Summary
The former director of Ittijah whose arrest in May 2010 Stateless Citizenship (2013) takes as its case of the state’s response to the rise of Arab civil society: a travel ban issued without a hearing under the 1948 Emergency Regulations, a night arrest by the GSS and police, a raid on the Ittijah office in Haifa, twelve days of incommunicado detention as a ‘security detainee’, charges of assisting Hezbollah, and a nine-year sentence on January 30, 2011 (Stateless Citizenship (2013), PDF p.102-107).
Details
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As Ittijah’s director, Makhoul facilitated cooperation among Palestinian NGOs; much of his work centred on monitoring the restrictions on the Arab citizenry’s social and political freedoms, including its political representatives, denouncing these restrictions and voicing sharp criticism in Israel and abroad (PDF p.103).
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On April 22, 2010, at the Sheikh Hussein Bridge terminal, he was informed that the Interior Ministry had issued an order on April 21 prohibiting him from exiting the country for two months, based on Regulation 6 of the Emergency Regulations – Foreign Travel Law (1948) and issued without “any prior suitable, transparent and fair hearing”; the order violates even Israeli laws on freedom of movement and due process (PDF p.103).
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At 3:10 am on May 6, around sixteen members of the GSS and the Israeli police entered the Makhoul family home and arrested him; the same night the security services raided the Ittijah office in Haifa, and the GSS confiscated personal items belonging to Makhoul, his wife and two daughters, including office equipment, documents, computer databases, maps, the family’s mobile phones, laptops, a camera and a tape recorder (PDF p.103, citing Adalah’s May 10, 2010 press release on the lifting of the gag order).
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The case completed (part 3): a gag order barred Israeli media coverage of the arrest, and for twelve days Makhoul was held in incommunicado detention, prevented from meeting a lawyer as the Petakh Tikva Magistrates’ Court continuously rejected his defence team’s appeals; as a ‘security detainee’ his hearings were held in his absence, “secret information” was traded between the court and the GSS, and all information on the investigation and on his medical and physical condition was classified (Stateless Citizenship (2013), PDF p.104).
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On May 16 his defence team announced they would not participate in the detention hearing if he was not permitted to meet his lawyers — Adalah: “the legal system is simply a rubber stamp for the Shabak” — the first time in Israel’s history a defence team had threatened to boycott proceedings after being denied access to their client (PDF p.105-106).
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The prohibition was lifted on May 18; the defence then found his interrogators had employed “prohibited methods of interrogation in violation of the absolute prohibition on torture under international law and Israeli Supreme Court decisions”, detailed in Adalah’s account of sleep deprivation and shackling to an undersized bolted chair (PDF p.106-107).
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On May 27 he was charged with “assistance to the enemy in a time of war, conspiracy to assist an enemy [and here they mainly mean Hezbollah], aggravated espionage, and contact with a foreign agent”, which he categorically denied; prosecutors announced ‘secret evidence’ and a videotaped admission the defence said was made under duress. On January 30, 2011 he was sentenced to nine years in prison, one of them a suspended sentence (PDF p.106-107).
Related pages
Stateless Citizenship (2013), Ittijah, British Emergency Regulations