Israel detains, expels anti-torture group
Israeli authorities yesterday expelled a five-member team from an international anti-torture group, which had planned to visit Jenin and meet with arrested Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, after detaining the group at Tel Aviv airport. «They detained us for more than two hours. They told us that they don’t want groups like ours in their country,» Dr Maria Piniou-Kalli, president of the Copenhagen-based International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), told Kathimerini’s English Edition by phone from Germany. The non-governmental group – an umbrella organization with over 200 branches worldwide, which is partially funded by the European Union and the United Nations – was planning a four-day visit to Israel and the Palestinian-controlled territories. Their intended visits included Jenin, the scene of the fiercest fighting, where they were planning to interview survivors and record cases of trauma victims at Jenin Hospital and the refugee camps in the area. «The Greek ambassador and the Greek consul came to the airport but there was nothing they could do,» Dr Piniou-Kalli noted. The IRCT official is also the medical director of the group’s center in Athens. In the Palestinian territories the IRCT cooperates with the Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP). The group, after spending two hours in Tel Aviv airport being questioned by Israeli authorities, was put aboard a return flight to Germany where they were held for questioning by immigration authorities for a second time. «At this moment, I am talking to you from an immigration office at the airport in Frankfurt. I am very tired and I don’t know how long they will keep us here,» she said, sounding exhausted and frustrated. Ever since Israel launched an all-out assault on towns in the West Bank two weeks ago, the authorities have detained and expelled several medical and aid groups, including a Greek team from Doctors of the World, who were expelled on April 4. Having destroyed the only international airport in Palestinian territories in the early stages of the military operations by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), all those wishing to travel to the West Bank have to go through Israel. The IRCT team was expecting to try to meet with Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, who was arrested by Israeli troops in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Monday. Barghouti’s arrest further complicated US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s mission to the region, hampering efforts to hammer out any truce agreement or revive peace talks between the two sides. Israel accuses Barghouti of planning and financing terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians. On Monday, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer accused him of turning Fatah’s militia into «the most murderous of terrorist organizations, committing most of the recent attacks against Israel.» The Palestinians have denied any connection between Barghouti and the attacks, stating that he is an official of the political wing of the Fatah movement, while Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has demanded his immediate release if there are to be any peace talks in the future. IRCT officials were also planning to travel to Jenin, an area where the Israeli army has denied access to medical and aid agencies. Just this week they allowed UN officials to visit the refugee camp which was literally leveled by the IDF. UN Middle East envoy Terje Roed-Larsen toured the devastated camp on Thursday. He said some 300 buildings were destroyed and 2,000 people left homeless in the Israeli operation to capture or kill armed militants. «No objective can justify such action, with colossal suffering to civilians,» the UN official declared. «Corpses were being dug up just below the surface and the stench is terrible. This is horrifying beyond belief. Just seeing this area, it looks like there’s been an earthquake here.» Israel yesterday admitted that dozens of Palestinians remain buried under the rubble of some 100 homes in the refugee camp. Palestinians claim that as many as 500 people were killed during the Israeli army incursion in Jenin, while Israel plays down the incident, saying that no more than 100 people lost their lives in the fighting. No death toll has been independently confirmed yet. Meanwhile, the IDF declared yesterday that it had completed its pullout from Jenin, redeploying its forces on the town’s outskirts and allowing residents to search for relatives and belongings in the heavily damaged refugee camp. The UN envoy to the region, in interviews with foreign reporters after his tour of the Jenin camp, declared that there is an acute need for water, medicine and humanitarian aid in Jenin, while stressing the need for Israel to permit international search and rescue teams to enter the area and retrieve those trapped under the rubble. The IRCT specializes in the diagnosis and rehabilitation of victims of torture and ill-treatment, with representation in numerous hot spots, and periodically reports to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
