Girl Arrested at Checkpoint Says She Was Severely Beaten

“The treatment of the officers was very cruel. I was not even allowed to see to my family, which added to my psychological distress.” - Muntaha Heeh, 21, a kindergarten teacher in Beit Ummar

Amin Shoman Head, Palestinian Prisoner's Committee

(HEBRON WAFA) - Muntaha Heeh, 21, arrested last month at an Israeli army checkpoint outside Hebron, told a prisoners’ advocacy group that she was severely beaten and tortured during her month long detention, according to a report published Saturday.

Ahrar Center for Prisoners’ Studies said that Heeh told the center in an affidavit that she was tortured and severely beaten all the time she was in detention and may have suffered an internal kidney bleeding as a result.

Heeh, from the village of Surief near Hebron, was arrested during an army search of a taxi. She was charged with attempt to stab a soldier, which she had denied and her lawyer had accused the army of fabricating the incident to justify the charge against her. She was released on Tuesday on a $1500 bail until trial.

Her father said then that the soldiers harassed his daughter in the taxi in a provocative manner and so she slapped one of them in the face.

Heeh, a kindergarten teacher in Beit Ummar, north of Hebron, said in the affidavit: “I was severely beaten, deprived of any sleep, my hands were tied for a long time and I was beaten violently to a point I passed out and I am still suffering pain as a result.”

She said that while she was held at the Russian compound police station in West Jerusalem, she was severely beaten by officers all the time to a point one of the officers have caused her to suffer from kidney bleeding according to what a prison doctor has told her.

She said a female officer hit her one time on her head that caused her to pass out and when she woke up she found herself in a hallway and police with clubs standing around her. She said she began to scream from fear and pain and then one of the officers tied her hands and put her in a cell alone.

“I was held most of the time in a room alone in the Russian compound,” she said in the affidavit. “The treatment of the officers was very cruel. I was not even allowed to see to my family, which added to my psychological distress.”

Heeh said she was kept sometimes in a prison cell with criminals and therefore she refused to eat for days.

M.S.