Video footage: B’Tselem volunteer arrested for arguing with soldiers
Published:
8 Apr 2014
On Friday 28 March 2014, Shadi Sidr – a volunteer with B’Tselem’s camera project in Hebron – was in the street outside his home with his brother and a neighbor. Soldiers who had gone up to the roof of the house filmed the three Palestinians and aimed their weapons at them. Sidr entered the house to protest these actions. Sidr went back outside after he received an apology from one of the soldiers. Yet the soldiers did not stop filming, and Sidr went back into the building. This time he argued at length with the soldiers and filmed the exchange: Sidr demanded that the soldiers explain their presence in his home; the soldiers said Sidr was in their way and therefore must leave the premises. Not only did the soldiers not explain their presence, they even tried to apprehend Sidr’s brother and his neighbor, both of whom were completely uninvolved bystanders. When Sidr objected to their arrest, the soldiers knocked his camera down and pepper-sprayed his face. Sidr’s mother, who was inside the house at the time, sustained a reaction to the pepper-spray and had to be taken to hospital for treatment.
Video footage of the incident as filmed on Sidr’s camera:
The soldiers then handcuffed and detained the three Palestinians. The soldiers held the men for hours, with no justification, without taking them to a police station and without offering any medical assistance to Sidr, whose eyes had been hurt by the pepper-spray.
The three men were finally taken to the Hebron Police only at around 10:30 P.M. – some eight hours after the incident began. They were subsequently released without even being questioned.
Throughout the West Bank soldiers are allowed virtually unrestricted access to Palestinian homes, entering without having to justify their actions to the occupants. This state of affairs is particularly common and invasive in Hebron’s H2 area, with its constant Israeli military presence. In this case, in addition to violating the sense of security of the home’s occupants, violating their privacy, property and normal routine, the soldiers’ response to Sidr’s requests to explain their presence in his home is extremely disturbing. The soldiers clearly felt that they are not bound to provide any explanation whatsoever to the homeowner. Their subsequent conduct seems to indicate that they detained the three men for hours on end solely for punitive purposes, as punishment for Sidr’s persistence in trying to obtain an explanation for their presence on the roof of his home.
B’Tselem sent a complaint to the Legal Advisor in Judea and Samaria regarding the unjustified detention.
http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20140408_soldiers_detain_shadi_sider
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