Report from the Kidnapped Passengers in Ramle Prison, July 4, 2009
On Monday, June 30, 21 passengers going to challenge the blockade of
Report from E: I received a 2am phone call during one of the first sleepless nights from Ramle Prison to let me know that in one of the cells, four of the FG group had been busy writing a press release on an old phone one of their cellmates had loaned them. It had taken them hours to write the press release. But they were just ready to send it out, and `could I check my email to see if I had received it?’ Since that first night I have been hearing more increasingly about the plight of the other inmates of the prison; men and women who have not nearly as good an opportunity as our folk for media coverage of their stories and not nearly as good an opportunity as our folk of ever getting out of Ramle Prison.
To Fathi Jaouadi, Adie Mormesh, Ishmael Blagrove, and Captain Denis Healy, the situation of their fellow inmates is something they want to talk about and act upon. Fathi wanted to pass on news of what they have been doing inside Ramle prison; he wanted to let everyone who supports the Free Gaza Movement know that `Free Gaza Members are never lost for things to do when it comes to trying to expose Israel’s appalling treatment of not just Palestinians, but all people who come to Palestine and get caught up in Israel’s abuse of justice and the law.’
Fathi Jaouadi has been actively involved in Palestinian rights since he was 15 years old. Now in Ramle prison, he has already managed to organize a meeting with a UN representative and to raise the issue of the other inmates with him. He said that the UN official has agreed to follow up on some of the cases; Fathi has also been in contact with local NGO’s to raise the issue of many of the inmate’s situations. He told me he wants to focus on the fact that none of the inmates have any access to legal advice or help, most of the inmates have not been able to contact family to let them know of their situation and none of the inmates have committed anything that warrants them to be held indefinitely inside Ramle prison.
Fathi is in the process of collecting statements from all the inmates, and he is translating them from Arabic. He says the majority of the inmates in their cell are from Arab countries, and they have not had access to their embassy officials. He will follow up with the UN and other organizations once he is released, contact all the families and give statements and details to the relevant embassies.
Ishmael Blagrove is a well-known documentary filmmaker and has been speaking extensively about the Palestinian struggle for more than twenty years. In Ramle prison, he has been working tirelessly to get contact with refugee councils and organizations in
Fathi and Ishmael have already established channels to publish these issues in
When we called Ramle Prison today Fathi said that Adie had just finished his daily English lesson with the inmates. Adie is reportedly very happy with the progress of his students and said this morning they had successfully completed an intense session on Past Participles. Adie Mormesh has also been very active for the rights of Palestinians for many years. He spent two weeks in the
Captain Denis Healey who has been the Free Gaza Movement’s captain since October 2008 and bravely steered the DIGNITY to safety in December when she was attacked by the Israeli Navy at sea, has also been quite busy; he has been giving in-depth lectures to his fellow inmates about life at sea. Apparently there are many interested parties amongst the inmates; some hope that they may pursue a life on the sea when (and sadly if) they ever get out. They are full of questions as to the procedure of getting qualified to work on and sail boats in the
This is how four of our passengers have been keeping busy during the past week, they wanted to let you all know; they also said they realize the news they are sending out is not new to any of us. We have all been working with these issues of injustice for years. But that doesn’t mean that every new story about the violation of human rights, about the cruelty, brutality and flagrant misuse of justice by
Our friends are stuck in Ramle prison, because they tried to visit the war-stricken people of
Statement #1 taken by Fathi Jaouadi.
From Ramle Prison, 3rd July 2009.
My name is M.
I am 26 years old.
I am a Palestinian born in Al Quds and I hold a birth certificate showing this. My family comes from a village called Sour Bahr. We have two houses there owned by my grandfather who fled in ’48 to
When I was 5 years old I went with my family to
I lived all my life in one of the houses and some of my family lived in the other. We always used to make our way between our two houses which were only minutes apart from each other.
However when the Wall was built, it split our two houses apart. It used to take minutes and then it took 4 hours to go from house to house.
The house I lived in was in the
When I was 16 I began the process to try and obtain Israeli ID so that I could continue to enter Al Quds and go to our house that was on the other side of the Wall.
Every day my mother would go to the Interior Ministry to try and obtain my ID. She contacted many lawyers about the case but although she worked on this for 8 years, there was no result. During this time I tried often to visit our house on the Al Quds side of the wall and every time I was caught by the Israeli forces and sent back to the
When I was 24 years old I had a fight with a friend, I was caught by
I am a normal Palestinian trying to live a normal life. I am not involved in any political movement and I have no security issues with
My birth certificate said Al Quds but I had no Israeli ID. When
It was then that I was told by an Israeli judge that the Law states:
`Any Palestinian who spends 2 years outside Israel has no right to return’
I have since seen Judge twice in the past two months. and he has told me that I will be returned to
But
I am very depressed now and hate my life. I am afraid of how long they will make me wait. It could be years. I am afraid I will be sent to
I just want to be allowed to live a simple life with my family and the people I know and love, in my own land.
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Letter from an Israeli Jail
By Cynthia McKinney
This is Cynthia McKinney and I’m speaking from an Israeli prison cellblock in Ramle. [I am one of] the Free Gaza 21, human rights activists currently imprisoned for trying to take medical supplies to Gaza, building supplies – and even crayons for children, I had a suitcase full of crayons for children. While we were on our way to
At the outbreak of Israel’s Operation `Cast Lead’ [in December 2008], I boarded a Free Gaza boat with one day’s notice and tried, as the US representative in a multi-national delegation, to deliver 3 tons of medical supplies to an already besieged and ravaged Gaza.
During Operation Cast Lead, U.S.-supplied F-16’s rained hellfire on a trapped people. Ethnic cleansing became full scale outright genocide. U.S.-supplied white phosphorus, depleted uranium, robotic technology, DIME weapons, and cluster bombs – new weapons creating injuries never treated before by Jordanian and Norwegian doctors. I was later told by doctors who were there in Gaza during Israel’s onslaught that Gaza had become Israel’s veritable weapons testing laboratory, people used to test and improve the kill ratio of their weapons.
The world saw
The Israeli authorities have tried to get us to confess that we committed a crime … I am now known as Israeli prisoner number 88794. How can I be in prison for collecting crayons to kids?
Zionism has surely run out of its last legitimacy if this is what it does to people who believe so deeply in human rights for all that they put their own lives on the line for someone else’s children.
I am facing deportation from the state that brought me here at gunpoint after commandeering our boat. I was brought to
But I’ve learned an interesting thing by being inside this prison. First of all, it’s incredibly black: populated mostly by Ethiopians who also had a dream … like my cellmates, one who is pregnant. They are all are in their twenties. They thought they were coming to the
My cellmates came to the
The police here have license to pick them up & suck them into the black hole of a farce for a justice system. These beautiful, industrious and proud women represent the hopes of entire families. The idea of
The truth is that
It was a slick marketing campaign as slickly put to the world and to the voters of America as was Israel’s marketing to the world. It tricked all of us but, more tragically, these young women.
We must cast an informed vote about better candidates seeking to represent us. I have read and re-read Dr. Martin Luther King Junior’s letter from a
What an irony! My son begins his law school program without me because I am in prison, in my own way trying to do my best, again, for other people’s children. Forgive me, my son. I guess I’m experiencing the harsh reality which is why people need dreams. [But] I’m lucky. I will leave this place. Has
Ask the people of
Let’s change the world together & reclaim what we all need as human beings: Dignity. I appeal to the United Nations to get these women of Ramle, who have done nothing wrong other than to believe in
I dedicate this message to those who struggle to achieve a free
—
Cynthia McKinney is a former U.S. Congresswoman, Green Party presidential candidate, and an outspoken advocate for human rights and social justice. The first African-American woman to represent the state of Georgia, McKinney served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, from 1993-2003, and from 2005-2007. She was arrested and forcibly abducted to
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Interview from a kidnapped passenger, Adie Mormech
Prison Cell, Givon Jail, Ramle, Israel
Adie Mormech, one of over 21 human rights workers and crew taken prisoner on Tuesday 30th June when their boat was forcibly boarded by the Israeli navy, has spoken by mobile phone from his prison cell at Givon jail, Ramle, near Tel Aviv.
Amongst the other prisoners from the Free Gaza Movement boat, Spirit of Humanity, are Nobel Peace prize winner, Mairead Maguire, and former
In a brief interview with Andy Bowman of
How are you being treated?
It’s bad, but the conditions are OK for me, I’ve not been beaten up, they’re a bit nasty sometimes and when they boarded the boat we had our faces slammed against the floor. It was bad for the older women like Mairead.
The four other
Have you had access to a lawyer yet?
We have, and at the moment we’re discussing what to do about our deportation. They’ve taken our personal items ˆ laptops, cameras, phones and many other valuables, and we want to find out where these are. They obviously want to deport us as quickly as possible, but some of us are thinking about fighting the deportation. Firstly on the basis that if we get deported we won’t be allowed into the occupied West Bank or Israel for another 10 years, but also, because we didn’t intend to come here to Israel ˆ we intended to go to Gaza, and went directly from international waters into Palestinian waters. There is nothing legal about what
If you challenge the deportation could you remain in prison for a while longer?
Yes we could ˆ there’s some people that need to get home, but some will challenge. And for those it will be a few more weeks in prison at least, we expect.
And you?
I’m veering towards challenging it on the basis that it’s a scar on my name to accept that I shouldn’t have been here, but in fact I have every right to go to
Have they told you what has happened to the cargo of the boat?
No, we don’t know what they’re doing with it. We’ve been told a lot of lies so far about where we’re going and what’s happening to us, so we just don’t know. They’re already prepared to deprive the people of
What is your message to people back in the
This is not about us here in the cells, it’s about the denial of human rights to the people of
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