Monday, August 10, 2009

Israelis Release Egyptian-American Student Activist from Ramle Prison

The Egyptian-American student activist, Sarah Hawas, was released from Israel's Ramle Prison yesterday after having spent one week in the detention center. She has been issued a deportation order and now has to leave Israel via Jordan within three days.

Hawas was arrested by Israeli security forces, on August 2, while demonstrating in solidarity with Palestinian families being forcefully evicted from their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem. She described the evictions at Sheikh Jarrah as being acts of “ethnic cleansing.”

Hawas, who has been visiting the West Bank and cities inside the Green Line since early July, said, “I’ve been released today, but the prison authorities still have my passport and personal belongings. I have to pick them up from Ramle" today Monday.

She said she was, “treated relatively well, especially in comparison to the conditions of refugees and illegal migrants that they are holding here."

Hawas had been briefly arrested in mid-July while participating in a campaign entitled the ‘International Day of Actions Against House Evictions and Demolitions in East Jerusalem.’ She was released, but ordered by an Israeli court to keep away from neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.

She returned, in defiance of the court order, on August 2 and was arrested along with 12 other international activists who were protesting the evictions. The other 12 activists were released on the same day; but Hawas was imprisoned and ordered to leave the country.

Her Israeli (human rights) Lawyer, Iftach Cohen, is attempting to appeal against this deportation order before a district court. Sarah Hawas is an undergraduate student of literature at the American University in Cairo.

Al Masry Al Youm - Israelis release Egyptian protester

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