Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Demo'crazy' israhelliana

Britons held after raid blunder by Israeli police
Muslim women strip-searched before being freed by judge
Vikram Dodd, and Chris McGreal in Jerusalem
Wednesday September 15, 2004
The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1304820,00.html
Three British Muslim women yesterday told of their anger after Israeli
police burst into their room in the middle of the night,
strip-searched them and arrested them under terrorism laws.
The three - a Cambridge student, a teacher and a lawyer - were
arrested at gunpoint on Friday and yesterday were told to leave
Israel, even though the accusations have been dropped.
British Muslims yesterday called on the government to make an official
protest to Israel over its treatment of the women, one of whom has
recently worked at the Home Office.
The three - Hajira Qureshi, 20, Samra Ghafoor, 28, and Amina Shaikh,
28 - are expected to fly back to Britain within days.
At court hearings they were not allowed to know the police's evidence
against them, and a judge threw out the case saying he did not want to
harm them. They were ordered to stay in Jerusalem before leaving
Israel.
"They are only treating us like this because we are Muslims," said Ms
Ghafoor, a primary school teacher in west London. "We came to visit
Muslim holy sites and to offer help to a charity that teaches
Palestinian children."
The women arrived in Israel last Tuesday and stayed at a hotel in
Jerusalem's old city. At 3.30am on Friday about 20 police and security
officials banged on their door.
"They started ransacking our room. We were each taken to another room
and strip-searched by a female officer. Then we were taken and
questioned for about 12 hours," said Ms Ghafoor. "The questioning was
really silly. It was just over and over: what are you doing here?
Where do you teach? At one point one of the arresting officers did
mention something about terrorism but he didn't ask anything
specific."
The Israeli authorities yesterday refused to discuss the case, but the
women believe they may have come under suspicion because they were
planning to go to Nablus in the West Bank to help Palestinian children
as part of a charity, Project Hope, which receives money from the
Canadian government.
Ms Shaikh, a solicitor from south London, said that during
interrogation the Israelis realised they had arrested innocent people
but were too embarrassed to admit it.
Ms Qureshi said the judge's decision not to detain them showed they
posed no danger: "That shows we're not a security risk. The judge
himself said the evidence wasn't sufficient to hold us."
Their Israeli lawyer, Yail Nehorai, said: "The judge said these three
are nice girls and he didn't want to do them any harm. There is no way
that there could be anything against them because there is no way the
authorities would have agreed to them being freed and talking to
people if there were any chance they were terrorists."
Ms Qureshi won a six-week work placement at the Home Office this
summer as part of a scheme to identify young talent. She is due to
start the third year of a maths degree at Cambridge this month and is
an active member of the university's Islamic Society.
Its chair, Iqbal Nasim, said: "She went there for humanitarian
purposes. She's a very moderate Muslim, practicising, but far from
extreme. She speaks from her heart and is very sincere."
Massoud Shadjareh, chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission,
called on the Foreign Office to protest officially to Israel about the
women's treatment: "It is outrageous and racist not to allow British
Muslims to support Palestinians while British Jews can show their
support for Israelis by going to kibbutzs.
Ms Qureshi said the British consulate in east Jerusalem failed to
assist them beyond advising them to leave the country as soon as
possible.
"We got the impression they thought we were an embarrassment and they
just wanted us to leave as soon as possible. They did nothing for us.
They said there was nothing they could do," she said.
K
-- 
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations 
and epochs, it is the rule.
- Friedrich Nietzsche

 Muslim women strip-searched before being freed by judge
Dove sta il problema?  Sono state fermate e arrestate, perquisite e
interrogate, quindi rilasciate da un giudice e espulse dal paese.
-Stefano