Stop the Wall campaigner arrested as family condemns brutal treatment

Hassan Yasser Karajeh, a 29 year old activist in the Stop the Wall Campaign, was arrested by Israeli occupation forces in the early hours of Wednesday morning. He was taken from his home in the village of Safa, west of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. The growing success and popularity of the campaign has led to a number of arrests and harassment of its staff as they try to resist the spread of Israeli settlements and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.

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Reports say that soldiers broke into the Karajeh family home at 2.30 am and “terrorised” family members. Although both men and women were ordered to submit to strip searches they refused. A brother of the arrested man is a lawyer. Muhannad Karajeh gave details of the incident, describing how the soldiers entered the house and carried out an extensive search. Furniture and personal effects were smashed as the Israelis removed three personal computers, three mobile telephones and five bags of personal family documents.

According to Mr. Karajeh, his brother was treated brutally by the soldiers before being handcuffed, blindfolded and taken to an undisclosed destination.

The Karajeh family has condemned their son Hassan’s arrest and the manner in which it was carried out. There was no need for the soldiers to wreck the house and take the family’s personal property, they say. The family calls upon international human rights organisations to demand Hassan’s release along with the other innocent individuals detained by the Israeli occupation forces.

Hassan Karajeh is the youth coordinator of Stop the Wall, as well as a human rights activist, popular both locally and regionally. He was a youth ambassador for Palestine at the Arab Thought Forum and has represented a number of Palestinian organisations at many international conferences and seminars.

His arrest is one of a number made by the Israelis in an effort to repress Palestinian human rights activists who are speaking against the illegal construction of the Wall and the establishment of illegal settlements.