Human Rights in the Middle East

Saed Yassin was released from Palestinian Authority detention on Sunday 28 February.  He attended his trial in a military court on that day.  His lawyer protested that the court had no jurisdiction over a civilian case, and that the case should be dismissed and the detainee released, as ruled by the Palestinian High Court of Justice.  The judge dismissed this objection and proceeded with the trial.  The judge found Saed Yassin innocent on all charges, which were read out as: 1) Supporting militias; and 2) Opposing the policies of the authority.

AI groups in Canada (Group 18-Toronto, Group 125 –Kingston, Amnesty Action Circle 101-Maidstone, Group133 –Yellowknife, Group 10 –Orillia, Group 1- Hamilton) have been working on the case, starting when he was imprisoned by the Israelis and continued after his release, and his subsequent detention by the Palestinian Authority.  During this later stage of his imprisonment, his health continued to be compromised, and an Urgent Action was issued to raise specifically the denial of medical care.  While Amnesty International does not publically claim it was only our members’ actions which led to the release of a prisoner – in this case a “double” release, we know that it is the persistence of membership action has been a contributing factor.  All those Canadians who wrote on behalf of Saed Yassin, both to Israeli and subsequently to Palestinian authorities, can share in the joy of his release.

His case has been an interesting one.  He was first detained by the Israelis in 2006 and issued with an administrative detention.  It was at this point that Amnesty International took up his case.

Saed Yassin is a human rights defender from the Occupied West Bank.  He was working for the West Bank branch of Ansar al-Sajeen, “Prisoners Friends Association. when he was imprisoned by Israeli authorities on 6 March 2006.  Following interrogation he was charged with channeling funds in an illegal manner.  At the time of his detention, the Israelis closed down Ansar al-Sajeen, an organization first set up by Israeli Arabs to support prisoner families within Israel.  They also confiscated all the organization’s assets, funds intended for prisoner families, hundreds of legal files and documents, phones, photocopying machines and computers in both Israel and the West Bank.  The reason for this is open to speculation, but the main one is that Ansar al-Sajeen, along with more thirty others NGOs in Israel, supported the Palestinian call for sanctions and boycotts against Israel. 

Three days before his scheduled release on the first set of charges on 15. Oct. 2006, Saed Yassin was issued with an administrative detention order by the Israelis, and these administrative detention orders were renewed at six months intervals continuing until 2009.  During his imprisonment, he was moved between prisons making it increasingly difficult for him to receive visits from his wife and children.  During his imprisonment, he developed a painful gastric condition, and Amnesty members added to their calls for his release, requests that he receive medical attention. 

The Israeli practice of administrative detention seems to be often reserved for non-violent Palestinian activists, people who in other countries a respected members of civil society.  Through his series of administrative detentions, Israel authorities never charged him with a crime or brought him to trial.  In 2009, AI members in Canada received letters from Ministry of Justice alleging that Saed Yassin was imprisoned “due to his activity in the Hamas terrorist organization”, a claim that was back dated to March 2006, and replaced the original rationale, namely the closing down of Ansar al-Sajeen.

Saed Yassin was released finally be the Israelis in October 2009.  It is perhaps interesting that the last allegation of the Israelis was in turn taken up the Palestinian authorities.  He was barely home for a couple of weeks, when he was arrested in turn by them and taken to Jneid Prison in Nablus.  Amnesty International members barely had time to celebrate his first release, before they had to start writing to another set of authorities who had imprisoned a human rights defender without charge.  He was subjected to a brief 15 minute interview by authorities.  AI continued to worry about his health, and issued an Urgent Action called for him to receive medical attention while in Jneid.  [He never did.] 

On 14 Jan. 2010, the High Court of Justice in Palestine ruled that he should be released, but his imprisonment continued.  The Palestinian military prosecutors had advanced at this point the charge of “supporting a coup against the legitimate regime.”  This suggests that Fatah authorities in the West Bank took seriously the charge of Hamas involvement which the Israelis themselves could not make stick before their military tribunals.  None of this is exactly clear at this moment, but it seems that Saed Yassin perhaps had become one more name being added and then subtracted from  both Israeli and then Palestinian lists of possible prisoners to be exchanged in the yet unresolved on-again-off-for-now negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier taken hostage by Palestinian factions in Gaza in 2006. 

No matter why or how, Saed Yassin was released at last when authorities within Palestine heeded a  judge who ruled on the allegations and dismissed them utterly.

Saed Yassin told Amnesty International on 1 March 2010:

"My priority is to go and have a complete medical check-up. I'll see the doctor tomorrow and hopefully the diagnosis will be good.  I missed life, I missed my children, and my wife who was so worried, and just living a normal life.  My children suffered so much. When they visited me, they were so frightened they couldn't speak, not even a word. Now I'd like to spend more time with them and try to help them get over their fear, make them happy and protect them from this trauma.  I'd like to thank Amnesty International members and employees who have done so much for me and for my family.  Yours is a generous organization that doesn't forget any lost prisoner.  I was lucky that I got to go home, but others have been convicted in unfair trials and are detained for much longer periods."

This story of Saed Yassin suggests how parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on both sides make common cause to imprison a person who has been innocent along.