Abdallah Abu Rahmah being arrested by Israeli soldiers in Palestine photo: Courtesy of ActiveStills

Amnesty International stated in a release last month that Abu Rahma has been "detained solely on account of legitimately exercising [his] right to freedom of expression in opposing the Israeli fence/wall." They appealed to the Israeli government, asking for Abu Rahma, a "prisoner of conscience... [to be] immediately and unconditionally released," describing him as a "human rights activist [who] has been campaigning for years against the fence/wall by raising awareness about its negative impact on Palestinians, organizing grassroots opposition to it and peacefully demonstrating against it."

Around the world, Bil'in village is a key grassroots reference point on Palestine, central to Palestinian popular protest in the West Bank against the Israeli military occupation and the ongoing construction of the Israeli separation barrier. The village has been deeply affected by the Israeli wall, which unilaterally confiscated over 50 per cent of its land, including swaths of Palestinian agricultural territory that the farming village depends on economically.

In a 2004 landmark decision, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) labelled the wall as illegal. Popular protests in Bil'in have taken place each Friday afternoon since February 2005, inspiring surrounding Palestinian villages, such as Nil'in, to also hold weekly demonstrations as a way to draw global attention to Palestinian suffering.

Activists in Montreal held a solidarity gathering for Bil'in at Mont-Royal metro on Feb. 7, and solidarity actions are being planned for the upcoming months. Bil'in has a particularly important relationship to Quebec since the village launched a lawsuit in Quebec Superior Court in June 2009 against two Quebec-based companies, Green Mount International and Green Park International, who are currently constructing Israeli colonies on the village's lands. Currently in legal process, Bil'in's precedent-setting legal challenge charges the two Quebec companies of breaking both international and Canadian law under Canada's Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, established in 2000.

In tandem with the legal challenge, Palestinian activists from Bil'in, including Abu Rahma, gathered in Canada last June for a series of events across the country, speaking in 11 cities, including Montreal (at Concordia University). Shortly after this speaking tour, Israeli military forces began launching nighttime raids on the village and targeting Palestinian leaders of the popular protests for arrest, including all village representatives who had visited Montreal.

Abu Rahma has long publicly campaigned alongside progressive Israeli activists and has hosted world leaders in Bil'in, including former U.S. president Jimmy Carter and globally celebrated anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu from South Africa. Recently he issued a statement to supporters around the world, as a community activist, father and high-school teacher who marked 2010 from behind prison walls, along with an estimated 8,000 other Palestinian prisoners.

"I know that Israel's military campaign to imprison the leadership of the Palestinian popular struggle shows that our nonviolent struggle is effective," said Abu Rahma. "The occupation is threatened by our growing movement and is therefore trying to shut us down... What Israel's leaders do not understand is that popular struggle cannot be stopped by our imprisonment."

For more information on Bil'in village, visit www.bilin-village.org
For information on Palestinian child political prisoners, visit Defence for Children International at www.dci-pal.org
 
 

		Write your comment on this article!

A Palestinian Ghandi     Thanks for this article highlighting just one of the many acts of peaceful resistance to the Israeli occupation in which Palestinians engage. People who do not follow Israel-Palestine closely sometimes ask where the Palestinians Ghandi is, where the Palestinian Martin Luther King is? The answer is that there are many Palestinian Ghandis and MLKs now and since 1948 but they have been imprisoned and assasinated by Israel. Israel claims claims ad nauseum to be a democractic state but a state can be democratic in the sense that all its citizens have the right to vote yet not be truly democratic and just. Israel has a strong military but neither a constitution nor a Charter of Rights. It is easy to see why it has decended into a democratic militaritic tyrany which oppresses its Palestinian citizens and deals with its disputes with tanks and bombs instead of dialogue.
Linda Belanger		February 24th, 2010

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