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"Israel has therefore made a charade out of the entire system of procedural safeguards in both domestic and international law regarding the right to liberty and due process."
On December 23, a Palestinian Centre for Human Rights press release condemned the above arrests and others like them. According to military order 1591, each one can last up to six months, then be indefinitely extended, often resulting in years imprisonment without charges or trial - a gross violation of fundamental international law.
"By detaining human rights activists for their nonviolent work in legal organizations, Israel is illegally widening the definition of state security in order to fit its motives, while infringing on fundamental freedoms, such as freedom of expression, which are protected under international law."
Despite thirty-one arrests, Bil'in protests continue, and according to some it's the Soweto, Derry, and Chiapas of Palestinian resistance, a model now spreading throughout the West Bank. On December 11, dozens withstood a hail of tear gas canisters to pull down a yellow gate regularly used by the IDF to harass and intimidate.
The web site bilin-village.org explains their struggle.
"Bil'in is a Palestinian village that is....fighting to safeguard its land, its olive trees, its resources....its liberty (and existence). By annexing close to 60% of (its) land for Israeli settlements and the (Separation Wall, Israel) is strangling the village. Every day it destroys a bit more, creating an open air prison for (its) inhabitants," who refuse to stand by and let it happen.
Every Friday, along with Israeli and international activists, they demonstrate peacefully in front of the "work-site of shame," despite IDF physical and psychological harassment, intimidation, violence, and arrests. Bil'in symbolizes Palestinian popular resistance against occupation, repression, harassment, mass arrests, imprisonment, torture, targeted killings, land seizures, and more.
It's located several kilometers northeast of Ramallah. In 2004, its population numbered 1,800 on four square km of land, mostly suitable for agriculture, especially olive tree cultivation, but for how long its residents ask.
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