PALESTINIAN WOMEN POLITICAL PRISONERS

Affidavit Under Oath - Yaqeen Samer Mohammad Hasarmeh

Yaqeen Samer Mohammad Hasarmeh, aged 19, address: Albireh city, a second -year student at Beirzeit university - Broadcasting and TV Dept.

Yaqeen was arrested On 28.03.2004, at her home in Al-Bireh at approximately 3 o'clock in the morning by troops from the Borders' Guards and Special Units she was interrogated for 17 days at the Maskobiyeh interrogation center during which she declared a food strike and drank only water. After interrogation, she was moved to Telmond prison,and after that to another section. She was then moved to Navei Tresta . She survived the food strike and was finally released on 9.09.2004.

Yaqeen Samer Mohammad Hasarmeh, swear the following is the truth under oath:

On 28.03.2004, I was arrested at my home in Al-Bireh at approximately 3 o'clock in the morning by troops from the Borders' Guards and Special Units. A large number of Israeli troops stormed the housing building where I lived with my family .They surrounded the building and the area. All the soldiers' faces were covered with "black paint". The elevator serving the building was put out of order. My father awakened me and asked me to put on my clothes.
The troops searched the two-story house and ordered my parents (both aged 44), brothers and sisters (Dania 16, Iba' 12, Baha' 8 and Mohammad 5) to sit in the first floor of the house. There were two soldiers that stayed with their guns pointed at my family. (Mohammad was extremely panicked during the search while in the arms of my mother he kept his eyes shut the entire time. When my mother asked him why he was closing his eyes, he answered, "I am asleep, mama.")
The soldiers asked whether there was anyone else in the house and asked for our identity cards. Captain Shai was among the soldiers who came for the arrest. Captain Shai had brought with him a folder containing a photo copy of my university ID along with many other personal pictures as well as the arrest and the house search orders.
The soldiers quarreled about which vehicle to take me in and after I found out that the female conscript would not be in the same vehicle with me. I asked her, "didn't you tell me that you would be with me in the transport until the detention center?" She replied, "I will not be able to do that."
At first, I resisted getting into the jeep because the female soldier would not be with me, but then I had not other choice and was forced to get in. There were 5 soldiers inside the jeep, all the time they were laughing and playing with their guns. They were talking between themselves using many curse words in Arabic. When we arrived at Qalandia checkpoint area, the jeep pulled up and some soldiers got down while two remained in it. They removed their military helmets and talked on their wireless radios and then after 10 minutes we left.
When we arrived in West Jerusalem, the soldiers removed their bullet-proof jackets. I was not told where we were, but I knew that we had reached the Maskobiyeh interrogation center only because I had once before attended an extension session for my father when he was detained. I was taken from the jeep into the center and my handcuffs were removed., Inside the detention center, there was a policewoman watching television., I was put into a room for half an hour, during this time no one came in to tell me anything., Afterwards a policewoman entered and took me to the clinic,. The nurse asked if I was sick and about my medical history which took five minutes. After this I was taken back to the room where I was first held.
The policewoman and I fought, because she wanted to strip-search me and I refused., She told me that because I did not want to do be strip-searched, she would ask the interrogator to come speak with me ,The interrogator, whom I later learned was called "captain Solly", came in and said, "good morning, I am in charge of your file and we would not like to have your obstinacy as a starter,These are procedures and we have to search you .You could possibly have a gun or a capsule to pass to the young men."
Inside the cells, there were knocks on the doors, sounds of shackles, voices in the interrogation rooms; things that sounded like recordings,: voices of young people yelling, violent interrogation, and a dialogue between an interrogator and a young man.
The sleeping mattress was worn out and dirty and its cover was torn out. There was a single dirty blanket, and the cell would turn very cold at times and then very hot., The washstand in the cell had a high pressure water tap which makes you feel that your finger would be cut to pieces if you dare to put your hand under the tap and it works only for a short time.
After the third day I was moved to the clinic to have my blood pressure and temperature tested., The clinic was dirty all around, blood was on the ground, the bed cover was dirty, and I was given a shot of liquid into my bloodstream.,
After six days, I was allowed a bath. The towel was dirty; the piece of soap available was very small. I was allowed only ten minutes for the bath in which you are supposed to take a bath and put on your clothes.
I was taken to the clinic once again on the fifth day when my condition deteriorated.,The nurse was trying to give me a shot but could not locate my veins and I bled all over my clothes, the bed and the ground.
Interrogator Solly was telling me: "Don't throw yourself into hellfire, you want to die?" He questioned whether I had any connection with Hizbullah. The interrogator said that they and I agree on the annihilation of Israel. He asked: "do you have relation with Al-Qaeda , Jihad Islami, or with Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines?"
During the interrogation I was threatened with:,Blowing up my house,Arresting my father,Killing my parents, Moving me to the civilian women's section saying: "we would not care if they assaulted you", and those who would kill me were drug addicts.
I was slammed on the face, head and both sides of my head, and was threatened of them killing my 4 year old brother.

My father was prevented from traveling after my arrest and he was called for interrogation at Ofer. He refused to go for the interview if I was kept in the cells.
In the first 40 hours the interrogation went on continuously., In the three days that followed the interrogation lasted from nine o'clock in the morning all day and night until one o'clock in the morning.
One interrogator asked me about 25 people and I was shown pictures of young men and women from the university, their IDs numbers and places of residence. I denied knowing any of them. The interrogators used very vulgar words which put pressure on me when I heard them.
At the start, I was intensely stretched continuously but after stretching was applied to me from nine in the morning until one a.m.
1-Tense stretching in a chair: the chair has a high back while hands and feet are shackled. With my feet either tied to the chair legs or tied from behind, and With my hands tied together behind me either before the chair's back or behind it.

2-Squat tense stretching was introduced during the first forty hours which made my feet completely numb after three hours. I felt dizzy like I was spinning around. My back was torn apart from stretching and I could neither sleep on my back nor on my side as a result of the pain.

One interrogator was drawing circles on a board, each with a different person's name that I knew from the university. He drew lines connecting them to a circle in the middle with my name inside. He wanted me to speak about each person in the circles erasing each one after this, in order to empty the board of all the circles so that the interrogation would end up with the circle including my name left in the middle.
On the fifth day the affidavit was written as dictated to me by the policeman .
The first extension of my detention was eight days after which I woke up to find myself in a clinic where they gave me injections and made me drink "whitewash". The detention was again extended to 11 days more during which I was moved to Telmond prison.
In the room I could not tell the day from the night. I had two robes that I used to change to a different color in order to try and feel when it was day and when it was night. Before leaving Maskobiyeh, I was strip-searched and I had my hands and feet cuffed and the deposits. When I left through the door together with the officer, I took a breath of relief when I entered the vehicle when I saw I was alone, separated from the driver by steel, plastic and mesh.
While I was in the transport vehicle, Captain Tom passed by and said, "What’s up Yaqeen , life is fun and easy if we can understand it." He asked "don't you want to get married, continue your studies, earn your living without needing others' charity , complete the other half of your faith , be free and have children?" .
When I arrived at Telmond, I was again strip-searched and moved to section 12 which contains isolation rooms. During the next five hours, I stayed in the isolation room where the intelligence officer and the prison manager told me to get ready for the clinic. But before the clinic I was taken to the office of the intelligence officer who asked me about the nature of my file. They took my picture and made me an ID.

Yaqeen Samer Mohammad Hasarmeh
October 2004