What clowns have imprisoned Abu Sakha?
This posting has these items, four from campaign groups and one on the origin of the arrest:
1) Gush Shalom: Protest during Purim Carnival at the gates of the Ofer Detention Centre;
2) Amnesty: Demand justice for Palestinian circus performer held in Israel ;
3) Samidoun: Take Action. Free Mohammed Abu Sakha, prisoners’ campaigning group;
4) Avaaz: Israeli Defence Forces: Free circus trainer and artist Mohammed Faisal Abu Sakha, petition to sign and spread;
5) Electronic Intifada: Demands grow on Israel to release circus teacher for disabled children, the story as known last January;
Free Abu Sakha event, March 21, outside Ofer prison. Photo from Facebook.
Protest during Purim Carnival at the gates of the Ofer Detention Centre
Calling for the release of detained Palestinian circus artist Abu Sakha
By Gush Shalom and email
March 21, 2016
On the occasion of the Jewish Holiday of Purim there will take place today, Monday March 21 a Protest Adloyada (Purim Carnival) outside the Ofer Detention Centre on the outskirts of Ramallah on the West Bank, demanding the immediate release of Palestinian circus artist Mohammed Abu Sakha – held for the past three months under Administrative Detention, without trial and without being presented with any evidence of having committed any felony.
Israeli peace and human rights activists, dressed in colourful Purim costumes and masks, will meet at 10.00 am at the parking lot near the detention center and there hold their protest. Purim is celebrated in Jewish tradition as a holiday commemorating sudden changes of fortune, with righteous people being suddenly redeemed from great misfortune and danger. This seems a good time to call for the release of an unjustly held detainee. And the detained Abu Sakha being a circus artist and clown, well known for his artistic talent, it is especially fitting to remember him on a holiday which is celebrated by masks and costumes and public performances of clowns and circus artists on the streets of Israeli cities.
Human rights activist Hanita Hendelman, a major organizer in the campaign for the release of Abu Sakha, says:
Already we held earlier this month a circus protest of this kind of near the Megiddo Prison, where he is held. We held an improvisation circus show on the prison parking lot. It was funny when the demonstrating Israeli circus performers threw loops back and forth right above the cops’ heads. This time we’re going to do the same at the Ofer Detention Centre, the focal point from where the State of Israel is sending hundreds of Palestinians to detention and imprisonment for having resisted the occupation.
Hanita Hendelman, who lives in Kiryat Tivon in north Israel is already for many years involved with the Kfar Yehoshua Circus School, where she coordinates multicultural projects aimed at bringing Jews and Arabs together through the study and practice of circus art.
Contact: Hanita Hendelman +972-(0)54-2313134
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DEMAND JUSTICE FOR PALESTINIAN CIRCUS PERFORMER HELD IN ISRAEL
Amnesty International UK statement
31,237 taken. Help us reach 50,000
23-year-old Mohammad Faisal Abu Sakha has been held by the Israeli military without any contact with his family since late last year. He hasn’t been charged with a crime and the authorities refuse to give a reason for his detention.
Mohammad was taken on his way to work at the Palestinian Circus School, where he teaches children with learning difficulties. He is being denied the right to defend himself. Tell the Israeli authorities to end this injustice immediately.
On 14 December, Mohammad set out from his parents’ home to the Palestinian Circus School where he works. But he never made it. Israeli soldiers stopped him at a checkpoint and took him to a nearby detention centre. He has been held ever since, and is now thought to be in Megiddo prison, in northern Israel.
He has never been charged with a crime and his family have not been allowed to visit him.
The Israeli military handed him a six-month administrative detention order — so they can continue to hold him with no charge, indefinitely.
A military judge can cancel, reduce, uphold or renew the order. Mohammed’s order is understood to have been reviewed on 5 January but no decision has yet been made. On the day of the reported review, Al Jazeera quoted an Israeli military spokesperson as saying that Mohammad was being held because he posed a ‘danger… to the security of the region’. He did not provide any further information, saying that the details of his case were ‘confidential’.
This is common in cases of administrative detention as those held are denied the right to defend themselves or effectively challenge the legality of their detention because the authorities largely withhold the ‘evidence’ against them – not just from the detainee themselves but also from their lawyers.
Dedicated to the circus
The Palestinian Circus School has said that there is no basis to claims that Mohammad is a security threat, that his only crime is ‘making children happy’ and that his life is dedicated to the circus.
Mohammad began studying at the school in 2007. When he was 17 he was arrested and held for one month by Israeli Security forces, who accused him of throwing stones at an Israeli military jeep when he was aged between 12 and 14.
He told his school colleagues that, during his detention, a military judge told him he would ‘never go back to the circus’.
But in 2011 he became one of their performers, also training children in circus acts. He specialises in teaching children with learning difficulties, who make up 30 of the more than 300 students at the school.
Established in 2006, the school’s mission is to train Palestinian children and youth in circus arts and thereby ‘strengthen the social, creative and physical potential of the Palestinians, seeking to engage and empower them to become constructive actors in society.’ It is funded by various charities and other bodies, including the European Commission.
About Administrative detention
Administrative detention was supposed to act as an exceptional measure to detain people who pose an extreme and imminent danger to security. But for years it’s been used by Israel as a way of sidestepping the criminal justice system and detaining people who should never have been arrested.
The authorities have increased their use of administrative detention dramatically since October 2015: over 580 Palestinians were being held by the end of last year.
We believe that some Palestinians held in administrative detention by Israel are prisoners of conscience, held solely for the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of expression and association.
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Take Action. Free Mohammed Abu Sakha
Samidoun statement on Palestinian Trainer/Performer of the Palestinian Circus School
December 26, 2015
The Palestinian Circus School has issued a call for action for Mohammed Abu Sakha, a trainer/performer at the school, who was issued an administrative detention order for imprisonment without charge or trial by the Israeli military courts. Follow all updates on Mohammed’s case at their site: http://www.palcircus.ps/en/content/freeabusakha-trainer-and-performer-palestinian-circus-school
Last Monday, December 14, Israeli soldiers arrested a member of the circus family, Mohammad Faisal Abu Sakha, 23 years old, at Zaatara checkpoint, while on his way from his family home in Jenin to Ramallah to attend a music concert. Mohammad has been detained for a week now, and is being kept in military detention centers in the West Bank. Palestinians arrested under Israeli military law, are mostly exposed to serious physical and psychological violence, transfers and harsh interrogations, sometimes aiming to obtain false confessions.
Mohammad is part of the Palestinian Circus School since 2007, first as a student and since 2011 as a full time trainer and performer. Mohammad is very passionate about his work in general and about the social programs of the school in particular. He’s known with his magic ability to draw smiles on all people’s faces. Mohammed his entire life is dedicated to the circus.
He was arrested without any reason and no charge was made against him.
December 22, in Military Court at Salem, Mohammed AbuSakha was given administrative detention, but no charges were presented against him. Administrative detention can lead to from 3 months up to indefinite detention, without the need for any charge to be presented against him.
We strongly condemn the arbitrary detention of our colleague and friend and ask you to join us in solidarity to free Mohammed AbuSakha so he can come back and be with his students, his colleges and his family.
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Avaaz statement and petition (click headline below to sign)
Israeli Defence Forces: Free circus trainer and artist Mohammed Faisal Abu Sakha
#FREEABUSAKHA
Letter to Israeli Defence Forces
Telephone: +972-(0)3-697-7957
Fax: +972-(0)3-697-5177
cogatspokesman@gmail.com
We call for the immediate release of Palestinian circus trainer and artist Mohammed Faisal AbuSakha, detained by the Israeli military on Monday 14 of December at the Zaatara
Checkpoint while crossing by taxi from his home in Jenin to his work in Ramallah to assist a music concert. Mohammed was asked to step out of the car and was then taken to a military detention center.
On Monday December 22, he was sentenced by a military court to administrative detention, without any charges presented to him. Administrative detention is a procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial. His detention order is currently under review by the Ofer Military Court in the West Bank and if confirmed, Mohammed will be subjected to six months detention, without charge or trial, renewable indefinitely.
The Israeli practice of administrative detention has been condemned on numerous occasions by the UN Human Rights Office and the Human Rights Committee that oversees implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Israel has ratified.
Thousands of people and organizations around the world stand with Mohammed Abu Sakha, a clown, an artist, a wonderful soul with a passion is to make people laugh and to teach children circus to offer them a bright future.
Read here the statement of the circus school where Mohammed has been a student since 2008, and is now employed since 2011.
The world stands with Mohammed against this injustice.
Check out a video here–
Demands grow on Israel to release circus teacher for disabled children
By Ryan Rodrick Beiler, Electronic Intifada
January 31, 2016
As 23-year-old Palestinian circus performer Mohammad Abu Sakha enters his second month of administrative detention in Israeli prison, new appeals have been issued by Amnesty International for his release.
Abu Sakha, who has been a performer and trainer with the Palestinian Circus School since 2007, has yet to be charged with any offense.
According to the Palestinian prisoners’ rights organization Addameer, on 14 December 2015, Abu Sakha was travelling from his home in Jenin, in the north of the occupied West Bank, to work at the school in Birzeit, near Ramallah, when his bus was stopped at the Zaatara military checkpoint near Nablus.
During a check of all passenger IDs by Israeli occupation forces, Abu Sakha was forced from the bus at gunpoint, searched and taken to a nearby military base.
After 11 days in custody, a six-month administrative detention order was issued beginning on 25 December.
Vague accusations
A holdover from British colonial rule, administrative detention is routinely used by Israel against Palestinians, depriving them of their fundamental rights.
According to Addameer, the Israeli military accuses Abu Sakha of being active in an illegal organization and taking part in military activities – but without charging him with a specific crime or affording him any due process to defend himself.
An Israeli military spokesperson told Al Jazeera that Abu Sakha was arrested “due to the danger he posed to the security of the region” based on “confidential information.”
Abu Sakha told an Addameer lawyer who visited him in Megiddo prison in the north of present-day Israel that during his initial interrogations he was accused of general acts without any specific details.
He denied all accusations and refused to sign any papers. Palestinians in detention are frequently pressured to sign documents in Hebrew that they are unable to read.
Abu Sakha had also been arrested at age 17 for allegedly throwing stones at an Israeli military jeep when he was between 12 and 14 years old.
He denied the charges, but was jailed for one month and fined about $1,260.
According to Addameer, Abu Sakha’s case “exemplifies the ways in which the occupation forces use the policy of administrative detention when they fail to obtain proper evidence against Palestinians.”
In addition to violating articles of the Fourth Geneva Convention which states that an accused individual has the right to defend himself against known charges, Israel’s transfer of Abu Sakha to Megiddo prison, outside the occupied West Bank, violates the provision that “persons accused of offenses shall be detained in the occupied country.”
Because Israel requires permits for Palestinians from the West Bank to visit these prisons – but makes those permits difficult to obtain – Abu Sakha’s family has so far been unable to visit him.
“Expression tool”
In his work at the Palestinian Circus School, Abu Sakha specializes in training children with severe disabilities.
One of his colleagues at the school told Al Jazeera that one of his students, who suffers from cerebral palsy, is devastated and risks losing out on his circus classes, an important factor in his mental and physical improvement.
This brief video released by the school features one of his disabled students speaking about Abu Sakha:
Abu Sakha intended to participate in trainings outside the country in March and June of this year.
As he told Burn Magazine in 2010: “I don’t speak English very much so I can’t communicate with everybody outside of Palestine. Circus brought me that chance. I can use it as an expression tool to tell our stories.”
In addition to the Amnesty International urgent action alert on Abu Sakha’s behalf, more than 11,700 people have signed an Avaaz petition calling for his release.
When challenged by the right-wing US website Algemeiner as to why Amnesty International was demanding Abu Sakha’s release, the head of Amnesty’s Israeli office, Yonatan Gher, responded that they oppose administrative detention as a human rights violation because of the failure to bring charges or evidence of any criminal offense.
“Detainees such as Abu Sakha are denied the right to defend themselves or effectively challenge the legality of their detention because the authorities largely withhold the ‘evidence’ against them from them and their lawyers,” said Gher.
Algemeiner calls Abu Sakha a “terror supporter” because his Facebook page includes photos calling for the “liberation of Palestine” with “a map that eliminates the Jewish state” and photos of people holding weapons, as well as a tribute to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader George Habash.
By that standard, anyone posting the Israeli tourism ministry’s maps that declare all of present-day Israel and the occupied West Bank to be “Israel,” or photos of Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir or Menachem Begin – both leaders of pre-state Zionist militias that targeted civilians – are also “terror supporters” deserving of administrative detention.
Amnesty maintains that many Palestinians in Israeli administrative detention are prisoners of conscience, held solely for their right to freedom of expression and association.
It notes that for years Israel has used the practice to hold people who should have never been arrested at all – instead of charging and prosecuting them according to accepted norms of criminal justice. Such detentions can be renewed indefinitely.
Palestinians have frequently waged hunger strikes against their administrative detentions.
Journalist Muhammad al-Qiq remains in prison despite being in critical condition since going on hunger strike that began on 25 November [since released after longest ever hunger strike].
Israel currently holds more than 580 Palestinians in administrative detention.
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is a freelance photojournalist and member of the ActiveStills collective.