Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
24 January
UK ZIONIST LAWYERS ADMIT HORROR OF ISRAELI SYSTEM
On this day in 2014, a group of “passionate Zionists”, senior British lawyers, shared the observations of their delegation to the Israeli-occupied West Bank. They reported a military occupation where Palestinian “children are invariably arrested in night raids by the army at gunpoint, cuffed and blindfolded and held, often for hours…denied access to food, water and toilet facilities” leading to 99.7% conviction rates to keep “Palestinian society in a state of constant fear and uncertainty”.24 يناير 2020م
في هذا اليوم من العام 2014م، نشرت مجموعة من "الصهاينة المتحمسين"، وكبار المحامين البريطانيين ملاحظات وفدهم إلى الضفة الغربية التي تحتلها إسرائيل.وتحدثوا عن احتلال عسكري حيث أن "الأطفال الفلسطينيين يتم اعتقالهم دون تميير إثناء غارات ليليه يشنها الجيش الإسرائيلي بتهديد السلاح، ويتم تقييدهم بالأصفاد وهم معصوبي العينين ويحتجزون في كثير من الأحيان لعدة ساعات... ويحرمون من الطعام والماء واستعمال دورات المياه" مما يفضي إلى معدل إدانة يصل إلى 99.7% بهدف جعل "المجتمع الفلسطيني في حالة خوف دائم وقلق مستمر"
David Middleburgh, a partner in the London firm of Gallant Maxwell solicitors wrote that
"It is clear that children are invariably arrested in night raids by the army at gunpoint, cuffed and blindfolded and held, often for hours, in that condition, denied access to food, water and toilet facilities, interrogated without being advised of their rights, without a lawyer and without their parents...All of the children we saw in court were in leg shackles. But conviction rates are 99.7 per cent. The passivity bespeaks a people who have become resigned to their reality. They recognise there is no longer any point in fighting for basic rights. I felt that the court system was clearly a figleaf for a system of arbitrary justice where the guilt of the child is beside the point. The courts are part of a system that effectively keeps Palestinian society in a state of constant fear and uncertainty... Scrape away the veneer, and the charade is exposed with convictions routinely obtained based upon forced confessions and defendants facing remand without bail pending trial for periods in excess of sentences when pleading guilty. No sane defendant would plead not guilty in this Catch 22 situation.
Palestinian prisoners, including children, are routinely tortured, sometimes to death
Amnesty reports that "Palestinian prisoners are routinely subjected [to] torture and other ill-treatment during arrest and interrogation; poor prison conditions, including inadequate medical care..."
2-minute video: Israel's brutal treatment of Palestinian child prisoners