CPTnet
 6 June 2007
AT-TUWANI BLOG: A trip to the Kiryat Arba Police Station.

[NOTE: The following blog entry by CPTer Heidi Schramm has been edited for
clarity. It serves as a follow-up piece to yesterday's CPTnet release,
"AT-TUWANI BLOG: Settlers in handcuffs." To see Schramm's original entries
and accompanying photos go to http://heidischramm.livejournal.com]

Things went well at the Kiryat Arba police station today. It had the feel
of a school field trip, actually. Me and the boys going to the big city.
We had to drive to Hebron and walk up to the police station since
Palestinian cars are not allowed on the roads to Kiryat Arba. This meant
going through the internal checkpoints. Of course, they got held up at the
first one.

After half an hour, I called CPT Hebron and they were about to come down to
respond when the men were released. Apparently, a police officer [at the
Kiryat Arba station] called J to find out where he was. He explained that
he was being detained. The officer said, "Let me talk to the donkey who is
detaining you." They spoke over the phone and the IDs were returned
immediately.

At the station, we each spent about two hours giving statements. The officer
interviewing me was obviously upset that I couldn't say I saw the settlers
attack the police. He was also disappointed with the video because it was
taken from too far away to show faces clearly. He said CPT needs to get some
better cameras. Funny, because usually the police are the ones ordering us
not to film anything. But we all left feeling pretty good. We had a nice
lunch in the city, went shopping (the men wanted candy and socks) and went
back to the village.

While we were at lunch, J got a phone call from someone in the village
asking if they could borrow his tractor. A police jeep was stuck on a rock
and needed to be pulled off. After all the horrible things the police have
put the people of Tuwani through, they are still more than happy to tow
jeeps [for police officers] when they get stuck. It's unbelievable.