A small protest took place in Bil'in village Friday with approximately
15 Palestinians and 15 internationals and Israelis marching against the
confiscation of land in Bil'in, and in support of a local Reuters
cameraman who was abducted by Israeli forces two weeks ago.
Emad Bornat, a local cameraman who has been documenting the protests at Bili'n every week for Reuters, and who supplied the material for the documentary film, 'Bil'in habibi', has still not been freed despite a military judge's decision yesterday to release him on bail. He is being held in detention while the army formulates an appeal against this decision.
These are the comments of a British ISM Volunteer on Imad's case:
"At the moment it's incredibly important because we have Imad who is still in the custody of the Israeli military. I mean, that's why we had the solidarity march last week, that's why a lot of people came this week, because he's not been released yet. And the marches are definitely going to continue until he's released — which, he should have been this week, but from what I understand, he's still being held. It's harassment in another sense, in that they're coming to get someone who is so high profile, all the internationals know him, the Israelis know him, and they've come to get him. It's a form of harassment, to let people know that there are consequences of you resisting. Even if you are some press guy who has lots of friends, and who everyone is going to be really concerned about."
The protest appears to have passed off relatively peaceful this week. The demonstrators marched to the gate in the wall which leads to the village where they sat for half an hour, chanting slogans to the soldiers, who refused to let them through. On the opposite side of the wall soldiers were firing tear gas and sound bombs. As the demonstrators left the march there was an incident in which they intervened to request soldiers to stop firing rubber-coated metal bullets at children, and the soldiers apparently stopped firing the rubber-coated bullets at that time.
