PALESTINIAN WOMEN POLITICAL PRISONERS

Affidavit Under Oath - Mudallala Mohammad Bajis Nader

Mudallala Mohammad Bajis Nader, 41 years old, arrested 21.Janurary.2003 married with 9 children the youngest are Asma' 10 and Salah 9). The time was dawn when the military declared the area under curfew. It was winter when Mudallala was at home with her children and she had net yet learnt of her husband's arrest. Falah Nada is Mudallala's husband who was wanted by the Israeli Occupation Forces and arrested hours before Mudallala was arrested.

Mudallala Mohammad Bajis Nader, Date of birth : 18.02.1961, swear the following is the truth under oath:

I was arrested at my home in Wad al-Jinan in the city of Bireh on January 21, 2003. A large number of Israeli soldiers went to the home, but no one could say exactly how many of them there were, but that there was only one female conscript among them. we heard strong pounding on the door When we opened it, the troops ordered the entire family outside. After the soldiers entered the home and spread themselves throughout the building and around the neighborhood. They searched every person around including my children,. I requested to go to the toilet but the officer denied my request to go alone unless I was accompanied by a female conscript, which constituted as an insult to me. I was hand cuffed and blind folded and moved to a military jeep where the female conscript was.
I was terribly surprised with my arrest, and was panicked as they moved me from home to Beit El Detention center. The troops took me down from the military vehicle; they took a picture of me and let a doctor see me for a few minutes. I was then moved in a white civil car accompanied by a soldier and a driver.
The car was moving fast and the tape recorder was playing loud music. I asked the soldier where they were taking me. 'Tel Aviv' he said. The two soldiers were singing loudly the entire way while the car's windows were open in the cold and rainy weather. I asked that they close the windows but they ignored my request.
Upon my arrival at Maskobiyeh, my fears grew as the policeman asked me to remove my veil for picturing which I refused,. I was seen by a doctor and physically searched by a policewoman.
The female conscript was present throughout the interrogation sessions in which my hands and feet were not tied up. The interrogation focused on my husband's activities."
13 interrogators took turns on me during the sessions. At the start, interrogators told me that my husband had confessed about me., and I was asked about my husband's whereabouts arguing that he was a "military fugitive".

The interrogators showed me pictures of my husband in which he was pointing to weapons and hand grenades. One interrogator told me that my husband was arrested at night while the picture shows that it was apparently taken in the day light.

They moved me from the interrogation room to another one next to it where I was
asked to look through the "door's eye" where I saw my husband looking beaten and exhausted. I yelled and cried and they returned me to the interrogation room where I first was. I felt my stress level intensifying and the fear inside me growing. I then started to believe what the interrogators said was true and that I would spend a long time in jail, they told me my husband confessed about me.
Interrogators moved me twice from integration room to the room where my husband was being interrogated .Traces of beating were evident on his blue swollen face and hands .They told my husband that I confessed about him.

During the sessions, interrogators were, Cursing and calling me names they, Threatened to put me into prison for a long time, and to give my husband 45 life sentences.

Many pictures of me were taken during the interrogations., When I was in my cell one of the integrators would suddenly open the door and photography me as I was lying on the bed.

Interrogators spread pictures of my daughters, sons and grand children on a desk during the investigation and threatened me saying that they would keep me in the prison and never be able to see them again.

The period of my first detention was extended after six days, and I was prevented from talking to a lawyer during this session., My detention was extended 12 days more and I was again prevented from seeing a lawyers. Only after 18 days had passed was I allowed to see a lawyer for the first time.

For the first 26 days of my arrest, I was interrogated daily, After the first 26 days had passed, interrogation turned sporadic.,

On the 36th day of my arrest I was allowed by the interrogators to call my family for the first time at home and only for a few minutes, all the while the interrogators were listening to the call. I was crying when I spoke to my mother in-law and my two daughters

On the 45th day I was sentenced and moved from Maskobiyeh to Beit El court together with another girl. It was cold, and snow had covered the ground. Because of the awkwardness in which I was tied to another female prisoner, it was difficult to walk and we both fell to the ground. The soldiers continued to curse and call me names. My clothes were totally soaked and the experience was very hard for me. I was sentenced 9 months in prison with a fine of 2 thousand shekels. The charge was, 'giving assistance to my husband.'

I was moved to Ramleh prison after spending 60 days at Maskobiyeh.,During my stay at Maskobiyeh, I was moved once to Hadassa hospital.,

I will never forget the Maskobiyeh cell where I slept on a filthy mattress under the terrible light in the cell and walls with concrete protrusions, where the toilet was only a hole in the ground, the tap was sometimes dripping water and where the air vent was giving way to cold winds making loud sounds.

I was able to take my first bath 8 days after my arrest. I had to wash my underwear and put them on while they were still wet. Only after 38 days was I allowed to wear other clothes sent to me from my children.
As for the food, it was unpalatable and so disgusting that I lost 24 pounds during the interrogation.

At Ramleh prison, my youngest children (Asma' and Salah) tried twice to visit me together with a friend of mine. I knew that they reached the prison gates but they were stopped from seeing me because the visit had not been arranged through the Red Cross.
After 4 months from my arrest, I saw Asma' and Salah for the first time. It was a very hard situation as I could not touch, hug and kiss them. The children cried a lot as I did also. They stood on the outside edge of the visit room to gain a little height so that I could see them as they were too short. The policeman kept objecting to their standing on the room's edge. (Mudallala cried during her talk about that visit).
Salah, 9 years old, tried to show me a scar from when he fell on his knee.
There was a distance between the metal screens separating me from them. Salah told me that the military had returned twice to our house. On one of those times, the soldiers brought them out of the house.

My husband was given a 7-year sentence of actual imprisonment and a fine of 3 thousand shekels

Mudallala Mohammad Bajis Nader
October 2004