Detention of Palestinian Youths in East Jerusalem

On the night of December 15, 1976, the Special Task Authority (Latam) of the Jerusalem police carried out a number of arrests among the young people of East Jerusalem and its suburbs. The arrests may be described as an outcome of the eruption of militancy elsewhere, i.e. in Nablus, Ramallah and other places. It needs to be stressed that repression in places indicated was meted out in a more bald-faced and unwavering manner than in Jerusalem. For instance, on the morning of December 14, a number of female high school students were arrested in Ramallah while taking part in a demonstration. Three girls whose cases have come to our attention were brought on the same day to an army judge and sentenced to three months in jail or a fine of IL 10,000. The newspapers of East Jerusalem were for the most part prevented by press censorship from reporting these events. By perusing the daily Israeli press, we managed, however, to find out that the punishment administered to the three girls is now being used as a fixed standard for all "offences" of comparable nature. (At the same time, however, all the Hebrew newspapers of the next day conspicuously carried a picture of "I.D.F. soldiers assisting a midwife in Kalandia...").