Palestinian teenage protest icon Ahed Tamimi on Wednesday was sentenced to eight months in prison for slapping and kicking a pair of Israeli soldiers outside her West Bank home, capping a case that sparked uproar in Israel, turned the 17-year-old girl into a Palestinian hero and attracted international attention.
Tamimi’s Israeli lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said Tamimi agreed to the sentence as part of a plea deal with prosecutors that allowed her to avoid more serious charges that could have imprisoned her for years.
Under the deal, she is due to be released in the summer. She is also being fined the equivalent of about US$1,400.
Photo: AFP
Lasky called the legal proceedings a “farce.”
“They are trying to deter other Palestinian youth from resisting occupation as Ahed did,” she said.
The judge agreed to a similar plea deal for Tamimi’s mother, Nariman, who has been charged with incitement.
“This is injustice, this court is designed to oppress the Palestinians,” her father Bassem said.
He said they agreed to the deal because they had been threatened with three years in jail.
Bassem had visited his daughter and wife for the first time in prison the day before.
He said Ahed spends her time doing school work.
An Israeli supporter of Ahed Tamimi slapped a prosecutor after the ruling and was later arrested by police.
Ahed Tamimi was arrested in December last year after video surfaced of her kicking the soldiers outside her West Bank home.
While some praised the soldiers for showing restraint, hardline politicians criticized what they felt was a weak response and called for tough action against the girl, whose family has a long history of run-ins with the Israelis.
However, the full-throttle prosecution of Ahed Tamimi, who turned 17 behind bars, has drawn widespread international criticism.
An Israeli official’s revelation that he had once had parliament investigate whether the blond, blue-eyed Tamimis are “real” Palestinians drew accusations of racism and helped stoke additional interest in the case.
The case touches on what constitutes legitimate resistance to Israel’s rule over millions of Palestinians, now in its 51st year, in territories it captured in the 1967 war.
“No justice under occupation and we are in an illegal court,” Ahed Tamimi said to reporters in court.
Her supporters see a brave girl who struck the soldiers in anger after having just learned that Israeli troops seriously wounded a 15-year-old cousin, shooting him in the head from close range with a rubber bullet during nearby stone-throwing clashes.
In Israel, she is seen either as a naive youth manipulated by her elders or a threat to Israel’s military deterrence. The incident also sparked debate about the soldiers’ refusal to act.
Israel has treated her actions as a criminal offense, indicting her on charges of assault and incitement that carry up to 14 years in prison.
Since 2009, residents of the Tamimis’ village of Nabi Salah have staged regular protests against occupation that often end with stone-throwing clashes.
Ahed Tamimi has participated in such marches from a young age and has had several highly publicized run-ins with soldiers.
One photograph shows the then-12-year-old raising a clenched fist toward a soldier towering over her.
Following her latest arrest, images of the girl became popular on posters in the West Bank. About 1.7 million people worldwide have signed a petition calling for her release.
The case has drawn attention to Israel’s military court system, which is used to try Palestinians in the West Bank. Israeli West Bank settlers are tried under Israeli civilian courts.
The dueling justice systems have drawn criticism from international rights groups.
The military courts have a near 100 percent conviction rate, in part because so many Palestinians agree to plea bargains.
Critics say the system gives Palestinians few rights and they are often coerced into plea deals. Hundreds of Palestinian minors are processed by the military court system each year.
“Ahed will be home in a few months, but Israel is putting this child behind bars for eight months for calling for protests and slapping a soldier, after threatening her with years in jail,” Human Rights Watch Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said.
OPTIMISTIC: A Philippine Air Force spokeswoman said the military believed the crew were safe and were hopeful that they and the jet would be recovered A Philippine Air Force FA-50 jet and its two-person crew are missing after flying in support of ground forces fighting communist rebels in the southern Mindanao region, a military official said yesterday. Philippine Air Force spokeswoman Colonel Consuelo Castillo said the jet was flying “over land” on the way to its target area when it went missing during a “tactical night operation in support of our ground troops.” While she declined to provide mission specifics, Philippine Army spokesman Colonel Louie Dema-ala confirmed that the missing FA-50 was part of a squadron sent “to provide air support” to troops fighting communist rebels in
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
ECONOMIC DISTORTION? The US commerce secretary’s remarks echoed Elon Musk’s arguments that spending by the government does not create value for the economy US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick on Sunday said that government spending could be separated from GDP reports, in response to questions about whether the spending cuts pushed by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency could possibly cause an economic downturn. “You know that governments historically have messed with GDP,” Lutnick said on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “They count government spending as part of GDP. So I’m going to separate those two and make it transparent.” Doing so could potentially complicate or distort a fundamental measure of the US economy’s health. Government spending is traditionally included in the GDP because
Hundreds of people in rainbow colors gathered on Saturday in South Africa’s tourist magnet Cape Town to honor the world’s first openly gay imam, who was killed last month. Muhsin Hendricks, who ran a mosque for marginalized Muslims, was shot dead last month near the southern city of Gqeberha. “I was heartbroken. I think it’s sad especially how far we’ve come, considering how progressive South Africa has been,” attendee Keisha Jensen said. Led by motorcycle riders, the mostly young crowd walked through the streets of the coastal city, some waving placards emblazoned with Hendricks’s image and reading: “#JUSTICEFORMUHSIN.” No arrest
RSS