Hi folks Walking while Palestinian You know that skin color matters. You also know that nonwhite people are stopped by police and searched from 3 to 5 times more often than white motorists, according to a RAND corporation study. This is often called driving while black. Well, here in Hebron there is a local twist which we may call walking while Palestinian. Every day, and many times several times today, members of our team observe Palestinians between the ages of 16 and 50 being detained, searched and asked for their ID. they are doing nothing but walking to school or to work. Understand that here, as in the former South African regime, it is a crime to go anywhere without your ID in your pocket. Without it you can be immediately arrested and taken to jail for what is called administrative detention. This six months. Can be renewed over and over again so that some people have been in jail as much as 10 to 12 years without ever having been charged or taken to trial. This morning on school patrol, my colleague Gabriel and I witnessed four young men being detained for up to half an hour. We stayed with them to put pressure on the border police to release them before too long. Can you imagine how frustrating, humiliating and embarrassing it is to be told by a young man with a big gun to stand in one place or sit while others walk by. Perhaps you are a teacher and your students are walking by on the way to school. Perhaps you have an appointment to see a medical specialist and are under stress to reach the doctor on time. In our files we have hundreds of photos of just such an occurrence. Never mind the fact that there are about 100 closed streets and checkpoints in a very small area. The usual procedure for such a stop by soldiers, Border Police or federal police is that the person is asked to put his hands spread eagle on the wall when he is then patted down by the official in charge. His ID is then taken from him and checked through some far off computer. Remember that without his ID he cannot travel anywhere without serious risk until it is returned to him. This afternoon the newest Muslim member of our team, named Yusouf Natsheh received a visit from his nephew and a friend who had come from Bethlehem University to see him. Two minutes after they left our apartment I received a call from our neighbor to come down to the street immediately. When I arrived, Yousef in a striped gray and light blue sweater had already been searched and the soldiers were about to do the same to his visitors. For my teammate this was only his second encounter with soldiers but also the second one with in a week. All the young men were very nervous, especially those from Bethlehem who hardly ever encounter soldiers. The attached video was taken by our brave neighbor and is fairly self explanatory and will give you a flavor of the kind of work we do here. My only regret is that the nature of video means that you look larger than you actually are, in this case I look of course 40 pounds heavier than I actually am. Another day on the CPT Trail. Take care of yourselves. Peace PS my teammates howled with laughter when they heard my responses and saw my demeanor before the military. https://facebook/video.php?v=10152818213772641
Posted on: Thu, 06 Nov 2014 12:27:37 +0000
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