Deportations, Detention, and the ISM 8
New information necessitates a correction to the ISM update for the 19th. We have learned that the status of the ISM peace workers who have agreed to deportation is as follows: as of Sunday morning, Bill Capowski, Thomas Pellas, Saul Reid, and Alex Perry have returned safely home on Saturday. Daniel Knuttson was put on a plane to Amsterdam early Sunday morning and is expected a welcome-home at the airport in Stockholm today. Frederick Lind, according to the Danish consulate, is still awaiting deportation at Ariel police station, after having been brought to the airport and then returned by Israeli authorities. And Tobias Karlson and Tariq Loubani will be in Ariel, where they have been for 11 days now, awaiting a hearing concerning the ISM appeal to the Israeli High Court.
The complete lack of access to communication with the prisoners has complicated every step of the process for the ISM and its supporters. Those left in Ariel have had their phone cards, as well as writing paper and pens, taken away from them as punishment after their attempts to show solidarity with their fellow prisoners. Conditions at Ariel, which is a police station and is not designed for long-term incarceration, are less than ideal: flourescent lights are never turned off, and there are no outdoor or excercise facilities for detainees, so they are kept in their cells 24 hours a day. Needless to say, the conditions of the activists do not compare to the Palestinians around them or the thousands of others in the Israeli penal system, many of whom, are not even charged with crimes, but rather placed in administrative detention.
However, reports from those who have had contact with the activists say that spirits are high, and the primary concern was that at least 16 packs of cigarettes be brought to Ariel for the Palestinians to make up for what has been shared with the internationals. Donations for this or any of the other legal costs can be made through the ISM Legal Fund. More details are available at our website, www.palsolidarity.org.
Reports that activist Daniel Knuttson was too tall for his prison bed are as yet unconfirmed.