Previously the Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) was silent on the Palestinian hunger strike and the protests against administrative detention in Israel.
End Administrative detention Vigil
at
114 Grey St South Brisbane,
5 pm Wed
Earlier that year, Ridha’s son was taken from his home and his mother, Weam. Their flat was trashed for a second time by Israeli soldiers.
Weam’s brother has lived here in Australia for over 40 years and is an Australian citizen. The Australian government has not helped Ridha yet they have intervened in Syria to protect prisoners there. Weam is not an activist, her son is a child who goes to school, why does Israel persecute this family?
Back in May 2012, Justice for Palestine took up a petition that read in part:
We note the treatment of Weam and Ridha and their family by Israeli soldiers on 20 May 2012 — Israeli soldiers broke into Weam’s 2 bedroom unit in the night-time terrorising her five children, smashing her furniture and taking her husband, Ridha, away to an undisclosed location for an indeterminate period. We sought the immediate release of Ridha and compensation for Weam. See Petition to Free Ridha
We took this petition to Senator Claire Moore who supported it and made a speech in parliament in support of Ridha, Weam and their children.
Regardless Ridha remained in detention with many other Palestinians. The Australian government did not do enough, words were not followed up by action from Foreign Minister, Bob Carr. The Israeli ambassador should have been sent home until Palestinian prisoners like Ridha were released…
In a democratic society people should not be detained without trial.
I am an Arab
And I work with comrades in a stone quarry
And my children are eight in number.
For them I hack out
a loaf of bread
clothing
a school exercise-book
from the rocks
rather than begging for alms
at your door
rather than making myself small
at your doorsteps.
Does this bother you?
Mahmoud Darwish
Feb 2014
Sir
Your editorial of 11 February [2014] says of Israel’s illegal midnight abduction, detention and torture of Palestinian children: “To understand the problem in context, it needs to be acknowledged that the Israeli army faces constant and often dangerous provocation in the area, with children in the vanguard of stone-throwing and violence.”
By your logic, the stone-throwing children in Soweto and other bantustans were to blame and not their Afrikaan occupiers! Occupation, colonisation and the replacement of an indigenous population by the occupying nation’s people has always been achieved and maintained by state violence and overwhelmingly superior military force. Why are you surprised that the children of an occupied indigenous people with no army or access to international courts of justice respond to their occupiers’ tanks, bulldozers, attack dogs, snipers and arbitrary detention policies with stones?
The editorial then makes the amazing claim: “In mainstream Israel, the Middle East’s only functioning democracy, children born to parents of a Palestinian background have the same legal, educational, health and other rights as Jewish children.” You seem unaware that about 1.2 million Palestinian Israelis, those who Israel did not succeed in expelling in 1948 and who make up 20 percent, or one-fifth, of Israel’s population, have second-class citizenship within Israel, which defines itself as a Jewish state rather than a state for all its citizens. More than 20 provisions of Israel’s principal laws discriminate, either directly or indirectly, against non-Jews, according to Adalah: The Legal Center for Minority Rights in Israel.
Yours truly
David Albuquerque
ABCs 4 Corners’ ‘Stone Cold Justice’ –> http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/stories/2014/02/10/3939266.htm
A real first here … a balanced report on Palestine from the ABC and The Australian … the aspect of the Four Corners story that concerned me was the Israeli military’s use of children as informants to sustain the occupation.
Stone Cold Justice describes systematic ‘mapping‘ by the Israeli military to discover where Palestinian children live, right down to details of the rooms where they sleep at night.
Then Israeli military raid the houses.
Why? They take the children in order to force them to give information about the parents, to threaten and to bribe them.
The other interesting aspect of this report is that we have not heard the usual accusations of antisemitism from Israeli spin machine. It seems the ABC is off the hook … at least this time.
Conclusion
Israel is using the children as a means of keeping fear in people so that they will not rebel against the occupation and the building of settlement on the West bank.
I wonder if there is a parallel in other settler societies like Australia where aboriginal children are taken from their parents and kinship carers and asked to provide information of their parents.
Congratulations on marking this infamous day and sheeting it home to the ABC for its complicity with Israel.
Today (Wednesday April 17, 2013) is Palestine prisoners day.
This day is a day to remember the thousands of Palestinians illegally locked up in Israeli jails where they are routinely subjected to inhumane treatment including lack of medical treatment and torture. Many are held without trial or change.
As you would be aware, many of these prisoners are currently protesting these conditions, including Samar al Issawi, who is nearing day 270 of his hunger strike.
Justice for Palestine Brisbane is holding a short action on Palestinian Prisoners Day Wednesday 17 April outside the ABC building at Southbank at 5pm.
Please join us to support the campaign against administrative detention in Israel and support the struggle of the Palestinian hunger strikers and political prisoners.
Palestinian Hunger striker Samer Issawi is on day 269 of his strike and he is on the edge of his life, imprisoned with no charges and no trial.
Over 4,812 Palestinians are currently detained by Israel; 12 of them women, 219 of them children, and 178 of them held under administrative detention, a decrepit policy that Israel uses to hold Palestinians on secret information indefinitely without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. Not only are these prisoners held arbitrarily, but Israel’s use of administrative detention violates several international standards, such as deporting Palestinians from the occupied territory to Israel, denying regular family visits and failing to take into account the best interests of child detainees as required under international law.
The Australian media continues to ignore the hunger strikers as well as the ceaseless violations of human rights perpetrated by the Apartheid State of Israel. No More Silence No More Lies.
Support the Palestinian Prisoners Wednesday the 17th of April 5pm ABC building Southbank.
Justice for Palestine Brisbane
A Palestinian man from Hebron died last week after torture.
The ABC’s refuses to report on the cause of the unrest in the West Bank – Israeli Apatheid. Yet it sponsors Zionist propaganda on shows like ‘The Spirit of Things’ hosted by Rachael Kohn under the guise of discussion of different faiths and anti-semitism.
ABC radio (RN) had a short piece on the news at 2 am last night (24 Feb 2013) about how a ‘Palestinian prisoner had ‘died of a heart attack’ while in custody in Israel . This is contradicted by the autopsy – see
“At a news conference in Ramallah, Issa Qaraqe said an autopsy conducted in Israel in the presence of Palestinian officials revealed that 30-year-old Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs. .. http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=568699
A source in the West bank says that she has never witnessed such a crackdown by Israeli authorities in the refugee camps. Soldiers are raiding houses and arresting people like never before.
The number of prisoners on hunger strike is now 11:
-Ayman Sharawneh
-Samer Issawi
-Tareq Qaadan
-Jaafar Izzeddine
-Muna Qaadan
-Younes Hroub
-Hazem Taweel
-Fadi Washha
-Sufyan Rabee’
-Ayman Sakhr
-Omar Dar Ayyub
Ian Curr
25 Feb 2013
Reference
PShift: Lies and Silence – media bias in Australia
We are dealing with an unfolding tragedy: the likely deaths (hope it doesn’t happen) of the hunger strikers, the idea of indefinite arbitrary detention, child prisoners…yet the ABC remains silent…we did it today and we will be doing it again next Friday at 5pm outside ABC studios at Southbank (Grey and Russell Streets, South Brisbane)
Solidarity with the hunger strikers!