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MOATASEM RAED YOUNIS MUZHER

Date of birth: 23 October 1993
Place of residence: Qalandiya Refugee Camp
Occupation: Student
Date of arrest: 20 March 2010
Place of detention: Ofer Prison

Mailing address:
Ofer Prison
Givat Zeev
P.O. Box 3007
via Israel

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ARREST AND ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION

Number of administrative detention orders: One
Expiration of current order: 26 June 2010

Moatasem Muzher was arrested at approximately 3 a.m. on 20 March 2010 when Israeli soldiers broke down the front door and stormed his family’s home in Qalandiya Refugee Camp. Awoken to find heavily armed Israeli soldiers in his room, Moatasem was immediately restrained with his hands tied behind his back. Led out of the home wearing only his pajamas, Moatasem requested to put on warm clothes, but the soldiers would only allowed him to put on a pair of sandals.

He was then led, blindfolded and still restrained, down the road outside his house to the main road to the soldiers’ military vehicles. The Israeli soldiers removed Moatasem’s blindfold and asked his name. After confirming his identity with a photograph, the soldiers put the blindfold back on Moatasem and led him into one of their vehicles. According to Defense of Children International – Palestine Section reports, during the transfer, an Israeli soldier instructed Moatasem to keep his head on his knees and hit him every time he tried to sit up, causing Moatasem “extreme pain”. At no point did the soldiers tell Moatasem why he was being arrested or where they were taking him.

Where Moatasem was taken exactly at that point is unknown. The soldiers stopped the military vehicle in an undisclosed location and made him fill out a medical form before leaving him tied up outside near two shipping containers. He remained there, cold and shivering for many hours, still blindfolded and hearing only threatening sounds of dogs, soldiers, and, at one point, a gun being cocked and then laughter. Towards the morning, after a number of hours in the cold wearing only his pajamas, a soldier brought him a blanket.

At around 2 p.m., Moatasem was taken in another military vehicle to Ofer Military Base near Ramallah. After his arrival at Ofer, he was strip-searched and forced to sit naked on the ground until he was given a brown prison uniform. Moatasem was then taken to a cell holding both adults and children.

Interrogation

On 22 March 2010, Moatasem was taken to Binyamin police station for interrogation. Arriving at the police station at 8:30 a.m., he waited for more than five hours with his hands and feet shackled. At 2 p.m., he was taken into an interrogation room for questioning. He remained shackled at the hands and feet the whole time. Moatasem recalled to DCI-Palestine that: “I sat in the chair in the interrogation room while my hands and feet were still shackled. Then, the interrogator started asking me about the plot without explaining what the plot was. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said to him and he asked me about the riot, bullets and weapons without giving any further explanation. I denied knowledge because I really didn’t know what he was talking about and I really had nothing to do with those things. Then, he asked me about the internet and a guy named Mohammad from Gaza I chat with. I told him I didn’t know Mohammad that well. I met him in some chat room and we talk about school and tests and so on. ‘Liar,’ the interrogator said to me and kept focusing on asking me about this guy.” (1)

According to Moatasem, the Israeli interrogator then threatened to send him to Moskobiyyeh, a detention center in Jerusalem notorious for its torture and ill-treatment during interrogations of Palestinian prisoners. The interrogator gave him a handwritten paper to sign, but Moatasem refused because he could not read the writing.

Moatasem was then sent back to the prison at Ofer Military Base where he remains at present.

Administrative Detention

On 27 March 2010, Moatasem received an administrative detention order for six months. Military court judge Tzvi Hiilbron confirmed the order at the judicial review on 15 April 2010, citing undisclosed allegations in the secret information that Moatasem was involved in the planning of an unnamed activity, but reduced it to a period of three months. Judge Hiilbron found that, although the secret information indicated that Moatasem constituted “a threat to the security of the area”, the detainee’s young age must be taken into account. Moatasem’s administrative detention order is set to expire on 26 June 2010.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Although Moatasem’s family has applied for a permit to visit him at Ofer, the family has received no reply to their application and has not yet been able to visit him.

Palestinian children are routinely detained in prison facilities outside occupied territory, in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) and Israeli Prison Service regulations. This contravention, in practice, means that family visits for detained children are made significantly more difficult, and in some cases, are denied altogether.

ACT NOW!

Here is how you can help Moatasem Muzher:
• Send Moatasem letters of support to his postal address in prison
• Write to the Israeli government, military and legal authorities and demand that Moatasem be released immediately and that his administrative detention not be renewed
• Write to your own elected representatives urging them to pressure Israel to release Moatasem and to put an end to such an unjust, arbitrary and cruel system of incarceration without trial.

Addameer’s Campaign to Stop Administrative Detention