There is a museum attached to the university which is about the political prisoners of Israel past and present. You enter and immediately are confronted by iron bars and next to it a wall and lots of big rocks. All these methods are used by the israelis to limit the movement of the Palestinian people and it is really effective. It's just the same outside when you can see the other side of the road but you can't get to it. There are photos of the prisons where prisoners are kept (Israel won't accept them as political prisoners although they are kept separately from criminals). Some of them are just rows of enormous tents where there are 8 to a tent, usually from the same political party. This is obviously a cheap way of keeping prisoners but bitterly cold in the winter and scorching sun in the summer. Our guide for the week, Abed, who works for CADFA here in Abu Dis, has himself been imprisoned altogether for three years and spent time in one of these prisons. The first time he was arrested the army raided his house when his family were asleep and broke all the windows to get in. He was 17 and was kept in prison for 18 days and was severely beaten. He was never charged. They accused him of throwing stones.
The photos of police brutality are shocking and include a photo of soldiers dragging a boy of around 12 down the street who is so frightened he has wet himself. Another one is of around 8 soldiers carrying a man by his arms and legs with a trail of blood coming from his head. He had been shot in the head and later died of his wounds. He was dying as they carried him away and, Abed told us, that they carried his body to a Jewish settlement, where the residents had been complaining about Palestinian children throwin stones, and threw his body at the entrance for all to see and started celebrating.
There were all the examples of torture that they use and still use as acceptable, including water boarding and suffocation. There is a wall of photos of Palestinians who had died at the hands of the Israeli soldiers, some as recently as last year and descriptions of how they died. Shooting, beating, torture and being thrown from helicopters were all there. One man was arrested at the age of 75 and died of a heart attack.
Upstairs there are examples of things that the prisoners have made inside. This brought me to tears as the art was so moving and the poems and letters home so soul destroying. All had brave messages about Palestinian freedom and there were photos of hunger strikers and messages of solidarity with the Irish hunger strikers. Letters and even books that were written inside and smuggled out in bullets covered in plastic that had been swallowed.
The staircase leading up to the top floor looks out onto the wall that snakes around a whole village, surrounding it on both sides. To the right is a basketball court that is overshadowed by the wall. Originally, the wall was supposed to go through the middle of it but the university managed to save it. The wall is covered in grafitti, including Che Guevara and messages in Spanish and Italian.
The top floor is an archive of all the writings of the prisoners. There are magazines and books, all hand written, on all kinds of subjects, including Judaism and Zionism, translations of Che Guevara and Marx into Arabic and discussions on the dialectic. Abed told us that, in fact, prison was where he learned politics and English and even Spanish. It shows that the mind is the most dangerous thing and most precious.
There are, at present, around 11,000 political prisoners in captivity, some as young as 14. Young people and children are treated no different, although Israelis are classed as juveniles up until 18.
There are prisons and detention centres all around the country, one of the biggest on the border of Egypt, two kilometres away from a major nuclear power station. It is in a huge military zone where people can't go. Visits to any prison are rare if at all as permits need to be granted by the Israeli government and then people have to through hundreds of check points to get there, not withstanding the financial cost of travel. It seems there is not one Palestinian family who has not a member who is in prison, been in prison, been beaten or killed by the Israeli army. Everyone is affected in a major way. The scale of it is so hard to believe. It's like living in a huge prison. It reminds me, after travelling around for a few days, of what Nazi Germany must have been like, with soldiers, passes, guns and armoured vehicles everywhere and the fear that you will be stopped, beaten or imprisoned at the whim of some arrogant and racist soldier.
The photos of police brutality are shocking and include a photo of soldiers dragging a boy of around 12 down the street who is so frightened he has wet himself. Another one is of around 8 soldiers carrying a man by his arms and legs with a trail of blood coming from his head. He had been shot in the head and later died of his wounds. He was dying as they carried him away and, Abed told us, that they carried his body to a Jewish settlement, where the residents had been complaining about Palestinian children throwin stones, and threw his body at the entrance for all to see and started celebrating.
There were all the examples of torture that they use and still use as acceptable, including water boarding and suffocation. There is a wall of photos of Palestinians who had died at the hands of the Israeli soldiers, some as recently as last year and descriptions of how they died. Shooting, beating, torture and being thrown from helicopters were all there. One man was arrested at the age of 75 and died of a heart attack.
Upstairs there are examples of things that the prisoners have made inside. This brought me to tears as the art was so moving and the poems and letters home so soul destroying. All had brave messages about Palestinian freedom and there were photos of hunger strikers and messages of solidarity with the Irish hunger strikers. Letters and even books that were written inside and smuggled out in bullets covered in plastic that had been swallowed.
The staircase leading up to the top floor looks out onto the wall that snakes around a whole village, surrounding it on both sides. To the right is a basketball court that is overshadowed by the wall. Originally, the wall was supposed to go through the middle of it but the university managed to save it. The wall is covered in grafitti, including Che Guevara and messages in Spanish and Italian.
The top floor is an archive of all the writings of the prisoners. There are magazines and books, all hand written, on all kinds of subjects, including Judaism and Zionism, translations of Che Guevara and Marx into Arabic and discussions on the dialectic. Abed told us that, in fact, prison was where he learned politics and English and even Spanish. It shows that the mind is the most dangerous thing and most precious.
There are, at present, around 11,000 political prisoners in captivity, some as young as 14. Young people and children are treated no different, although Israelis are classed as juveniles up until 18.
There are prisons and detention centres all around the country, one of the biggest on the border of Egypt, two kilometres away from a major nuclear power station. It is in a huge military zone where people can't go. Visits to any prison are rare if at all as permits need to be granted by the Israeli government and then people have to through hundreds of check points to get there, not withstanding the financial cost of travel. It seems there is not one Palestinian family who has not a member who is in prison, been in prison, been beaten or killed by the Israeli army. Everyone is affected in a major way. The scale of it is so hard to believe. It's like living in a huge prison. It reminds me, after travelling around for a few days, of what Nazi Germany must have been like, with soldiers, passes, guns and armoured vehicles everywhere and the fear that you will be stopped, beaten or imprisoned at the whim of some arrogant and racist soldier.
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