Abdullah Abu Rahmah, center, mourning the killing of relative Bassen Abu Rahma during demonstration against wall
March 13, 2009: American Tristan Anderson, who had been photographing a nonviolent demonstration in Bil'in, was shot by an Israeli high velocity tear gas canister; part of his brain has been removed and his prognosis is unclear.IMEMC
After holding anti-Wall protest organizer Abdullah Adu Rahma in prison for over a week without charges, Israeli authorities have decided to charge him with “arms possession” for picking up spent tear gas canisters after protests, leading Abu Rahma's lawyer to ask, “What's next? Charging demonstrators for the costs of the bullets used to shoot them?”
Israel fires dozens of high-velocity tear gas canisters at the weekly non-violent demonstrations organized, in part, by Abdullah Abu Rahma. These canisters often hit Palestinians and their international and Israeli supporters, and some demonstrators have documented cases of Israeli soldiers directly firing the canisters at people. Abdullah Abu Rahma's nephew, the 30-year old Bassem Abu Rahma, was killed earlier this year when he was hit by a tear gas canister directly in the chest at close range.
On receiving the indictment Adv. Gaby Lasky, Abu Rahmah’s lawyer said that “the army shoots at unarmed demonstrators, and when they try to show the world the violence used against them by collecting presenting the remnants – they are persecuted and prosecuted.”
The tear gas canisters are extremely potent when fired by Israeli forces, but once they are spent, they are completely useless as weapons, which makes the Israeli claim that Abu Rahma was “possessing arms” extremely ridiculous.
Abu Rahma has been a lead organizer of the over three hundred weekly non-violent protests that have been held in the village of Bil'in every Friday since 2003. His abduction last week was just the latest in a series of abductions of non-violent organizers by Israeli authorities. Mohammed Othman of the Grassroots Campaign Against the Wall and Jamal Juma of the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee are among the most recent abductees... Full story
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