effort that comes as the presumptive GOP nominee continues to signal his authoritarian intentions for a potential second term.
The Wall Street Journalreported Thursday that former Trump administration officials and other supporters of the ex-president "have in recent months discussed a range of proposals, from incremental policy changes to a long-shot assertion that the president himself should play a role in setting interest rates."
"A small group of the president's allies—whose work is so secretive that even some prominent former Trump economic aides weren't aware of it—has produced a roughly 10-page document outlining a policy vision for the central bank," the Journal reported. "The group of Trump allies argues that he should be consulted on interest-rate decisions, and the draft document recommends subjecting Fed regulations to White House review and more forcefully using the Treasury Department as a check on the central bank. The group also contends that Trump, if he returns to the White House, would have the authority to oust Jerome Powell as Fed chair before his four-year term ends in 2026."
During his first four years in the White House, Trump repeatedly criticized Powell—whom the former president appointed in 2017—over the central bank's interest rate policy and insisted he had the authority to oust the Fed chair before the end of his term. The Fed is an independent body subject to limited congressional oversight.
"I have the right to do that," Trump said in 2019 of ousting Powell. "I'm not happy with his actions, I don't think he's done a good job."
The Fed, still under Powell's leadership, has since jacked up interest rates to their highest level in decades in an attempt to combat inflation—an approach that progressive lawmakers and economists have criticized as misguided, arguing that prices were elevated primarily by pandemic-related supply chain disruptions and corporate profiteering and that hiking rates would harm workers. (Progressives have historically pushed for Fed reforms that would make the powerful central bank more accountable to the public.)
Late last year, Trump said interest rates were "too high" but did not say he would pressure the central bank to lower them, saying: "Depends where inflation is. But I would get inflation down."
More recently, Trump suggested the Fed's indication that rate cuts are coming in the near future as inflation cools is a political ploy to "help the Democrats."
"It looks to me like he's trying to lower interest rates for the sake of maybe getting people elected, I don't know," Trump said in a Fox Business appearance in February.
Economist Paul Krugman predicted in his New York Timescolumn earlier this year that "Trumpist attacks on the Fed for cutting interest rates are coming."
"What we don't know is how the Fed will react," Krugman wrote. "In a recent dialogue with me about the economy, my colleague Peter Coy suggested that the Fed may be inhibited from cutting rates because it'll fear accusations from Trump that it's trying to help Biden. I hope Fed officials understand that they'll be betraying their responsibilities if they let themselves be intimidated in this way."
"And I hope that forewarned is forearmed," he added. "MAGA attacks on the Fed are coming; they should be treated as the bad-faith bullying they are."
The Journal reported Thursday that "several people who have spoken with Trump about the Fed said he appears to want someone in charge of the institution who will, in effect, treat the president as an ex officio member of the central bank's rate-setting committee."
"Under such an approach, the chair would regularly seek Trump's views on interest-rate policy and then negotiate with the committee to steer policy on the president's behalf," the newspaper continued. "Some of the former president's advisers have discussed requiring that candidates for Fed chair privately agree to consult informally with Trump on the central bank's decisions... Others have made the case that Trump himself could sit on the Fed's board of governors on an acting basis, an option that several people close to the former president described as far-fetched."
According to earlier Journal reporting, Trump's team has discussed several possible replacements for Powell, including former White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and Arthur Laffer, a former Reagan adviser and notorious tax-cut enthusiast.
Trump allies' plot to help the former president exert control over Fed policy if he's reelected in November provides further insight into the presumptive Republican nominee's likely approach to a second term.
During his 2024 campaign, Trump—who is facing 88 charges across four criminal cases—has vowed to be a dictator on "day one," wield federal authority to go after his political opponents, launch the "largest domestic deportation operation in American history," and use the U.S. military to crack down on protests.
"If a president is truly determined to make himself a dictator, the question at the end of the day is whether the military and other force-deploying agencies of the federal government are willing to go along," Josh Chafetz, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, toldThe Washington Post in a recent interview. "If they are, there's not much Congress or the courts could do about it."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular