CPTnet
28 April 2007
BIL'IN, WEST BANK: Twenty-four injured at demonstration marking end of
Bil'in Conference

by Sean O'Neill

Israeli forces injured twenty-four demonstrators, including Nobel Peace
Prize recipient Mairead Maguire, at a nonviolent demonstration last Friday
marking the end of the second annual Bil'in Conference on Nonviolent
Popular Resistance.

Three members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, Kathie Uhler, Mary
Wendeln, and Sean O'Neill, participated in the three-day conference
organized by the Bil'in Popular Committee and attended by several hundred
Palestinians, Israelis, and internationals. Speakers at the conference
included Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, the Minister of Information in the
Palestinian national unity government; Dr. Ilan Pappe, head of the
department of political science at the University of Haifa; and Mairead
Maguire, 1976 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, among many others. At an
awards ceremony, CPT along with other international accompaniment
organizations received a certificate of appreciation from the Palestinian
National Authority for its work in the region. The conference ended with a
peaceful demonstration on Friday afternoon. Similar demonstrations in the
village of Bil'in have taken place every Friday for the last two years
protesting the building of the Separation/Apartheid wall through village
land.

Israeli soldiers positioned about 100 meters in advance of the fence
responded violently to the marchers immediately upon their arrival with
tear gas, percussion grenades, and rubber-coated bullets. Demonstrators
stood together with their hands high in the air, shouting at the soldiers
not to shoot. However, soldiers shot into the crowd, hitting Maguire with a
rubber-coated bullet as she sat on the ground with her hands raised. Also
injured was long-time CPT friend Arwa Abu Haikel whom Israeli soldiers shot
in the foot with a rubber-coated bullet. Palestinian medics took away
twenty-four demonstrators in ambulances.

Also of note, Alberto de Jesus, a prominent peace activist from Puerto
Rico, succeeded in climbing a 100 meter high communications tower just on
the other side of the fence and planting a Palestinian flag at the top.
Israeli authorities arrested him upon descent. Police arrested four
people in all, including an Israeli member of the press and a French peace
activist who had come for the conference.

Maguire later commented, "This is terrible what's happening here to the
Palestinians. They're suffering so much - and they can't even have a voice
to nonviolently protest against what's happening to them. It's a
disgrace, it's a disgrace what's happening to the Palestinians."