March 13, London: 2 Protests to Free the Hares Boys!

Five Palestinian children have been tortured and caged by Israel for 2 years for a crime that didn’t even happen. Please join us on the second anniversary of their abduction as we demand justice for the Hares Boys, outside the headquarters of the British security contractor G4S  who secure Israel’s notorious Al-Jalame interrogation centre, where the children were savagely tortured, and Israel’s Megiddo prison where the children have been caged for two years.THE HARES BOYS

On 14th March 2013 a simple car accident, when a illegal Israeli settler car speeding along a road built illegally on stolen Palestinian land, crashed in to the back of an Israeli truck which had stopped to change a flat tire resulting in four people being hurt, was later at the behest of angry settlers presented as an attack by Palestinian stone throwing youth. The truck drivers earlier testimony that he stopped due to a flat tire was replaced with the new reason being that he had seen stones by the road, and an accident that happened after dark that nobody saw suddenly became a terror attack with 61 witnesses including the police!

Over the next few days over 50 masked Israeli soldiers with attack dogs stormed the local village of Hares in the early hours of the morning and in waves of violent arrests kidnapped the children of the village. In total 19 children were taken to the infamous G4S secured children’s dungeon at Al Jalame and locked up in solitary confinement for up to 2 weeks in filthy windowless 1m by 2m hole in the ground cells with no mattress. The Israeli prime minister Benyamin Natanyahu announced to the settlers that he had “caught the terrorists”. The children were violently tortured and sexual threats were made against the female members of their families in order to coerce confessions from the boys.

With the confessions and the new “eye-witness” statements, five of the Hares boys were charged with 25 counts of attempted murder each, even though there were only four people in the car. Apparently the military court had decided that 25 stones were thrown, each with an “intent to kill”. The five boys have been illegally transferred to Israel, in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to Megiddo prison where G4S provides the entire central command room. Hewlett Packard provides technical services and central servers that keep Israels  dungeons and torture dens, including Megiddo, operational.

In violation of international law Israel has turned prisons in to money making enterprises with the boys essentially forced to pay for their own imprisonment. Israel deliberately fails to provide Palestinian prisoners the basic essentials – edible food, cloths (underwear, shoes..) and hygiene products (soap, toothbrush..). The boys are forced to buy these at the extortionately priced prison shop costing the families over € 125/month to provide for one child’s basic needs in prison.

With no evidence of a crime the military court keeps on postponing the hearing dates from one month to one year to two years, meanwhile the boys remain caged indefinitely and their families facing financial ruin in the process. A court hearing entails the families spending most of their day queuing and enduring the humiliation at the checkpoints where HP provides the biometric systems used to tag Palestinians, then waiting at the court in anticipation of catching a glimpse of their son.. often to be disappointed as hearing are cancelled without notice.

The United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF report on Children in Israeli Military Detention concludes that Israel is the only country in the world where children are systematically tried in military courts that by definition fall short of providing  the necessary guarantees to ensure respect for their rights. The conviction rate in Israeli military courts is an unfathomable 99.74%.

If the five boys are convicted they will be locked up for over 25 years – five young lives ruined with no evidence of a crime let alone their guilt.

Unfortunately the case of the five Hares Boys is not an isolated incident, last year Israel abducted 1266 Palestinian children – that’s one child taken from their parents every 7 hours! During interrogation 75% of Palestinian children detained by Israel are physically tortured. 40% of the 600 children that were taken from Jerusalem alone, were sexually abused by Israeli soldiers during arrest or interrogation.

G4S provides the security systems, and Hewlett Packard the IT infrastructure, which keep these torture dens operational. Prisoners who have survived these hell holes recall seeing G4S logos on the cameras that witnessed their abuse. These companies are fully complicit in the crimes Israel commits against Palestinian children, and must be held to account.

PROTEST TO FREE LINA KHATTAB AND FREE KHALED SHEIKH #IsraeliApartheidWeek

On 27th February as part of Israeli Apartheid Week 2015, we protested outside the headquarters of British security company G4S, as we demand the immediate release of 15 years old Palestinian school boy Khaled al-Sheikh and 18 years old Palestinian journalist student Lina Khattab, both caged in G4S secured Israeli dungeons at Ofer and HaSharon.

Video – London Protest to Free 15yrs old Palestinian schoolboy Khaled Sheikh, 27 Feb 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqXW4wWJ4Ww&list=UUL-_3JtDktNRc8JU5CUIXDg

Video – London Protest to Free Palestinian journalism student Lina Khattab, 27 Feb 2015
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bq8klYI7ZzQ&list=UUL-_3JtDktNRc8JU5CUIXDg