Joint Addameer and “Stop the Wall” Update on the Arrest of Human Rights Defender and Activist Mohammad Othman

Free Mohammad Othman
On Tuesday 29 September 2009, a court hearing at Kishon (Jalameh) interrogation center extended Mohammad Othman’s detention period for 10 days. A long-time human rights defender, Mohammad Othman, aged 33, was arrested on 22 September 2009 at the Allenby Bridge Border Crossing between Jordan and the West Bank. Mohammad, who is an activist with the “Grassroots Stop the Wall Campaign”, was on his way back to Ramallah from an advocacy tour in Norway where he had been engaged in a number of speaking events.

... placed in solitary confinement. On 27 September 2009, five days after his arrest, he was interrogated for the first time. In the interrogation session, which lasted less than one hour, Mohammad was questioned about his friends and family and was asked to provide their telephone numbers along with his personal e-mail address. In addition, the interrogators asked Mohammad broad questions about his work. The second interrogation session, which took place a few hours before Mohammad’s court hearing on 29 September, lasted just 40 minutes and featured the same questions as his first interrogation.

Considering that, eight days after Mohammad’s arrest, Israeli authorities have been unable to cite any legitimate suspicions or allegations to justify his detention, both Addameer and Stop the Wall contend that Mohammad’s arrest was arbitrary and therefore illegal under applicable international law. Addameer and Stop the Wall also reaffirm their previously stated position that Mohammad was arrested because of his high-profile advocacy work, both locally and internationally, as a human rights defender voicing opposition to Israel’s ongoing human rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including those resulting from the continuing, illegal construction of the Annexation Wall inside the West Bank. Full story