ISRAEL: Fifth prison term for conscientious objector Daniel Tsalv

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Last week conscientious objector Daniel Tsal (ISR14204) was again sentenced to 28 days in military prison - his fifth consecutive prison term for refusing to enlist. Before being imprisoned Tsal was summoned to a meeting with the commandant of the Army's Induction Centre at Tel Ha'shomer, who implored him to recant and join the army - and threatened that, since Tsal was "a political refuser", his continued refusal would result in "a long prison term". As he did on previous occasions, Tsal answered that he regards opposition to the occupation not as choice but as moral duty - and was sent off to Military Prison-4, following an "instant trial" lasting about five minutes. The 19-year old Tsal, inhabitant of Tel-Aviv, is spending repeated terms in the military prison system since April 13, the date when he was supposed to join the army. At the end of each term he was again ordered to enlist and refused again. In every conversation with army officers he reiterated the points he had made in an Open Letter to the Minister of Defence, back in March: "The principles of 'the only democracy in the Middle-East' have been steadily eroded and rendered void, with the rights of three million people being daily trampled underfoot, destroying the foundations upon which the state of Israel was supposed to be founded... In historical times such as the present, a sane person must confront the system which enables the oppression to go on. I have a moral obligation - not a choice, but a duty - to refuse to take part in the occupation, to reject institutes which which try to abolish the most elementary of human rights. A sane person, who has not yet been overcome fear and racism, ows it to basic humanity to refuse participation in such an instrument of occupation and oppression as the IDF has become." Following his most recent imprisonment, Tsal added: "Since I first expressed my refusal, the army of occupation committed many additional violations of human rights: the destruction of houses and defoliation of fields, mistreatment of inhabitants at road-blocks, and also the killing of innocents, including children. Whenever I hear of such things I feel sorry and ashamed that the army of my country is doing such things - and happy that I am in prison rather then being part of that army." Tsal told that the first two days of his present term were spent in extremely difficult conditions: "Forty detainees held together, crowded in a single small, dirty and stinking cell. The toilet is inside the cell, and it is overflowing all the time, filling the entire cell with a strong smell of excrement. All around, there are piles of garbage which nobody cleans away, and at night mice and other animals roam the cell " Tsal told his parents. Only after two and half days was he transferred to another part of the prison, where conditions are more reasonable. "Let there be no mistake, I don't say that I was put there because of my political stand. This is a standard part of the military prison, and most of those imprisoned there are people who got in trouble with the military authorities for non-political reasons. And in fact, many of them are held in that hell for much longer then I was, sometimes for several weeks at a time. That place, officially designated as Mahlaka 5 of Pluga Gimel at Military Prison 4, is a place of infamy which must be closed down. But I am not surprised that an army which behaves cruelly to people under occupation ends up being cruel also to its own soldiers" says Tsal. "It seems that the army command has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They did not learn the lesson from the affair of the five refusers who had been detained and imprisoned, sentenced by a court martial and are imprisoned already for more then two years. The IDF command has not yet learned that you can't end or break the human conscience" say the refusers' parents.

War Resisters' International calls for letters of protest to Israeli authorities, and Israeli embassies abroad. An email letter can be sent at http://www.wri-irg.org/co/alerts/20040802a.html.

War Resisters' International calls for the immediate release of Daniel Tsal and all imprisoned conscientious objectors.

Andreas Speck
War Resisters' International

Addresses
Shaul Mofaz
Minister of Defence,
Ministry of Defence,
37 Kaplan st.,
Tel-Aviv 61909,
Israel.
e-mail: sar@mod.gov.il or pniot@mod.gov Fax: +972-3-696-27-57 / +972-3-691-69-40 / +972-3-691-79-15

Commander of Military Prison No. 4,
Military Postal Code 02507
IDF, Israel
Fax: +972-3-957-52-76

Commander of Military Prison No 6
Military Prison No 6
Military postal number 01860,
IDF, Israel.
Fax: +972-4-869-28-84

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