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| Palestinian MP Khalida Jarrar |
Israeli forces raided Jarrar’s West Bank home in Ramallah
around 1 a.m. on April 2 and arrested her. They shuttled her to an Israeli
settlement, then to two military bases, interrogating her at the second all
morning, before transferring her to a prison inside Israel, her lawyers said.
On April 5, the Israeli military commander of the West Bank ordered her
administrative detention for six months.
“They attacked our house at
about 1 a.m. They broke the door… They isolated me in another room and stayed
in my house for about an hour. Finally they kidnapped my wife, Khalida,” her husband Ghassan Jarrar
said.
He added that the IDF violated an agreement with the
Palestinian Authority under which the Israelis are not supposed to detain
elected Palestinian officials.
Under Israeli law, the military can detain any Palestinian
without charge or trial if it can convince a military judge that the evidence
provides “reasonable grounds to believe” that the person poses a “danger to
security,” Van Esveld writes. “The military is under no obligation to share
that evidence with the person being detained. The military judge can approve a
military order detaining him or her for up to six months; the detention can be
indefinitely renewed.
An Israeli military commander later ordered the
administrative detention of Jarrar for six months, the maximum term Israeli law
allows a person to be held in custody without a charge or a court order.
The Fourth Geneva Convention on military occupations allows
for temporary detention of civilians without charge “if necessary, for
imperative reasons of security.” That’s an easy claim to make when the 400-plus
Palestinian administrative detainees are provided no fair opportunity to contest
the evidence against them, Van Esveld notes.
Jarrar -- a 52-year-old member of the Palestinian parliament -- is a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a political party that Israel has deemed an “illegal terrorist organization.” The party has an armed wing that has attacked Israeli civilians but the Israeli military hasn’t charged her with any link to such attacks. During her interrogation on April 2, Israeli officials played three videos of her making speeches and questioned her about her political statements, Jarrar later told her lawyer.
Jarrar is no stranger to Israeli harassment. Israel has
banned her from traveling abroad since 1998, although it allowed her to receive
medical treatment in Jordan in 2010. Last August, the military issued a
“supervision order” requiring her to leave her home and stay in Jericho for six
months on the basis that she posed a security threat due to her alleged
“incitement and involvement in terror.” She ignored the order and set up a
protest tent outside the Palestinian parliament in Ramallah; the military later
shortened her expulsion to 30 days and took no further action to enforce it.
Her position as a member of the team that oversaw the Palestinian
Authority becoming a member of the ICC last week led to suspicion that the
arrest may be a punishment. Israel has been fiercely
opposed to Palestine joining the ICC.
“If Jarrar broke the law, Israel must
put her on trial and prove she committed a crime. If, on the other hand, the
reason for her detention is revenge, she must be released immediately,” the
paper added.
Khalida Kana’an Muhammad Jarrar was elected to Palestine Legislative
Council (PLC) in January 2006 as one of the PFLP's three deputies and has
continued to serve as an elected representative ever since. She is also the
Palestinian representative on the Council of Europe and is currently head of
the Prisoners Committee of the PLC
Jarrar has been a human rights activist for many years. She is active in support of Palestinian prisoners and she served as the director of Adameer Prisoners' Support and Human Rights Association in Ramallah from 1993 to 2005 and remains a board member. She has also previously worked with UNRWA and has been prominently active in working with Palestinian women and advocating for women's rights. In 1989, Jarra was arrested by the IDF for taking part of a protest on International Women’s Day.
Since 1998 Jarrar has been banned from travelling outside of the Occupied
Palestinian Territories. She has two children.
In 2005 Israel refused to allow her to leave the country to attend a
human rights conference in Ireland.
