A 16-year-old who rebelled

Submitted by SJW on 10 April, 2018 - 7:23 Author: Ira Berkovic

Ahed Tamimi, a 17-year-old Palestinian woman, was filmed slapping and kicking Israeli soldiers outside her home in response to their repression of a demonstration in December 2017, when she was 16.

She was arrested and jailed, and has now struck a plea bargain to serve eight months in jail, with a NIS5,000 fine (around £1,000).

According to the Israeli human rights campaign B’Tselem, this is an example of ongoing mistreatment.

B’Tselem says: “The conviction rate in Israel’s military courts in the West Bank is almost 100% — not because the military prosecution is so efficient, but because Palestinian defendants reluctantly sign plea bargains in which they plead guilty.”
The campaign has argued that new military courts, such as the Military Juvenile Court, have been established primarily as part of a public relations exercise by Israel, and exist mainly to rubber stamp plea bargains defendants are pressurised into making outside the courtroom:

“Almost all minors sign the plea bargains, having been left little choice by the military courts-- detention policy: most minors are held in custody from the time of their arrest and until they finish serving their sentence...

“Even in the extremely unlikely case that they are acquitted, the time they spent in custody throughout the trial may be just as long, or even longer, than the time they will spend in prison under a plea bargain.”

As of 28 February 2018, Israeli prisons held 356 Palestinian minors in custody: 95 serving a prison sentence, 257 in pre- or post-indictment detention, with four held in administrative detention.

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