[GushShalom] Some good news, and a lot of court struggles
Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)
info at gush-shalom.org
Sat Apr 12 21:55:41 IDT 2003
GUSH SHALOM - pob 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033 - http://www.gush-shalom.org/
a short uplifting news item
[] Iraqi Muslims help defend Jewish cultural center in Baghdad from looters
for those who can spend time in the courts during working hours (and for others who want to
know about it anyway):
[] Monday: Supreme Court deals with the Farag Ibrahim deportation case - 11.30
[] Monday & Tuesday military court and Supreme Court dealings with refusers
-- Monday: CO (pacifist grounds) Yoni Ben Artzi's court martial, 9.00 Jaffa
-- Tuesday
- In Jaffa, the court martial of the 5 COs who are "occupation refusers", 9.00
- In J'lem, resumption of Yoni Ben Artzi's appeal about competence military courts, 9.00
\\//\\//\\//\\//
[] Iraqi Muslims help defend Jewish cultural center in Baghdad from looters
[In between the madness there was this one very short news item:]
19:05 Iraqi Muslims help defend Jewish cultural center in Baghdad from looters; about 50 Jews
currently live in Iraq (Israel Radio)
[from Haaretz.com News Flashes]
[] Monday: Supreme Court deals with the Farag Ibrahim deportation case - 11.30
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: " lawyers Shamai" <lawyers at goldmail.net.il>
Subject: please come to support Farag Ibrahim
Date sent: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 17:21:40 +0200
If you live inor near Jerusalem, you can do a mitzvah for democracy nextMonday (april 14):
Show up at the Supreme Court (Bagatz) at 11:30. Bring your friends, and prove that someone
in this country cares about elementary legal protections like getting your day in court, however
humble your status -- and not getting carted off in secret to some dark dungeon or ejected from
the country while waiting for your hearing to come around...
UPDATE:
Farag Ibrahim has been sitting in jail for 10 months, without being accused of any crime. He is
married to an Israeli Arab woman, and is the father of a 3-month-old infant. The praklitut want to
deport him, but a fair and honest judge in Jerusalem District Court (Mehozi) halted the
deportation. The state's attorneys ("praklitut") have now appealed in this case, and the hearing
previously scheduledfor 11:30 AM on Monday, April 14th in the J'lem district court will now
take place (at the same date and time) in the SUPREME COURT instead. The state's
attorneys evidently have too much energy invested in this one and are determined to win at all
costs -- and to hell with this guy's future and that of his family.
BACKGROUND (if you missed it last time around):
Fareg Ibrahim is an Egyptian married to an Israeli, and they have a baby, but our praklitut is
determined to deport the guy, period. Their story was written up by Joseph Algazy in Haaretz
last week (Hebrew only). Here's the link, if you want to read it:
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml?itemNo=280351&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSu
bContrassID=0
Please note -- This is not only about the fate of one Egyptian guy married to an Israeli, although
his fate should obviously concern us all; it's also about the alarming ease with which various
government ministries and agencies in this country now routinely flout the instructions of the
courts. If -- as happened to Fareg Ibrahim recently -- a detained person can be "disappeared"
when a judge has already ruled that he's NOT to be deported pending his day in court,and
everyone just yawns, then we have become Argentina -- pure and simple. (Totally aside from
the murder and mayhem, and mass "disappearing" of people, in the West Bank and Gaza, I
mean.) Do we really want to be living in a state wherethe police (or other uniformed agencies)
are a law unto themselves?
Fareg Ibrahim's desperate situationmay not seem too relevant to us (yet), but it will when the
powers-that-be start "disappearing" people we know personally. A few observers in the court
can let the government know that cops, or whoever, can't just "disappear" a guy in this country
without evoking some real protest. We could be next (and who will be left to protest then?).
*** NOTE -- PLEASE! At his last hearing, there were c. 5 people sitting in the court listening
who weren't his family -- just interested citizens -- and I amcertain that their presence had an
important influence on the outcome of that hearing (when the judge got angry at the state's
attorney's for failing to provide the information the court had requested about the case).
Two of these five civic-minded folks were pensioners, a Jerusalem Anglo couple, both of them
well over 70, happily doing their civic duty by sitting in court for an hour or so, to witness how
Fareg's case would unfold. Their presence may have been more instrumental than they could
have imagined.
So if you live anywhere in Jerusalem or environs -- try to take a couple of hours and go sit in
court on Monday the 14th. Think of people you know who might like togo, and send them this
email. And if you want to make sure you get in, maybe don't tell the guard out front that you're
going to the Fareg Ibrahim hearing; there's some evidence that last time around, the guard was
discouraging people from attending (under instructions from...?). It's almost enough to make a
conspiracy theorist out of a goldfish!
Thanks, and please -- if you can be there. It would be so great if we could sit at the seder table
and know that we helped one ordinary guy to get out of detention and rejoin his wife and baby.
At least there would be one small thing to celebrate.
kol tuv
shamai leibowitz, attorney-at-law
Phone: 972 3 6704170
Fax: 972 3 6704173
[] Monday & Tuesday military court and Supreme Court dealings with refusers
-- Monday: CO (pacifist grounds) Yoni Ben Artzi's court martial, 9.00 Jaffa
-- Tuesday
- In Jaffa, the court martial of the 5 COs who are "occupation refusers", 9.00
- In J'lem, resumption of Yoni Ben Artzi's appeal about competence military courts, 9.00
------- Forwarded message follows -------
From: "Anat Matar" <matar at post.tau.ac.il>
Date sent: Fri, 11 Apr 2003 09:11:10 +0300
Subject: [parents] trial update
Hello dear parents and friends,
A quick update, whose bottom-line is that nothing has changed... (but please read):
On Tuesday, 9:00, the famous-five will be brought to trial at the Bayit Yarok, Jaffa
Military Court (Yefet Street 91-93, corner Shivtey Yisrael - buses
10 46 88.)
At the same time, Yoni's appeal will be heard again in the High Court of Justice - and the day
before, Monday 14th, his own case will be heard at the same bayit yarok, also at 9.00.
Lawyer Dov Chinin tried to postpone Tuesday's session, but failed - the army prosecutors
insisted that the date will remain the same, and after trying to shift the timing (noon, afternoon)
, got back to the starting point. This means we won't be able to attend each other's sessions,
which is too bad.
Also, we'll have to go through legal arguments which may turn out to be irrelevant or directed at
the wrong address, at the end of the session.
Worse: we also tried to change the location of the trial from the bayit yarok to the kirya, to a
larger hall. Here, the prosecutor agreed with Dov and BOTH appealed to court TOGETHER
asking to change the location - but the request was denied!! To the just claim that there are 5
defendants, and hence many supporters and close relatives, they answered by - "there are 25
seats, so each one will have 5 relatives and friends to bring with him"...
So, we're back to square one. BUT - we decided to go on with our plan to bring many
supporters to court that day, and thus to put pressure on court to change location in the next -
very important - session. Dov's idea is that we'll make shifts of informants: every 30 mins
someone will go out for a few minutes and update the audience outside. So do bring friends etc
but explain to them that patience is required... We also decided that due to all this mess (all
the trials together, small hall), we'll postpone the PR effort to the next session and will make
only a minor effort at the moment.
It's an important week for all of us. Let's hope for good news.
See you very soon,
Anat
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