Harrison Healy
Mohammad Mansour, a Palestinian activist involved in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), was due to face trial on February 16. The case has been postponed until March 21. If found guilty, Mansour could go to jail and possibly face torture.
Mansour, an organiser in the non-violent resistance, was charged with assaulting a soldier, throwing stones and encouraging kids to throw stones. Yet despite soldiers filming everything that took place at the demonstration in question, they have no evidence to prove Mansour committed the offences.
The main thing they are now trying to charge him with is being involved in an "illegal demonstration", which occurred in the Occupied Territories. Mansour has fronted to the so-called Israeli Peace Court in Jerusalem on several occasions, despite soldiers attempting to turn him back at Qalandiya checkpoint and prevent him from attending his own hearings because he is a "security risk".
Each time Mansour attends court, the prosecution offers him a deal and the judge encourages him to accept. Mansour was asked to sign a piece of paper saying he wouldn't be involved in any demonstrations for two years, but he refused. The prosecution even offered to drop the entire court case if he paid a small amount of money, but again he refused. He told me he refuses to "pay one shekel to support the occupation. My friend is in a wheelchair after being shot at a demonstration and I am not going to fund a bullet so they can do that to someone else. I also don't want to pay because I'm not guilty."
These words come from a man who is in his mid-thirties, has five children and has been in jail before. His longest time in jail was three years and despite describing to me personal experiences as chilling as those of Abu Ghraib prisoners, he is prepared to go back. While some torture techniques were outlawed a few years ago, it is still legal to torture people and even those techniques that were banned are allowed to be reintroduced if they can prove the suspect is "a ticking time bomb".
Mansour says it is his "duty" to keep struggling. "We are living under occupation and I want to be free", he said, adding: "I and many of the Palestinians have promised ourselves when we get our freedom we will go and help other occupied people, wherever they are."
[Harrison Healy is a member of the Australian socialist youth organisation Resistance, and is currently working with the ISM in Palestine. Visit his blog at <http://www.palestinepal.blogspot.com>. Send messages of support to Mansour at <mohammad_pal68@yahoo.com>.]
From Green Left Weekly, February 22, 2006.
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