MK Gila Finkelstein (National Religious Party) issued a statement yesterday protesting the "intolerable conditions" of Noam Federman's incarceration. She listed her demands in a letter to Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz: Federman's conditions must be improved, he must be made to stand trial if there are charges against him, and he must be transferred to the Maasiyahu Prison, instead of "in solitary confinement in Ashmoret Prison, next to Arab [terrorist] prisoners." She asked that Mofaz - who signed the administrative detention order - take action to have the "other security elements" withdraw their objections.
A source close to Arutz-7 who met Finkelstein by chance several days ago, made her aware of the gravity of Federman's situation. At her office's request, Arutz-7 then emailed her relevant articles by Women in Green and Arutz-7 - and yesterday received word of her strong letter to Minister Mofaz.
Attorney Elyakim HaEtzni of Kiryat Arba, a columnist in Yediot Acharonot and elsewhere, wrote a strong article today about what he called the "shameful treatment" of Federman in the Hebrew website NFC. Excerpts:
"The ethical level of a society is measured in the way it treats its wayward sons - such as Noam Federman, for instance. Let us call him F., as in K. in Kafka's "The Trial." F. is not an innocent lamb, and in the distance past he was imprisoned for harming Arabs. But this is not what he is being punished for now. He is rather being punished for having had chutzpah. He used the legal experience he gained in the dozens of cases in which he was indicted (and in most of which he was found innocent), to advise others how to hit back at the system according to its own rules. When he disseminated a pamphlet with tips on how to get through interrogations, the Shabak and police apparently decided to teach him a lesson..."
HaEtzni recounts how the Shabak arranged to detain him precisely on the day that he was to take his final law degree test. HaEtzni also details how the police later served Federman with the present six-month administrative detention orders - with no charges stated - precisely as he was explaining to the Supreme Court why his house-arrest order should be rescinded:
"F. was taken immediately to Beit Lid Prison without any personal effects and without his family's knowledge. He has now been sitting in isolation for [over] two months, in a windowless 2x2m. cell (6.5 feet by 6.5 feet), banned from phoning his family or receiving visits from them. Requests to bring him a blanket, clothes, and religious articles have been rejected. After his appeal to the Supreme Court about his intolerable prison conditions was rejected, he began a hunger strike six weeks ago. F. has kidney stones, and sometimes urinates blood. The prison canteen is closed to him, and he is forced to drink water from a rusty faucet and tea from used teabags. The doctor demanded that he receive milk - so they allowed him one liter a week!... F. has lost over 20 kilos (45 lbs.), and cannot walk without support. For two months, he was interrogated in a 2x1m. cell, walls painted black, a bulb burning 24 hours a day, mattress on the floor, a hole for a toilet, cockroaches crawling on his body, and with no way to sleep. Now, in the Ashmoret Prison, the cockroaches have been replaced by giant weasels. In the cells adjacent to him are Arabs, who enjoy television, visits, and food from the outside."
"I am ashamed for the Shabak, the Prosecution, the police, the Prison Service, and my courts... I am ashamed for the legal community, the academia, and the other ivory towers of my country for their silence that reflects onto all of us the shame and humiliation that have become the lot of F. I am ashamed for the media, public opinion, and myself. And I ask Defense Minister Mofaz: Aren't *you* ashamed?"
Defense Minister Sha'ul Mofaz can be faxed at (+972-3) (03, in Israel) 697-6218.
The National Council of Young Israel has sent a letter to Israeli ministers and MKs expressing its concern over the treatment being accorded to Federman. "We fail to understand how Jews can be arrested as suspects in possible terrorist acts, placed in prison and held for weeks and months without being charged with a crime," the letter states, and continues, "Detaining individuals such as Noam Federman, without charging them with a crime, is reprehensible. That Noam is being held in a prison whose inmates are mostly Arab terrorists, calls into question the real motives of the arrest... We are deeply troubled that we need to bring these concerns to your attention."