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Christian peace activist in Israel released after 17 days in detention
Episcopal News Service
Issue:
Section:
2003-124B
Posted: Thursday, June 05, 2003
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A group of Christian peace activists based in the West Bank has succeeded in getting one of their members released from detention by the Israeli authorities and preventing his deportation.
Greg Rollins, a Canadian volunteer with the Christian Peacemaker Team, was freed late on June 4 after spending 17 days in a prison in Ramla, Israel. 'I am planning to go back to work next week,' the 30-year-old Rollins told ENI.
A Mennonite Christian from Surrey, British Columbia, Rollins has been a volunteer for the past two years in the divided West Bank city of Hebron, attempting to help make peace between Palestinians and Jewish settlers. The West Bank lies to the west of the River Jordan and is an area, mostly inhabited by Palestinians, occupied by Israel in 1967.
Members of CPT base themselves there in the hope of preventing clashes in a city which has frequently been a flashpoint for violence and where the vast majority of the population is Palestinian, but there is also a minority of Israeli settlers.
Rollins said his arrest was still a mystery to him but said he believed he may have been a victim of a general Israeli crackdown against foreign peace activists working in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 'They never said what they thought I should be accused of, they never charged me,' he said. During his detention, he shared a cell with five others and was allowed only a half-hour a day in the outside courtyard. Rollins' lawyer, Jonathan Katab, said the peace activist had been arrested while trying to cross into the Palestinian-controlled section of Hebron.
Israel's crackdown against peace activists began after two Britons organized a suicide bombing in May in a cafe in Tel Aviv. They were reported to have posed as volunteers for the International Solidarity Movement, which says it uses non-violent means to resist Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory.
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