Friday, July 11, 2008

Administrative Detention: the case of Dr. Gassan Sharif Khaled

I first heard about Dr. Khaled from our coordinator, Valentina. Dr. Khaled’s father, Abu Azzam, had requested that we attend his court case at the High Court in Israel as a show of support. I wanted to learn more about the case before I went, so I met with Abu Azzam at his home in Jayyous, a small village in the northeast part of the West Bank.

This was my first experience with Arab hospitality and it was quite overwhelming. The food, cheer and generosity were double anything I had experienced back home. Abu Azzam certainly fit his moniker, Abu meaning father as he is considered the father of the village. It was hard for me to understand his patience and good humor all while his son was sitting in a military prison, but for most Palestinians that is life in the occupied territories.

His son, Dr. Khaled, is a professor of international and civil commercial law at A-Najah university in Nablas, a major city to the north of Jayyous. He was abducted from his home by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) on the 16th of January, imprisoned for two months, and was released on bail after his family raised 30,000 sheckles in addition to the 30,000 raised by Israeli friends, which amounts to around 20,000 dollars. The initial three weeks of his detention included constant interrogation from the Shabak (Israeli Secret Service) at which time his father tells us he was tied down to a chair for twenty hours daily with only four hours for sleep and was not allowed to speak to anyone, even his lawyer.

The initial charges by the Shabak are seen by friends and family as a frame up, completely baseless to anyone who knows him. He is a sworn adherent to non-violence, has never been charged with a crime before, is a man of truth, and is an ardent promoter of the law. However, after backing off its initial charges, the Shabak decided to pursue the matter further. Only ten days after being released, the IDF broke down his door with sledge hammers at 3:30 am and took him away for the second time, severely traumatizing his wife and five children, the youngest just five months old.

Several military court hearings were held after his second detention at which even the military court judge expressed his concern for the Shabak’s lack of evidence for why a second detention was necessary. He warned that Dr. Khaled could not be kept in prison absent any “new facts” pertaining to the case not being provided within 24 hours. The judge ultimately gave in, however, and instated the administrative detention order on the basis of allegations made by the Shabak that Dr. Khaled was “master planning a large scale military attack on the authorities.”

During the course of our afternoon together, I came to understand Dr. Khaled’s situation and learn more about Abu Azzam’s difficulties under occupation as well. As the largest landholder in Jayyous, Abu Azzam faces constant threats to his land. None of his son’s can get a permit to work the land, most of which is between the security fence and the Green Line (the 67 borders). His olive trees have been uprooted by settlers, only to be planted again with the help of internationals and Israelis and then uprooted again. And he can’t sell his fruits and vegetables in the biggest market to the north, Nablus, because, although there is no law that states he cannot, anytime he brings produce to the market, it must be checked by Israeli authorities box by box, after which most buyers have left and the product has lost its freshness. Despite all of this, or because of it, Abu Azzam is a vocal critic of the occupation and has given lectures abroad about the situation in Jayyous and the West Bank as a whole (some Israelis have expressed to me that they think Dr. Khaled is being held in prison because of the activities and position of his father).

The court hearing was brief, about a half hour for oral arguments from both sides, and the three judge panel seemed more critical of the prosecution, but in the end the verdict was handed down in favor of the State, meaning Dr. Khaled will serve the whole six month sentence, which could be extended indefinitely. Under administrative detention, a person deemed as a security threat by the state authorities can be held for up to six months without a trail, essentially suspending the writ of habeas corpus. The defense attorney is at a loss because he cannot see the evidence being brought against his client, evidence that the state can claim is too sensitive to be made public at a trial. It is very much a Kafkaesque reality for those being charged. When they brought out Dr. Khaled, he looked frightened and confused, he didn’t belong in a brown prison jumpsuit surrounded by prison guards, he should be in a classroom teaching. For someone who has studied the law extensively, his predicament must have seemed all the more absurd, but it was all real and I could see the helplessness written on his face. He had no one to turn to; his lawyer, his friends, and the international community could not help him that day. He is still in prison, and who knows how long he will stay, separated from his family, friends, colleagues…his life.

An Early Morning at Qalandiyah

Qalandiyah, as mentioned in an earlier blog, is the main checkpoint between Ramallah, one of the biggest cities in the West Bank, and Jerusalem, and it fields most of the traffic coming from the northern part of the West Bank into Jerusalem. So if you live in the north and need to get to work in Jerusalem, your mornings are spent at Qalandiyah.

I’ve already described the layout there so I won’t go into too much detail. It has three initial turnstiles followed by four metal detector checkpoints. We try to go there at least twice a week to monitor the checkpoint and help people with their difficulties, whether it’s getting through the humanitarian gate, the gate for women, the elderly and the sick, or helping people connect to other organizations, Machsom Watch or the International Committee of the Red Cross, that can help them with permit problems. As I mentioned before, anyone coming from the West Bank (a green ID holder) must walk through the checkpoint, only Jerusalem (blue) ID holders can go through via car or bus, which takes much less time.

The checkpoint is an intolerable place and one of the most difficult tasks for me as an EA. We leave Augusta Victoria at 4:30 and get to the checkpoint around 5:00. There is always a large crowd of men waiting outside the initial set of turnstiles anxious to get to work, so they begin to climb the fence in an attempt to jump into the turnstile in front of everyone else waiting in line—not really a line though, more like a pile of people pushing and shoving, trying to gain entry any way they can. The working day is from 7 to 3, so people come as early as 4 am or before, but the problem is that the people in charge of the checkpoint only keep one metal detector gate, out of five, open during the early hours. They wait until 5:30 to open the rest of the gates, but, by that time, huge crowds of people are waiting outside the first turnstiles, so you have a very chaotic situation. And more and more people continue to come throughout the morning in taxis and services all throughout the northern villages and towns of the West Bank, so when the metal detector checks begin to slow then things just get worse and worse—three to four people mashed together in the turnstiles for example.

Some people have approached us trying to explain why those waiting to get through behave as they do—the pushing, shoving, shouting, and climbing. But, of course, we tell them it is unnecessary. Many have told us that if they are late for work a couple of times it is ok, but they are in danger of losing their jobs if they are consistently late. For someone providing for a family of seven or eight getting to work on time is about survival. If I had to go through the same procedure every morning, I would be one of the ones climbing the fence and jumping into the turnstile. It pains me to see these grown men have to be reduced to this every morning.

The Humanitarian Gate (HG) is another major problem. Because women, some for religious reasons (they are not allowed to come in contact with the men), cannot go through the main gates, as well as older men, the sick, and children, there is another gate solely for them that is opened periodically throughout the morning but not with any regularity. Of course, the younger men, seeking any way to get through, will also attempt to pass through the HG. This creates a problem because it angers the policeman in charge of it and creates further delays. The hardest part is seeing women holding their crying babies as they wait, sometime as long as a half hour, but the worst is seeing some of the sick people who have to wait, some too sick to stand so they lay on the dirty floor (and to think that this gate wasn’t opened to women and the elderly at the beginning, the women at Machsom Watch had to work hard to get the military to keep it open every morning).

We see the misery of the checkpoints every morning we go, but we also here people’s stories and frustrations. They ask us why the international community is not at Qalandiyah at 5 am, why no one is there to report the hell they go through each morning just to get to work. Just last week, we met a man who had bruised and broken several ribs because he fell trying to get into the turnstile and was out of work for a month. But he was back because he had to work, and with the high unemployment in the West Bank many people turn to work in Israel, they have no other choice. So he was back, climbing the fence again. His story is not unique either, we have heard many more like it.