Mr. Hamza Abu Medeghem is Released After Eight Months' House Arrest for Participating in Demonstration against Demolition of Unrecognized Arab Bedouin Village of Al-Araqib
On 25 October 2011, the Magistrates' Court in Beer el-Sabe (Beer Sheva) agreed to Adalah Attorney Orna Kohn's motion to end the house arrest of Mr. Hamza Abu Medeghem from the Unrecognized Arab Bedouin Village of Al-Araqib in the Naqab (Negev). Mr. Abu Medeghem was placed under house arrest in January 2011 until the end of legal proceedings against him for his participation in a demonstration against the demolition of Al-Araqib.
Mr. Abu-Medeghem was arrested on 17 January 2011. He was then charged with obstructing the work of the police and assaulting a police officer during the demonstration. The court ordered his house arrest until the end of legal proceedings; this decision was based on the state's motion, which claimed that Mr. Abu-Medeghem was a danger to the public. In March 2011, two months after his arrest, the Beer el-Sabe Magistrates' Court accepted Adalah's motion to reexamine the conditions of his house arrest to allow him to go out to work to support his family. The court reexamined the conditions under which Mr. Abu-Medeghem was being held, and permitted the father of five to return to his work. Adalah is currently representing eight villagers from Al-Araqib in legal proceedings. Mr. Abu-Medeghem is a father of five children, and the sole breadwinner in the family.
The court issued its decision to end Mr. Abu-Medeghem's house arrest in spite of the vehement objections of the police, who claimed that he posed a threat to public safety and should remain in house arrest until the end of legal proceedings against him. Attorney Kohn refuted this claim, arguing that it was legally baseless, particularly given that Mr. Abu-Medeghem had abided by all the conditions imposed on him since his arrest, which demonstrates his respect for the decisions of the court, and since the evidentiary hearing are scheduled to begin only in May 2012.
Background on Al-Araqib
The nearly 300 residents of Al-Araqib, half of whom are children, have been living on and cultivating their ancestral land for decades. In 1951, the villagers (primarily of the Al-Touri, Abu-Medeghem, Abu-Freih and Abu-Zayed tribes) were removed from their land and confined, with all other Arab Bedouin tribes, to the Siyag triangle region of the northern Naqab. The Israeli military authorities promised the families that they would be allowed to return to Al-Araqib in six months. Throughout the military regime, which lasted from 1948 to 1966, the villagers attempted unsuccessfully to return to their lands that the state had appropriated indefinitely for military use.
In 1972, the Israeli authorities began to allow citizens to submit land registration applications under The Land Registration Ordinance – 1969. Finally, in 1998, the current Sheikh Sayyah, his children, and 45 families returned to their lands and began their struggle for recognition of the village by the state. Nearly 100,000 Arab Bedouin currently live in 34 unrecognized villages in the Naqab, referred to by Israel as "illegal clusters". These villages receive little-to-no basic services, including electricity, water, telephone lines, or education or health facilities. Israel views the inhabitants as "trespassers on state land," and is seeking to evacuate them in order to lease the land to individual Jewish farmers or cooperate with the Jewish National Fund (JNF) to plant forests. The land and people of Al-Araqib are threatened by the JNF's "Ambassador Forest" from the south and "God-TV Forest" from the west, despite the fact that all of Al-Araqib remains legally disputed.
The authorities began "preparing the land for planting" at dawn on 27 July 2010. Hundreds of armed police officers surrounded the village, declared it a "closed area", and ordered the residents to leave their homes. They then demolished all 45 homes in the village and uprooted around 4,500 olive trees.
In August 2010, in response to the initial demolitions, Adalah requested an immediate criminal investigation into the police's violent destruction of the village and the use of brutal force against residents, leaders and activists. The villagers, who in the intervening seven months, have lived in makeshift tents, are also using other legal channels to halt the aggressive government campaign of demolitions. Following the 9th demolition on 16 January 2011, the villagers sought and obtained an injunction against the JNF to halt its planting work in the village. On 20 January 2011, however, the judge denied an appeal to extend the injunction but recommended that the JNF not undertake further work until a final resolution was reached. Despite the recommendation, the JNF has resumed its work and the attacks on villagers have increased in both number and brutality. Many activists and villagers, both adults and children, have been arrested and injured but vow to remain and keep rebuilding until the government recognizes their rights to their ancestral land.
