"The interrogator said not to make it difficult: Yasser Mohammad had already confessed, so it would be the easiest if he just apologised and the judge released him.”
Source/Credit: Gulf News |Weekend Review
By Aya Lowe | October 3, 2013
More than 500 Palestinian children face physical and verbal abuse at the hands of the Israeli army every year
Ehab Yasser Mohammad was only 15 when about 30 Israeli soldiers arrived at his house in the refugee camp Al Arequib to arrest him for something he did not do.
According to his father, Yasser Abu Ehab, they banged on their door at about 3am. After several minutes of banging, the father answered the door just as they were getting ready to throw an explosive to open it.
“When I asked what they were doing knocking down the door at 3am, the soldiers responded by saying, ‘You can’t ask the Israeli army what we are doing. You are under occupation and we can do whatever we want,’” Abu Ehab said.
Abu Ehab was asked to gather all the children in the living room. “When Bashar (his 12-year-old son) saw the soldiers, he wetted himself. It was a terrifying experience for the children,” he said. The soldiers asked for Yasser Mohammad, his oldest son. Completely unaware of what was happening or what he was accused of, Yasser Mohammad was handcuffed and put into a military vehicle, where he was kicked and punched, before being delivered to an interrogator.
“While I was in the jeep they beat my head against the jeep and beat me with the butt of their gun. While they were beating me they were talking and singing,” Yasser Mohammad recalled.
“I heard the screaming of my child. It was heartbreaking,” Abu Ehab added, lowering his tone at the painful memory.
Yasser Mohammad was taken to a detention centre where the interrogator told him to confess to crimes of stone-throwing and being part of a party, something which he denied as he spent most of his time working in a hotel in Bethlehem. He was told if he did not confess, he would be sent back to the soldiers that had just beaten him up. Terrified, he “confessed”.
“The interrogator called and said my son had confessed to throwing a stone and participating in a March. I asked him when and he said April 4 or 5 and I said it is impossible since he was in Bethlehem and I could show the proof. The interrogator said not to make it difficult: Yasser Mohammad had already confessed, so it would be the easiest if he just apologised and the judge released him,” Abu Ehab explained.
After the trial, Yasser Mohammad was sentenced to 18 days in jail and fined 1,500 shekels (Dh1,546). While the West Bank celebrated Eid Al Fitr, Yasser Mohammad spent the holiday in prison cut off from his family.
Read original post here: At the mercy of heartless occupiers
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