Thursday, March 22, 2018

Ahed Tamimi Jailed

Ahed Tamimi, the Palestinian teenager who was filmed slapping Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank will serve eight months in prison as part of a plea deal reached with Israeli military prosecutors.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett suggested at the time that the women involved "should finish their lives in prison."

Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin's Likud party, even suggested the Tamimi family "may not be a real family" and accused them of conducting propaganda against Israel by dressing children up in Western clothes 

"There is no justice under occupation and this is an illegitimate court," Tamimi told reporters at the military court. Tamimi's case drew international attention to Israel's military court system used to try Palestinians in the West Bank, while Jewish settlers in the West Bank face Israeli civilian courts. Each year hundreds of Palestinian youths are rounded up, interrogated and held in military detention. Conviction rates are near 100 percent after many reach plea deals.

"Plea bargains are the norm in Israel's military justice system, which is characterized by prolonged pretrial detention, abuse of kids and sham trials. Hundreds of Palestinian children remained locked up with little attention to their cases," said Sarah Leah Wilson, the executive director of the Middle East division at Human Rights Watch. 

The Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem said military courts "are not, nor can they ever be, neutral arbiters. They constitute one of the main apparatuses of the occupation Israel uses to oppress the Palestinian population and quell any sign of resistance to its continued control over the Occupied Territories." 

http://www.dw.com/en/palestinian-teenager-who-slapped-israeli-soldier-to-serve-8-months-in-jail/a-43076310

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