There are no spoken words, just a lot of emotions expressed. A grand short animated movie. Be the change you want to see, be the person standing up for equality and the right to be who you are. Hugs. Scottie
My Shadow is Pink is about a young boy, born with a pink shadow that loves princess, dresses & “things not for boys”. This is a story of daring to be different, and having the courage to be true to yourself.
Created by Scott Stuart.
The picture book “My Shadow is Pink” was released by Larrikin House in 2020 and has gone on to become a best-seller globally. “My Shadow is Purple” comes out May 2022.
I have no more words left, only anger. Hugs. Scottie
30 Palestinian child detainees were released on Tuesday morning, as part of the prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian Resistance and the Israeli government.
Mohammed Nazzal, from the city of Qabatiya, was one of them. Soon after his release, he was moved to the emergency room of the Ibn Sina Hospital in the city of Jenin.
Mohammed was severely injured in both his hands due to the beating by Israeli soldiers in the Negev prison, one week ago. The hand fractures were deliberately neglected by the Israeli Prison Service, which led to complications in the child’s right hand.
“One week ago, we were savagely beaten with metal bars. I put my hands on my head to protect it from injury, but the soldiers did not stop until they broke my hands,” Mohammed added.
They waited for the journalists to leave, then the police call and told the family they would be arrested again if their interview aired. The family called the report in panic. Tells me two things, they are watching the families and they do not want the truth out in the world. Like all abusers, they want it to be their dirty little secret between them and the abused. Hugs. Scottie
Freed Palestinians spoke about the grave conditions they faced while in prison. More Palestinians are expected to be released as part of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas. But there are concerns among who have already been freed about the never ending intimidation and threats of being arrested again.
Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid sat-down with three recently freed Palestinian prisoners in the Occupied West Bank.
A Palestinian child describes how he and his family were trapped in their home for five days at the start of Israel’s attack on Gaza. He said that if anyone went outside, the soldiers shot them, killing them. When they took the house they made sure to damage it as much as possible to make it unlivable, then they forced everyone including the women to come out naked, then allowed them to redress, took them to separate places where they beat him and those with him. The US and western governments are supporting Israel on this. Why? Over 18,000 Palestinians dead, many more wounded. All because Israel lost less than 1,200 in the Hamas attack. Israel got their pound of flesh and a hell of a lot more. Hugs
“They kidnapped us in a house and violently beat us.”
WATCH: The testimony of a Palestinian child, who was released after days of being detained with others by Israeli forces in the Zaytun neighbourhood in Gaza city, after his home was stormed and Israeli soldiers “bombed it all and shot at the walls”.
“The women were taken to another unknown place. We didn’t know anything about them.”
Mohammad Mahmoud Saleem described being strip-searched, before Israeli forces took the men and women to separate unknown houses, saying that he doesn’t know the whereabouts of his mother and younger siblings.
So the haters again got what they wanted. This is terrorism. They got something they hate / dislike shut down even though it was not harming anyone. Plus tell me how it is “protecting the children” to threaten to blow them up? I think we need to stop giving in to the threats. The bomb threats always turn out false, no bomb, and yet the events get cancelled. I am an atheist, a few weekends ago a church sent squads of believers in to our park without permission and they went door to door bothering people. Does that give me the right to threaten their church or them? This attempt to control what other people can do, see, hear, places they can attend, and how they dress is Taliban shit. It is horrible. Why? So a group of regressive people can be happy by forcing the world to be just like them? Hugs. Scottie
A popular restaurant and bar in Takoma Park, Maryland, received bomb threats on Saturday morning over a drag brunch and story time event. The restaurant, Motorkat, bills itself as “a safe space for people of all orientations and backgrounds.
Motorkat was forced to cancel the drag brunch to keep its patrons safe, the restaurant said in the release. Those with tickets will get a full refund.
Police were emailed a bomb threat toward attendees at the restaurant’s drag event, and the police department and a bomb squad “swiftly responded to the threat, ensuring the safety of both patrons and staff,” Motorkat said.
Because drag brunch and story hours harms children but threatening to kill children, their parents and drag queens does not. How the warped conservative mind works.
The threat was emailed to the police, not the restaurant, that is odd…and probably from a local source. Email should be easy to trace. Even if sent from a public library computer, time stamps and security cameras everywhere will help identify the terrorist. But if a maga police officer receives (or even sent) it will the electronic trail be lost like a rape victim’s DNA kit?
Exactly my thoughts! How dumb do you have to be to email a threat? It could easily be traced back to the sender. But on the other hand, right-wingers are not known for their intellect.
Technically, it can be traced back to the IP address from which it was sent, not the person. That said, it’s not 100% true that an email can always be tracked back to the actual IP address, either. (And yes, I used to be a tech guy who worked with people occasionally tasked with tracking the source of an email – which usually led to some student spoofing the identity of a person of authority.)
Takoma Park and the rest of Montgomery County are fairly liberal areas right up against D.C. I’m worried that there aren’t “safe places” anymore. Maybe the concept was always an illusion.
Perhaps a few high profile prosecutions and harsh prison sentences will convince people that making terrorist threats doesn’t qualify as “free speech”?
Takoma Park is as blue as it gets. It’s probably Indigo. If a drag brunch is threatened by a bomb, shows that this is a very serious threat to the LBTQIA community.
I just watched an upsetting movie on Netflix last night about Americans turning on each other. So, one of my first thoughts was “did the email come from outside the police station or inside?”
Remember just a few years ago when this wasn`t a thing. Then the Repugs told the non-thinking rubes it was a thing, a very important thing along with CRT and “saying Gay”, etc. Though the rubes may have always disliked some of it most of it was stuff they never even thought about as being important until they were told it was. In fact now it is so important that a certain percentage of the rubes are willing to kill you over it to save our society. While they wait to be told what the next important thing is of course. It`s the time honored way the Repugs have always operated. Be afraid, be very afraid, only we can save you. You don`t need to think about it or ask why (as if you would anyway) drag shows are bad so get to work. Keeps the rubes occupied and keeps their votes and always works.
I think it has more to do with hatred and fear of transgender people than it does with drag. The ignorant dimwits involved in the protests and threats don’t understand that they are not the same thing. They think that drag queens=trans and that they are “promoting transgenderism” when they appear in public.
Grown adults, simply dressing up in whimsical, flamboyant costumes on a Saturday morning and trying to have some fun and help others do the same while they enjoy a meal. Sure, why not call in a bomb threat? That sounds just awful and depraved. Save the children! Christ on a cracker.
Yes, I personally feel like Putin has had more direct responsibility with these recent flare-ups of homophobia and transphobia than Trump himself, not that Trump was totally innocent. Also, the willingness of big sports stars and sports associations/leagues to sell out to Qatar, Bahrein, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and other sponsors/venues which are effing horrible for women’s rights and LGBT rights. This has been a big social back-sliding moment.
A possibly disturbing, but very accurate Parody about Ron Desantis’ version of public education. Lyrics and production work by The Freedom Toast – Video design and editing by Cinebot Video. Created for Parody Project Executive Producers for Parody Project Don Caron and Jerry Pender
Israel is preventing any celebration of the freed children and adults from Israeli prisons, at the same time the Israeli media along with the world has splashed the joyous reunions of Israeli families with the captives that Hamas released. See again how degrading and subhuman Israel treats Palestinians. No Palestinian / Arab family can rejoice that their child is home will whole towns hold parades for the Jewish / Israeli children coming home. It is sickening to me, and again creates more hate and ill will. Hugs. Scottie
In another fuck you to the Palestinians, Israel arrested all most as many as they released. Over the same days that it released some 150 Palestinian detainees, Israel arrested 133 people, nearly as many, from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian prisoner associations. Since October 7, Israel carried out 3,290 arrests in the same areas, which it has occupied since 1967.
Mohammad Salhab Tamimi, 18, was returned to his family on Tuesday as part of an ongoing prisoner exchange deal.
Mohammad was relieved and happy, yet subdued and traumatised by what he had been through [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
By Mosab Shawer
Published On 29 Nov 202329 Nov 2023
Hebron, occupied West Bank – After eight months in Israeli prisons without being charged or processed, 18-year-old Mohammad Salhab Tamimi was finally able to return to his family as part of an ongoing prisoner exchange deal.
His boyish face was serious as he embraced his parents and stood, slightly bewildered, as if he was unsure whether to speak to the press or not.
He had been through a lot in the past eight months of uncertainty, torment that only increased since the start of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on October 7.
The last thing he was told by the forbidding Israeli prison guards was that he would be rearrested and put back into the limbo of administrative detention if his family and friends showed any signs of celebrating his return.
“’Tell your friends [they said]’… If we have a big celebration, I will return to prison,” he recalled.
Wary of the Israeli military checkpoint and illegal settlement next to their home, his family kept their happiness on mute, with only the immediate family and some uncles present.
Shackled, kicked around, humiliated
Luckily for the family, smiles don’t make any noise, and nobody could stop the smiles on his mother Fatima and father Murshid’s faces as they held tightly to their “little boy”.
Mohammad with Fatima and Murshid, beaming with joy, but quietly [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
Their boy was among the fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners to be released from Ofer prison near Ramallah in the small hours of Tuesday overnight. Up to the last minute, he had not been sure what was happening to him.
At 7am (05:00 GMT) on Monday, November 27, a guard at Rimon Prison demanded that Mohammad get ready to be transferred to Ofer Prison. That was all; nothing about the reason why he was being moved. Just told to strip off completely, put on just a grey prison sweatsuit, and gather all his belongings.
“I put my clothes in one of those plastic envelopes and walked to the cell door where they cuffed my hands and forced my head down so I was looking at the ground.
“The officer then kicked me, hard. His boots have steel in them, so it felt like he crushed my feet, it really hurt.
“He dragged me to the prison yard but, as he was dragging me out of the prison, he stopped to take my clothes from me and threw them into a garbage pail. Then, cursing me with obscene language, he dragged me out,” Mohammad recalled haltingly.
Bosta rides can take 12 hours or more. There are no rest stops, food, or toilet breaks. “I was kept in the vehicle cell without anything to eat or drink until after midnight,” said Mohammad.
Mohammad was made to strip down and wear only a grey prison sweatsuit. All his other belongings were thrown away by a prison guard who was beating and cursing him at the same time [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
His father and uncle were standing there outside Ofer, waiting for him, when he was finally released in the wee hours on Tuesday so they could drive him home to Hebron in the south of the occupied West Bank.
A decision to humiliate
Things were more unpleasant than usual in prison after October 7, which was when Hamas launched a surprise attack from Gaza on southern Israel killing some 1,200 people.
People held in several institutions have reported severe beatings, denial of medical attention, lawyer and family visits, yard time, electricity, water, and hygiene essentials from the prison shop.
At least six Palestinian prisoners died or were killed in Israeli custody since October 7, including some shortly after their arrest.
Israel’s relentless bombing of the Gaza Strip after the Hamas attack lasted 48 days and killed more than 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children.
On the 49th day, Friday, a four-day “humanitarian pause” negotiated by Egypt and Qatar began. Both sides said they would release captives – Hamas would release batches of people it took captive on October 7 in return for three times as many Palestinians held – with and without cause – in Israeli detention facilities.
As the exchanges continued and optimism rose, the truce was extended by two days to keep the exchanges going.
Mohammad was very happy to see his mother, Fatima, again [Mosab Shawer/Al Jazeera]
Over the same days that it released some 150 Palestinian detainees, Israel arrested 133 people, nearly as many, from the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, according to Palestinian prisoner associations. Since October 7, Israel carried out 3,290 arrests in the same areas, which it has occupied since 1967.
Mohammad is not the first released person to say that there is extreme overcrowding in Israeli prisons.
“There were 10 prisoners shoved into cells that only had six beds. We used to have to spread blankets or something on the floor to sleep,” he said.
The amount of food they were given was insufficient, as it was also for six prisoners, not 10. The cellmates had to ration what food they got carefully.
Several prisoners were injured one day as well, Mohammad said, when prison guards attacked two sections of Rimon Prison
Aside from injuries and the reported deaths, Mohammad said: “The [Israeli] occupation had pretty much decided that they would humiliate the prisoners, ever since the outbreak of Al-Aqsa Storm.”
Cut off from any news of the outside world, the detainees found themselves stripped of almost everything, including all possessions that were in their cells like utensils and appliances, they used to make things a little more pleasant. They were deprived of buying hygiene supplies, including laundry detergent, and barred from using the washing machines to wash their clothes.
Prison authorities also kept the prisoners away from their only outlet to let off some steam – the “fora”, or prison yard, and prevented them from making any noise.
“I used to love making the call to prayer from inside my cell so the whole section could hear, but that too was forbidden.
“It felt like they didn’t want us to even breathe.”
When the 13 or 14 year old boy was released, the Israeli media made a big deal of him saying he was made to take off his clothing and was sexually abused. They don’t way what the abuse was but it is hinted he was raped. I am against the rape of anyone! Full stop. But that said, Israel and their supporters are deliberately ignoring the abuse, physical, sexual, and psychological / emotional, of Palestinian children by the Israeli government and military. Please notice the age of the Palestinian boy when he was detained. He was 16. He had been held for 2 years with no charges, and most children detained are denied the ability to contact family or their parents. Hugs. Scottie
At least five Palestinian prisoners reported dead from abuse in Israeli jails, according to testimony of freed teens
Osama Marmash, 16, speaking to Al Jazeera after he was released from Megiddo prison on Sunday 26 November 2023 (Screengrab)
Published date: 27 November 2023 13:49 GMT | Last update:1 week 4 days ago
Palestinian children freed from Israeli jails as part of a prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel said they were subjected to torture in captivity and that several fellow detainees were beaten to death.
The teens are among 39 Palestinians freed from Israeli detention on Sunday, in the third prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas, while the latter released 13 Israelis held in Gaza.
The exchange took place for the third straight day amid a temporary four-day truce in Gaza, the first such halt of fighting since the hostilities began on 7 October.
Khalil Mohamed Badr al-Zamaira, 18, was among those released. He was 16 when he was detained by Israeli forces.
He said Palestinian prisoners are being mistreated and beaten in prison, and there is no different treatment for children.
“They didn’t differentiate between old and young,” he told Middle East Eye.
“Two teens were transferred from Ofer prison with broken ribs. They were unable to move.”
Likewise, Omar al-Atshan, a freed Palestinian teen, said he was mistreated and tortured in Naqab prison where he had been held prior to his release.
“The mistreatment was indescribable,” he told Al Jazeera during a live coverage of the arrival of released prisoners in the occupied West Bank on Sunday.
He said that they were routinely beaten and humiliated in prison, and that water and food were scarce.
During their release, Israeli soldiers ordered them to lower their heads, and then beat them, he said.
“Our happiness is not complete because there are other captives still in detention,” he said, adding that one captive, which he identified as Thaer Abu Assab, was beaten to death in custody.
Omar al-Atshan speaking to Al Jazeera on Sunday
“He was subjected to too much beating. We cried for help, but doctors arrived after an hour and a half after he was already dead from torture.
“He was tortured because of a question; he asked the warden whether there was a truce. Then he got beaten to death.”
Four prisoners tortured to death in Megiddo
Another freed child, Osama Marmash, also gave a similar testimony to Al Jazeera.
The 16 year old was held in Megiddo prison before his release. He told Al Jazeera that four Palestinian captives were tortured to death in Megiddo.
Marmash said he sustained wounds to his foot and back because of beating.
‘My prison clothes were white but then turned red from blood stains’
– Osama Marmash, released Palestinian teen
“My prison clothes were white but then turned red from blood stains,” he said.
The food was very little, he said, and was often “inedible”.
He added that they were mistreated on their journey to the West Bank.
“The road was difficult. They turned off the air conditioner on the bus. We were suffocating,” he said.
The truce between Hamas and Israel is supposed to see around 150 Palestinian women and children prisoners and 50 Israelis held in Gaza be released over a period of four days.
Hamas, for its part, released 13 Israeli prisoners, including nine children, as well as four foreign nationals – three Thais and one Israeli-Russian.
US President Joe Biden said that that a four-year-old Israeli-American girl whose parents were killed on 7 October was also freed.
Hamas said in a statement that the Israeli-Russian dual national was released “in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts and in recognition of Russia’s position in support of Palestine”.
The Russian is the first male prisoner to be released by Hamas in the truce deal.
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Think about it. An occupied oppressed group of people not concidered fully human by the population of Israel. A group not afforded rights, civil legal protections, denied food, water, the ability to go where they wish when they wish. A group used for labor, cheap labor who can and do have their stuff taken from them by the majority. Labor that must be done when, where, and how the oppressive majority tells them. A group of people who can be attacked, harmed, and even killed by the oppressing majority with no right to defend themselves or justice after. What did we call that in the US? Yes we called it slavery, immoral, wrong. And yes it created anger, hate, and rage against those doing the oppressing in those being oppressed. That is what is going on and why Israel can not militarily destroy Hamas, they are just creating more enemies with every military act of destruction. Hugs. Scottie
All Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including children, have been subject to Israeli military law since 1967, when Israel annexed it.
Israeli settlers living in the same territory, however, are subject to Israeli civilian law – a crystal clear example of apartheid.
Despite the fact that international norms affirm that civilians, including children, must never be brought before military courts, Israel remains the only country in the world to automatically and systematically prosecute children in military courts.
Torture
These children, who are almost all boys, range in age from 12 – the age of criminal responsibility under Israeli military law – to 17, although DCIP has documented cases where children younger than 12 were detained and harassed by Israeli forces for hours.
Under international law, a child is any person under the age of 18.
Between 2016 and 2022, DCIP collected sworn affidavits from 766 Palestinian children detained by the Israeli military and prosecuted in Israeli military courts to track their experiences of ill-treatment and torture at the hands of Israeli forces.
Thanks to that data, we can say confidently that denying the basic human rights of Palestinian children is business as usual for Israeli forces.
Israel-Palestine war: Freed Palestinian children say fellow prisoners were ‘tortured to death’
Three out of five of these children are detained from their homes in the middle of the night, according to documentation collected by DCIP. Israeli forces show up at a Palestinian family’s home at two or three in the morning, break down the door, wake up the whole family, and drag the child out of his bed.
At that moment, 75 percent of children experience some form of physical violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers.
After that, nearly all children are blindfolded and hand-tied before being forced into an Israeli military vehicle en route to an interrogation centre, often located in an illegal Israeli settlement. During this time, that child’s parents have no idea where he’s being taken or when he will come home.
Upon arrival at an Israeli interrogation centre, 80 percent of children are strip-searched by Israeli soldiers. Then, an adult Israeli interrogator, speaking expert Arabic, interrogates the child without the presence of a family member or a lawyer.
In fact, there is no right to a lawyer during interrogation under Israeli military law. Two-thirds of children are not properly informed of their rights, and 55 percent are forced to sign documents in Hebrew, a language they don’t understand.
Detained without charge
Israeli interrogators place one in four children into pre-trial solitary confinement for the purpose of extracting a confession – a method deemed torture by the United Nations.
All of this happens before a trial – also conducted by Israeli soldiers in a military court. The conviction rate is higher than 95 percent, a number that tells you all you need to know about the Israeli military’s interest in justice.
The most common charge against children is stone-throwing, which carries a potential maximum sentence of up to 20 years.
Israeli interrogators place one in four children into pre-trial solitary confinement for the purpose of extracting a confession – a method deemed torture by the United Nations
However, many Palestinians, including children, are detained by the Israeli military without charge or trial, meaning they are held indefinitely in Israeli military prisons, a practice known as administrative detention.
DCIP has documented cases where Palestinian children are held in administrative detention for more than a year.
The Israeli military detention system, at every point, is designed to exert complete control over Palestinian children and their families. From the moment Israeli soldiers break into a Palestinian family’s home in the middle of the night, children know that their parents cannot keep them safe.
While many Palestinian children have been released from Israeli prisons this week, Israeli forces have been busy conducting raids and arrests every night across the occupied West Bank.
Even with the whole world watching, Israeli military brutality is operating with impunity, like clockwork, emboldened by the killing of more than 6,000 Palestinian children in Gaza, with only a handful of world leaders holding them accountable.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Israel-Palestine war: Freed Palestinian children say fellow prisoners were ‘tortured to death’Read More »
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