Human rights defenders Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma released

Addameer and Stop the Wall would like to express a heartfelt and sincere thank you to everyone who took action on behalf of Mohammad and Jamal. Since 1967, the Israeli military court system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has operated with frightening impunity, rarely if ever, upholding fair trial standards. The military courts are neither independent nor impartial, fall far short of acceptable international standards, and act in all cases in the interests of the occupying power and the military security apparatus. Addameer and Stop the Wall therefore believe that Mohammad and Jamal owe their release entirely to diplomatic pressure, interventions by the United Nations, grassroots solidarity campaigns and numerous statements and urgent appeals issued by international, Palestinian and Israeli human rights nongovernmental organizations, and not as a result of this terminally flawed military justice system.

While Addameer and Stop the Wall celebrate Mohammad and Jamal's release, we wish to remind the international community that an Israeli campaign of repression and arrest against human rights defenders active against the wall continues. Most recently, on 12 January 2010, three such human rights defenders were arrested by Israeli forces in dawn raids into the West Bank villages of Nilin and Bilin. Ibrahim Ameera, coordinator of the Nilin Popular Committee against the Wall and Settlements was arrested from his home. That same night, the Israeli army arrested two members of the Popular Committee in Nilin, Zaydoun Srour and Hassan Musa, and raided the house of S., a youth activist who regularly attends demonstrations, and summoned him for interrogation. In Bilin, Israeli forces also arrested Muhammad Ali Yasin, an anti-wall youth activist.

Meanwhile, Abdallah Abu Rahmah, a high school teacher and head of the Bilin Popular Committee Against the Wall, remains in Israeli detention following his arrest on 10 December 2009. Abdallah has been charged with three offenses: incitement, stone throwing and the possession of arms. Among the accusations under the incitement charge, the military prosecution listed Abdallah's instrumental role in organizing and leading demonstrations against the wall and distributing Palestinian flags to demonstrators, an act which is still considered a "security offense" under Israeli military regulations. Israeli authorities have also accused Abdallah of collecting used M16 bullets and empty sound canisters and gas grenades, used by the soldiers to disperse the crowds at demonstrations, and exhibiting them in a Bilin museum.