Posts Tagged ‘the guardian’
CELL 36: The Palestinian children – alone and bewildered – in Israel’s Al Jalame jail
January 28th, 2012 • News
Tags: B'Tselem, cell 36, children, Harriet Sherwood, israel, jail, special report, the guardian, youth
Special report by Harriet Sherwood in The Guardian: Israel’s military justice system is accused of mistreating Palestinian children arrested for throwing stones
The Palestinian children – alone and bewildered – in Israel’s Al Jalame jail
The room is barely wider than the thin, dirty mattress that covers the floor. Behind a low concrete wall is a squat toilet, the stench from which has no escape in the windowless room. The rough concrete walls deter idle leaning; the constant overhead light inhibits sleep. The delivery of food through a low slit in the door is the only way of marking time, dividing day from night.
This is Cell 36, deep within Al Jalame prison in northern Israel. It is one of a handful of cells where Palestinian children are locked in solitary confinement for days or even weeks. One 16-year-old claimed that he had been kept in Cell 36 for 65 days.
The only escape is to the interrogation room where children are shackled, by hands and feet, to a chair while being questioned, sometimes for hours.
Most are accused of throwing stones at soldiers or settlers; some, of flinging molotov cocktails; a few, of more serious offences such as links to militant organisations or using weapons. They are also pumped for information about the activities and sympathies of their classmates, relatives and neighbours.
At the beginning, nearly all deny the accusations. Most say they are threatened; some report physical violence. Verbal abuse – “You’re a dog, a son of a whore” – is common. Many are exhausted from sleep deprivation. Day after day they are fettered to the chair, then returned to solitary confinement. In the end, many sign confessions that they later say were coerced.
Read the full report here…
Related:
John Pilger: The War You Don’t See
December 14th, 2010 • Film & Documentary, News
Tags: assange, documentary, ITV, john pilger, journalism, rageh omaar, the guardian, The War You Don't See, war, Wikileaks
UPDATE #2: The War You Don’t See is now on YouTube…
UPDATE #1: UK readers can watch The War You Don’t See on the ITV website.
The documentary is a powerful indictment of the media’s failure over Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine and other conflicts. Some, including Rageh Omaar (then-BBC, now-AJE), admit to as much.
A MUST SEE!
The documentary is playing at the Regal Picturehouse in Henley and other venues around the country – we can not recommend this film highly enough!
Here’s the section on Palestine, Israeli propaganda and the Gaza Flotilla (includes interviews with Greg Philo):
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John Pilger‘s new documentary, The War You Don’t See, will be shown on ITV this evening, Tuesday December 14th, 2010 at 10.35pm.
This powerful film exposes the media’s complicity in war. Featuring interviews with senior figures at major UK and US broadcasters and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (before his arrest). From ITV Press Office:
In this new documentary John Pilger, the winner of journalism’s top awards for both press and broadcasting, including academy awards in the UK and US, questions the role of the media in war. In The War You Don’t See, Pilger, himself a renowned correspondent, asks whether mainstream news has become an integral part of war-making.
Focusing on the current conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, Pilger reflects on the history of the relationship between the media and government in times of conflict stretching back to World War I and explores the impact on the information fed to the public of the modern day practice of public relations in the guise of ‘embedding’ journalists with the military.
Featuring interviews with senior figures at major UK broadcasters, the BBC and ITV, and high profile journalists on both sides of the Atlantic, including Rageh Omaar and Dan Rather, the film investigates the reporting of government claims that Iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction.
In a rare move, the documentary is also playing at the Regal Picturehouse in Henley and other venues around the country.
- Interviews: New Internationalist interview & Radio 4 Today programme
- Read Pilger’s Guardian article: Why are wars not being reported honestly? and the accompanying video clips from the film.
Crib, Wise Men and Separation Wall
December 23rd, 2009 • Awareness, News
Tags: bethlehem, crafts, nativity, separation wall, the guardian
Bethlehem’s modern nativity scene
The shelves of Bethlehem’s tourist shops this winter are filled with the gifts you might expect. There are countless carved olive-wood crucifixes, angels and last suppers. But there are also unexpected nativity scenes complete with Joseph, Mary, crib, wise men and large Israeli concrete wall with military watchtower.A Palestinian worker makes souvenirs at the Giacaman olive wood factory in Bethlehem.
Israel’s vast separation barrier is at its most prominent around Bethlehem. Here it is a tall concrete wall that crosses into the occupied West Bank, runs up tight against the Palestinian city and cuts it off from much of its farmland. For Palestinians it has become one of the most striking symbols of Israel’s 42-year military occupation.
In some of these modern interpretations of the nativity the wall cuts through the centre of the scene, dividing wise men and camels from the crib. At the Holy Land Arts Museum, on Bethlehem’s Manager Square, the Giacaman family sells a different version, carved carefully to scale with three slices of wall and a looming watchtower. These pieces are not cheap: the full-size version, made from olive wood and with a thick Cyprus-wood watchtower nearly 50cm tall, sells for hundreds of pounds. They are made only to order.
“It’s important that people see what is really happening here,” said Elias Giacaman, 27. “We could have said the scale doesn’t matter, but I wanted it to be actually accurate to show the real image of the wall.”
