Palestinians Endure Increasing Israeli Brutality in The Holy City
Israeli security forces are a constant presence on the streets of East Jerusalem. In the old city, soldiers in khaki patrol every street. Neighbourhoods like Silwan are fortified with wire-covered watchtowers and armoured cars, manned by equally armoured officers. On roads leading from the West Bank, police stop to check to IDs of passers-by on a regular basis, searching for “infiltrators” that may have crossed over the wall illegally.
Foreign visitors often feel intimidated by such a heavily armed presence in Jerusalem’s historic streets, though most are unlikely to face serious harassment or questioning. For the Palestinians that live here, however, it’s a different story.
According to the prisoners’ rights association Addameer, about 700 Palestinian Jerusalemites, the majority of whom were children, were arrested in Jerusalem in the month of July 2014 alone, and from that month interrogation and detention of Palestinians continued to soar. In neighbourhoods like At-Tur, Issawiya and the old city, all in East Jerusalem, Palestinian residents complain of harassment and pressure from predominantly Jewish and Druze police officers – behaviour which they believe is based on racial profiling.
Thaer, who lives in Silwan and works in West Jerusalem, says that he and his friends are regularly harassed by the armed border police that patrol every street of the city. At 20, dressed in a tracksuit and with close-cropped hair, he smokes constantly, speaking confidently in English. Police officers, he says, routinely search him, confiscate his belongings, or question him aggressively, implying he shouldn’t be in areas of the city other than where his work or home is located.
“Every day I go out, they stop me, they go in my car. They ask me, ‘have you got drugs’, or, ‘do you have knife?’” he told Middle East Eye. “They go through the car looking for something, looking through the whole car. It takes twenty minutes every day. He looks at you like you’re a small thing, and he’s big.”
“That makes a problem,” Thaer continues. “I didn’t want to make a problem with you but now I want to make a problem with you. Why? Because you scream at me. You get somebody in the street, look in his bag, take his ID. Why are you doing that? We’re Arab people, human. Just feel it a little bit.”
Often, young men like Thaer are reluctant to report the intimidating treatment they experience: most feel there’s just no point. But in the past, some incidents of police misconduct have been highlighted in the law or media. Last September, three Border Police officers were ordered to compensate a Jerusalem man after they beat him in the street in front of his son. Videos uploaded to Youtube of border police officers humiliating Palestinians – making them slap themselves, or sing absurd and offensive songs – have also drawn attention to some of the abuses that take place in the Holy City.
Source: www.middleeasteye.net