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Freedom for Tali Fahima

A new international petition for Tali Fahima is gathering momentum, Some 500 peace activists from Israel and abroad, including the 1976 Nobel Peace Laureate from Northern Ireland, Mairead Corrigan, are calling for the isolation imposed on her to be lifted. The petition quotes the Haaretz editorial from February 6. The editorial was critical of the decision by Justice Elyakim Rubinstein to overturn a decision by Tel Aviv District Court judge Zvi Garfinkel, to make do with house arrest for the Jerusalem peace activist after she had been held in administrative detention since the previous August.

Fahima is accused of illegally entering Jenin, staying in the home of the wanted man Zakariye Zubeidi, and of helping him understand the Hebrew in a classified army document that fell into his hands during an army operation in the city. The Haartz editorial said that Rubinstein's decision was "unreasonable and disproportionate and shows that when it comes to denying a person freedom before being found guilty, the constitutional revolution is only to be found on paper."

Knowingly or not, Rubinstein not only denied the freedom of a woman who has never been convicted of anything, but also imposed on her long months of isolation, a punishment usually reserved for assassins of prime ministers or atomic spies. The Prison Service defined Fahima as "requiring protection," so the prison authorities isolate her from Jewish prisoners. The Shin Bet calls her a "security risk" so prohibits her from mingling with Arab prisoners. Her lawyer, Smadar Ben Natan, says that if all that was not enough, the wardens prevent Fahima from exchanging any words with the prisoners in the cells next to hers, prevent her from making telephone calls and only allow her to meet visitors through a glass partition.

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(C) Ha'aretz