PARIS,
Aug 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Paris-based Palestinian
rights organization denounced Thursday, August 8, the Israeli
occupation army’s arrest this week of nine foreign nationals who
demonstrated against Israeli practices in the occupied Palestinian
territories in the West Bank city of Nablus.
The
rights organization described the arrests as “flagrant human rights
violations.”
The
Israeli army arrested three U.S. nationals, five Frenchmen and an
Irishman Wednesday, August 7, and transferred them to a prison in
Ramleh near Tel Aviv, said the International Civilian Campaign for the
Protection of the Palestinian People, Agence France-Presse (AFP)
reported.
Israel
is preparing to expel the nine from the country, the group said,
according to AFP.
The
nine men “were participating in a peaceful demonstration against the
blockade around the Palestinian village of Huwwara, which was
violently put down by the Israeli army,” the group said.
The
three Americans, one of whom was identified as Adam Shapiro, and an
Irish national, are members of the International Solidarity Movement -
an umbrella organization of left-wing activists - according to a
spokesman for the Paris-based organization.
Shapiro
briefly took part in an international protest staged in April at
Palestinian President Yasser Arafat's besieged headquarters in
Ramallah.
The
Paris-based organization denounced the arrests, saying they were proof
“once again of the flagrant human rights violations committed by
Israeli authorities with full impunity,” AFP reported.
The
Israeli army had no comment.
Earlier
Tuesday, July 30, Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group
defending media liberty in the world, stepped up its call for Israel
to release five Palestinian journalists being detained without
charges.
“The
arrest of these five journalists was completely arbitrary,” said
Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Menard in a letter
to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
Among
the five are an AFP photographer, Hossam Abu Alan, and a Reuters
television soundman, Yusri el-Jamal, who were arrested separately late
April.
None
of them has been given an opportunity to challenge their detention in
a court. The Israeli government has offered no information to support
its allegation that Abu Alan and Jamal allegedly supported
"terrorists".
A
military court extended Alan's “administrative” detention for
another five months on July 23, and Jamal's for three months on July
11.
“The
authorities say two of them helped terrorist organizations, but they
have offered no proof of this. The three others have not even been
told why they are being held. Some of the five have now been
imprisoned for more than three months in very bad conditions,”
Menard said.
The
three other journalists being held are Khalid Ali Mohammed Zwawi,
Kamel Ali Jbeil and Nizar Ramadan, who are correspondents for regional
newspapers.
At
the time of Abu Alan's arrest, an Israeli army spokesman told AFP he
was detained for being in an Israeli-controlled zone forbidden to
Palestinians, and because he was not carrying the Israeli Government
Press Office's pass.
However,
since the beginning of the year, the GPO has refused to renew the
press passes of Palestinian journalists working for foreign media,
with few exceptions, under the pretext that they pose a security
threat.
