EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF DEVIANCE AND

SOCIAL CONTROLESTABLISHED 1973

Coordinator: Emma Bell Secretary: Monish Bhatia

SPRING NEWSLETTER III

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Annual Conference Tallinn 2015

AccommodationREGISTRATION DEADLINE!

II. Comment & Analysis

Ida Nafstad presents snippets from her observational field research in Palestine

III. News from Europe and around the world

AustraliaUnited Kingdom

I. European Group Conference

Social Divisions, Surveillance and the Security State43rd Annual Conference of the European Group for the Study of

Deviance and Social Control26th - 29th August 2015

Faculty of LawUniversity of Tartu

TallinnEstonia

ACCOMMODATION

Rooms have been pre-booked at the following hotels for four nights (arriving 25th August, leaving 29th August). In order to guarantee your place, you will need to reserve one month before the conference at the very latest.

Nordic Hotel Forum (upscale) 105€/room/night.Viru väljak 3, Tallinn, Estonia15 min walk from the universityTallink City Hotel   (mid-range) 60€/room/night  15 min walk from the university, just 100 m form the Nordic Hotel Forum.Park Inn by Radisson Central Tallinn (mid-range) 65€/room/night17 min walk from the universitySee our website for more details: http://www.europeangroup.org/?q=node/47

REGISTRATION

PLEASE NOTE THAT THE DEADLINE FOR REGISTRATION IS 30th JUNE. PLEASE REGISTER HERE http://www.europeangroup.org/?q=tallinn-conferene-registration

CONFIRMED SPEAKERS

Kristina Kallas from the Institute of Baltic Studies (http://www.ibs.ee/en) and active member of the Estonian Refugee Council (http://www.pagulasabi.ee/en/about-us)

Monika Platek, Professor of Law, Warsaw University, Poland.

May-Len Skilbrei, Professor, Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo.

IMAGES OF ESTONIA

Some interesting representations of Estonia can be viewed here: http://kaupokalda.com/360/vanalinn/

II. Comment & Analysis

Letters from PalestineIda Nafstad

In the winter of 2014 I was in the West Bank for three months. I worked as a visiting scholar at the Ibrahim Abu Lughod Institute of International Studies at the Birzeit University and conducted fieldwork for my post doc project. The project concerns the relationship between state and non-state law in Palestine, and the impact the Israeli occupation and international donors have on this relationship. I did observation studies in the Palestinian criminal court of first instance and in the Israeli military court, and I conducted interviews with various persons affiliated with the state and non-state legal systems. During my stay in the West Bank I wrote letters every second week to people at home, my colleagues, friends and family, telling them about my research and daily life in Palestine. I have now translated these letters into English, and shortened them somewhat, in order to reach a wider audience with stories that can provide a glimpse into life in the West Bank.

This project has given rise to a number of articles that will be published soon – one about the impact of the Israeli occupation on rule of law in the West Bank, one about the role of international donors in the legal plural Palestinian society, and one on access to justice in the West Bank.

Letter 1 – Arriving in Palestine

Back in Palestine! It feels good, and so incredibly sad! The trip was easy – there was a direct flight from Copenhagen to Tel Aviv – but I was a little nervous. Passport control in Israel can be a challenge, especially when one plans to stay for a longer period of time, and when planning to go to the West Bank. It can imply interrogations and, in the worst case scenario, denial of entrance to the country. Luckily it went well. I was taken to the side for some additional questioning about what I was going to do in the West Bank, why I was going there etc. I passed the test, and was allowed to go pick up my luggage.

The easiest and cheapest way to go from the airport to the West Bank is to start with a shared shuttle-bus to Jerusalem. The bus waits until all seven seats are filled up with people going to approximately the same area before it starts. I was going to East-Jerusalem, the Palestinian part of Jerusalem, in order to take the bus from there to Ramallah in the West Bank. Several other passengers were also going to East-Jerusalem, more specifically, I found out, to settlements in East-Jerusalem. It turned out to be a long trip, through new and old settlements. It is a peculiar sight – these Israeli enclaves on Palestinian land, guarded by walls and checkpoints. I have been in East-Jerusalem before, now I could hardly recognize the area. There were so many new settlements – neighborhood after neighborhood has been built during the three years that have

passed since I last was there. Another new sight was the completed ‘Jerusalem Light Rail’. This is a tram connecting the settlements in East-Jerusalem with the Israeli West-Jerusalem. Several Palestinian neighborhoods have been leveled to the ground during the construction of the tram line, in the same way as the demolition of Palestinian neighborhoods takes place in order to build settlements. The UN Human Rights Council has denounced the Jerusalem Light Rail as a breach of International law and UN resolutions concerning Israel/Palestine.

Finally I got to Damascus Gate, one of the gates in the city wall surrounding old Jerusalem. This is where the main station for buses to Ramallah is located. This 14 kilometer long journey, between Jerusalem and Ramallah, lasted for two hours. It was already afternoon and the bus was brimming with people on their way back to the West Bank after finishing work in Jerusalem. Palestinians who have a special permit or a Jerusalem ID can work on the other side of the wall dividing the West Bank and Israel. After only a couple of kilometers, while the bus was still in East-Jerusalem, it was ordered to stop by four teenage girls in Israeli military uniforms carrying huge machineguns. They were standing on the sidewalk and looked bored. This boredom might have caused this so called ‘flying checkpoint’ – a random checkpoint which can be put up anytime and anywhere by Israeli military in Palestine. Two of the teenagers entered the bus in order to check the documents of all passengers. It turned out that something was wrong with the documents belonging to an old man, an old lady, and a young man. They had to follow the soldiers out of the bus, and were led to some bushes close to the road. When the bus started up again I could get a glimpse of the three former passengers among the bushes, sitting on the ground with their legs crossed and their arms in shackles behind their backs. The teenage soldiers were walking around smiling and laughing, seemingly unaffected.

The next checkpoint was the big permanent Qalandia checkpoint, one of the main gates in the wall dividing Israel and the West Bank. As usual, there was no control on the way into the West Bank. Except for the always present traffic chaos produced by the checkpoint, the crossing went pretty well, and we finally reached Ramallah.

In Ramallah, much is as I remembered it, but there was also much new. It is a more commercialized city now, with several new buildings and fancy shops. Even Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut have been established in the city. The streets are refurbished with new asphalt and cobblestones. It looks nice, while at the same time very expensive. For a Palestinian with an average salary it is not easy to settle in Ramallah.

Letter 2 – On the road

Last week I went to Bethlehem to speak with a man working with Sulha, the non-state conflict resolution system used in Palestine. Sulha is used at least to the same extent as

official law, and especially in grave cases as violence and murder. The goal of Sulha is not necessarily to achieve justice in the judicial sense of the word, but to restore peace and order in the local community. The trip from Ramallah to Bethlehem is a study in itself. If it had been possible to drive the fastest route, the trip would have taken approximately 20 minutes. Now, the trip takes at least an hour and a half but it is better to allocate three hours for this task since a lot of unforeseen things can happen on the way. Bethlehem is just south of Ramallah, but the settlement Ma’ale Adummim is situated between the two cities. Ma’ale Adummim, one of the largest settlements in the West Bank with 39 000 inhabitants, reaches almost halfway to Jordan and splits the West Bank. When going from Ramallah to Bethlehem, one needs to drive around the whole settlement, halfway to Jordan and back again.

When I was going back from Bethlehem the Israeli soldiers had closed the road just outside Ramallah. The soldiers were standing in the middle of a roundabout, pointing in all directions with their machineguns. The bus driver took a fast U-turn and drove into a small dirt road in order to avoid the roadblock. We drove through a factory, probably working with limestone or something similar. It felt like driving into a snowstorm. Everything was covered by a thick white carpet, the trees were white, the ground was white, and the houses were white. From there we drove the small muddy roads through a refugee camp, before we ended up on the usual road to Ramallah.

Ramallah is a bubble. Here, you don't notice the occupation and the every-day struggles of Palestinians. All the western NGOs and international organizations, the consulates, and the Palestinian government are here. This marks the city. In Ramallah there is a wide selection of cafés, restaurants, cinema and shops. Daily life goes on as usual.

This week has been marked by unrest on the West Bank. Settlers have attacked a school, private homes and cars. Palestinians have been arrested when trying to cross checkpoints. A Palestinian who attained Israeli citizenship as a reward for collaborating with Israeli intelligence was shot and killed. Every Friday there are demonstrations against the wall and settlements in several cities throughout the West Bank, and every Friday, also this Friday, the protesters are met by Israeli military with teargas, rubber bullets, and sometimes live ammunition. Many protesters are injured, and sometimes also killed. This Friday, a man was hit by a teargas canister, and another one was shot in the head by a rubber bullet, which in reality is a rubber coated steel bullet that can be mortal if it is shot from a close distance and hits vulnerable spots on the body.

Letter 3 – Palestinian courts and Palestinian resistance

Since last time I wrote I have visited a youth prison, I have observed in court, and conducted several interviews. The court in Ramallah is really different from what I am used to in Norway. The courthouse is an office-like building, with small office-like

courtrooms – no heavy symbolism here. It exudes bureaucracy and sober case proceedings. In the back of the courtroom there is a cage with iron bars. The accused person stands in the cage during the whole trial. Each trial, however, doesn't last for long. During an hour and a half last Monday, nine cases were up. Most of them were postponed. The accused didn't show, the defense lawyer didn't show, or witnesses didn't show. Of the three cases that were actually handled, only some aspects of the case were dealt with, the rest were postponed. It is not unusual that a case takes years to finish, and is handled in many sessions. It is difficult to get all the participants of each case to meet on the same day and time in the courthouse. Restrictions of movement are one of the main reasons for this.

While I was in court a grave case came up. A 23 year old man was accused of killing his sister-in-law and her three children. The accused had received threats, so huge security measures were taken. The audience had to leave the courtroom. The judge announced that defense lawyers were permitted to stay. The judged then asked us who we were (me and my interpreter). When we answered that we were researchers the judge changed his announcement and said that everyone had to leave the courtroom except defense lawyers and researchers. The accused entered the courtroom dressed in a helmet, which looked like it belonged to the First World War, and a bulletproof west, together with nine police officers, all armed with machineguns. Later I was told that last year some people had been killed during a court case in Ramallah. The case didn't last for longer than half an hour. Three witnesses were questioned, and the case was postponed to next month. The court wanted more witnesses. This was not the first session of the case. It has been going on for several months, with many of these small sessions.

Ramallah courthouse and a car for the transportation of prisoners

I have interviewed several interesting persons lately. Among others, I have talked with three Mukhtars. A Mukhtar is as clan leader, or a leader for the extended family. The extended family includes many persons, not only the closest relatives. The family of one of the Mukhtars was comprised of about 500 persons, while another’s family consisted of approximately 3 000 persons. The Mukhtars have a central role in Sulha, the unofficial conflict resolution mechanism. If a member of the family has a conflict, he or she will go to the Mukhtar to seek help, or if other persons have a conflict with a member of the Mukhtar’s family they might go to him as well. I have also interviewed the governor of Bethlehem, lawyers, ex-prisoners, NGO representatives, and the EUPOL COPPS (EU coordinating office for Palestinian police support).

One has to be well prepared here for any unforeseen events. During a day on fieldwork many things can happen. I had been on a meeting and a lunch in a conflict resolution center in Bethlehem. We had to eat fast because everyone at the center wanted to go to a demonstration. This day there were demonstrations all over the West Bank. A young man was killed the day before, in Birzeit, the village next to the University where I work. He was wanted by the Israeli military for membership of the PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine). This is the third biggest political party in the West Bank, with several seats in parliament yet Israeli military orders have declared PFLP an illegal party. The Israeli military had localized the wanted man in a house in Birzeit, but he refused to come out. In the end the military fired a grenade launcher at the house. The house was left as a ruin and the wanted man dead. There have been demonstrations at the university the whole week. In Bethlehem as well, demonstrations were planned, and everyone at the center I was visiting wanted to go there. However, before they got to the demonstration, the demonstration came to us. The center is located next to a big gate and a watchtower in the wall, and is therefore a common place for demonstrations. Young men and also some women come here to demonstrate, often by throwing rocks at the wall and the watchtower.

Watchtower in Bethlehem, and a Palestinian protester

After the demonstration and stone throwing had been going on for a while, a huge iron gate in the wall was opened. Israeli soldiers came out, and shot at the protesters with

teargas canisters. The protesters threw rocks and the soldiers shot teargas for a while until everything was silent again.

Israeli military firing teargas canisters on protesters

On the road back to Ramallah there were traces all over after demonstrations that had been taking place earlier that day. Outside one village, demonstrations were still going on. On one side of the road outside the entrance to the village Israeli soldiers were standing with their armored vehicle. On the other side of the road, young men threw stones at the soldiers. Burning tires were spread out in the middle of the road. The bus navigated elegantly between burning tires and flying rock, continuing on its way to Ramallah.

Letter 4 – The weeks of sorrow

On Friday I visited an old friend. She was recently released from an Israeli military prison. She had crossed the wall without permission from Israel, on her way to a family wedding on the other side of the wall. When Israel became a state in 1948 one part of her family ended up on the Israel side, while the other side found itself on the Palestine side. For crossing the wall without permission she was sentenced to six months imprisonment. This was not her first time in prison. She has been arrested several times for belonging to a political party, who according to Israeli military orders is illegal, but who is one of the biggest parties in the parliament. It was good to see her again, even though she looked tired and much older. She has been through hard times. But she is hard. She is not beaten down that easily. In the military court she denied having committed any illegal act. She claimed her rights, as a Palestinian, to move as she likes in historical Palestine, and she does not acknowledge the Israeli military court’s right to sentence her. The time in prison had been harder than last time, she told me, and the food is poorer. It is not enough food. If the prisoners need additional food they have to buy it in the prison cantine. The money the prisoners need to buy food is subsidized by the “Ministry for detainees and ex-detainees” in the Palestinian government, who get

their budgets from international donors. In practice this means that the Palestinian National Authority and international donors pay for the sustenance of prisoners in Israeli military prisons, who according to international law are held there illegally.

This has been two weeks of sorrow. Many have been killed. Last week, six Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military in a single 24-hour period. First, a judge was shot on the border between Jordan and the West Bank. This border, as all Palestinian borders, is guarded by the Israeli military. The same night, an 18 year old boy was killed, suspected of throwing stones at settler cars on the outskirts of Ramallah. The morning after, a man was shot and killed during a car chase in Tulkarem. The same morning, three persons were killed in Gaza. This week, the 15 year-old Yousef Shawarah was killed, after being suspected of climbing the wall. The day after, 18 year-old Saji Darwish was killed. He was a student at Birzeit University, were I work. When he was killed, all students and employees stopped working. The body of Saji was brought to the university to honor him, before he was taken to his home village for the funeral. It was emotional. Thousands of students and employees at Birzeit participated, shouted slogans and cried.

Honoring Saji Darwish at Birzeit University

Yesterday, we woke up to the news that yet another three young men had been killed by the Israeli military, in Jenin, north of the West Bank. Later that day, another man died from the injuries sustained during the same incident.

To grow up in an environment that is so fundamentally violent as it is in Palestine marks the children. A friend of mine here works to arrange a football tournament for children. She wants to give the children an opportunity to just play football, without thinking so much about other things. Because, as she said, the football the children normally plays is strange. They play martyr football or intifada football. The children are not only indirectly marked by the violence; they too are injured, killed, and imprisoned. On Tuesday I am going to the Israeli military court, to observe cases against children. Children can be judged in the military court from the age of 12. Those aged between 14 and 16 are categorized as “young adults”, while those over 16 are

treated as adults. Most of the children are sentenced for stone throwing, and nearly 99 % of all the accused are sentenced, mostly to imprisonment.

This has been two weeks of sorrow. For the Palestinians, life must go on, and there are bright spots. Yesterday it was the UN Water Day, and now it has been raining for a week. It was welcome. This year has been unusually dry. Everyone becomes happy when it is raining. Now, when the sun is back again the fields are getting green and it smells of spring. Water is a common topic here; it is much talked and thought about. That is easy to understand with the background information that Israel is taking 80 % of the water on the West Bank, and sells it back to the Palestinians at expensive prices. It is important to fill up the water reservoirs.

Letter 5 – Travelling the West Bank

I have traveled a lot the last weeks. I have been to Nablus, the Jordan Valley, Jerusalem, Hebron; I have been in the Israeli military court, in refugee camps, and in a village named Daharia in the south of the West Bank. It is incredibly easy and cheap (for me) to travel the West Bank. It is a tiny area. I will guess that it would not take more than four hours to drive from the north to the south if there were no roadblocks and checkpoints, and I am positioned in the middle. It is not far to travel anywhere. However, it is time consuming because of all the checkpoints and detours that has to be made because of the settlements and roadblocks, but it is not far. Servíces, small minibuses with seats for seven passengers go to wherever one wishes to go.

A few days ago I went to the Jordan Valley. I wanted to learn more about conflict resolution among the Bedouins in the Valley. More than 90% of the Jordan Valley is defined as a C-area in the Oslo-agreement. This means that the Palestinian National Authority does not have any authority in the area, neither when it comes to security nor civilian issues. Israel has the responsibility for all services to the population – education, health, welfare etc. – yet it fails to take these responsibilities seriously. Instead the inhabitants have organized themselves, and take responsibility, as far as they can, for all these issues. I visited an organization which works with securing welfare and civil services for the inhabitants in the valley. The two biggest problems in the valley are lack of water and house demolitions. Israel controls more than 90% of the water and the Palestinian must buy the water they need from the Israeli company Mekorot. The Palestinian pays ten times as much for the water as the settlers in the valley do. The water is so expensive that it will cost a farmer more to grow vegetables than he or she will get when they sell them at the market. One of the activities of this organization is to build houses of homemade mudbricks. They have also built schools and a health clinic. These mudbricks are ingenious in many ways. It takes few resources to make them. They are produced by mixing mud, straw and water, which is then put in a simple wooden mould, and left to try for four days. Then one can start building.

Houses made of mudbricks in a Jordan Valley village

Houses made of mudbricks are warm during winter and cool in summertime. Maybe the biggest advantage of building houses like this is that it might prevent house demolitions conducted by the Israeli military. The Israeli military orders and the enforcement of them are random. If a house is built of mud and not of masonry it is not considered a permanent construction, which requires permission to build. If a house has a roof made of masonry or wood, it is considered as permanent construction, but not if the roof is made of tin. Then there is a greater chance that it will not be demolished. If one manages to build the whole house before the military discover it, there is an even better chance of avoiding demolition. Most people are forced to use such loopholes. It is possible to apply for a building permit, but almost all applications are declined, and it costs 5 000 Shekel to apply – which is equal to about four to five months’ salary for people in the Jordan Valley. The material to build a house is cheaper than to apply for a permit, which is anyway most likely to be turned down. Sometimes the house is demolished when the military arrive with the demolition order; sometimes the owner is given three months’ notice; sometimes the house is demolished before the deadline; sometimes it can take months or years after the deadline has passed before it is demolished; sometimes the military do not come at all. It is impossible to know and a risk to take, but people need houses.

In one village in the Jordan Valley, I visited a family who has had several of their houses demolished, even the goat shacks. The house belonging to a son of the family was demolished without giving the family the opportunity to take with them any of their personal belongings. Everything was destroyed. The pregnant wife refused to leave the house and was beaten by the military, according to the son.

House demolition order

A demolished house

Last week I conducted observations in the Israeli military court. After having been there I am surprised that it is called a court system at all. There wasn't much that reminded me of a court case, at least as I am used to it. In order to enter the courtrooms, which consisted of four small barracks in a row inside a military base, I had to pass three checkpoints. On the last checkpoint I had to hand over my passport, walk through a

metal detector and be body searched by Israeli soldiers, and then walk through long gateways of iron fences, before finally ending up in something that reminded me of a courtyard in a prison. It was packed with people. They were families of the defendants, who had come to get a little glimpse of their loved ones before they disappeared for a long time.

Inside the barracks that represented the courtrooms, there was one judge, one prosecutor, a translator, and soldiers – all in military uniforms. In addition there were several defense lawyers. The reason why there were so many defense lawyers present is that four defendants are brought in at the same time. Each case lasts for about five to ten minutes. In order to get the job done as quickly as possible they collect four defendants at a time. The defendants I saw were mostly boys in their late teens. They came in wearing brown prison uniforms and shackles around their legs. None of them seemed to care about what was going on in their case. Something that is quite understandable. Everyone in the room was talking at the same time, people came and left all the time, and everything was in Hebrew. The defendants didn't say anything except to confirm their identities. A young soldier was supposed to act as a translator. He said some words to the defendants once in a while, but the translator was mostly busy playing with his phone. When close to all cases are settled in advance through plea-bargaining, it is no wonder that no one seemed to care about what was going on with their case. Still, the defendants were so happy. Everyone had a big smile on their face. Their families were among the audience. The defendants didn't even seem to notice that their case was going on; they were paying attention to their families. They were not allowed to talk with or touch them, and sometime the soldiers tried to stand in the way so they couldn't even see each other. They still managed to communicate. Everyone was talking and gesticulating with the help of body language, they were whispering and miming. For the defendants the court case is meaningless when it comes to defense or punishment. Still, the court case is an important event; they get to see their families.

Letter 6 – The Right to Movement

Happy Easter! Easter is not so noticeable here in Ramallah, except that we have two days off at the university. In Bethlehem, where many Christian Palestinians live, Easter is more celebrated; the same goes of course for Jerusalem. There have been some demonstrations in relation to denied access to Jerusalem for Christian Palestinians who want to go there to celebrate Easter at the holy sites. Except for that, it has been quiet lately. Yesterday it was Holy Saturday, which is celebrated with a light or flame ceremony. A torch is lit in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. The flame is then taken on a procession to all the churches in cities and villages throughout the West Bank. People use the flame to light their own candles to take home with them. In Ramallah, the scouts had the responsibility for the flame ceremony. Scouts from

Ramallah and nearby villages, in uniforms with flags and banderoles, bagpipes and drums, had a procession with several thousand people. The scout movement in Palestine is one of the first established in the world. It still has many members and plays a vital role in society.

Scouts parade in Ramallah during Easter

The scouts were also active during the Bethlehem marathon last week. They helped out throughout the whole event. Along the marathon route they had stations with water, dates and figs, they watched the traffic, and helped out with first aid. I ran the half-marathon. It was a fantastic event and experience. The slogan was “Right to Movement”. The West Bank is so geographically fragmented, by settlements and checkpoints, that it is impossible to find a long enough route for a marathon. The solution is to run the same route several times. We started running along the wall separating Bethlehem from Jerusalem, through a refugee camp, further to the next refugee camp, out on the countryside along fields of olives and citrus trees, and back again to the Church of Nativity in the middle of Bethlehem. It was a sunny day. People from all over the world, and international media were there. Al Jazeera had a long news report the same evening about the Bethlehem marathon, were they discussed the reasons why marathon runners from Gaza were denied traveling permits in order to participate. An Olympic athlete was among the excluded runners from Gaza. He has participated in marathons throughout the world, and as he said himself, to point out the absurdity of it, it would have taken him an hour or two to run from Gaza to Bethlehem. Israel conceived it as a security threat to grant him a permit. “Security” can be used in whatever situation, to deny anything, without a clearer explanation.

Right to Movement, Bethlehem marathon

Lately I have been visiting several refugee camps in order to talk with refugees about conceptions of violence and conflict resolution. There are 19 refugee camps in the West Bank. Most of them were established after what the Palestinians call the “Nakba” (the disaster), or the expulsion, in 1948 when the state of Israel was established. Many Palestinians had to flee their homes and villages. What they thought at the time was going to be a short stay away from their homes has turned in to a 66 year-long long exile. Refugees and their descendants still live in this temporary existence, with a hope of one day being able to return. The refugee camps, that are run by the UN body UNRWA, are still situated within the same geographical area as when they were established more than 60 years ago. With high population growth during these years, it is evident that the camps have become cramped. Balata refugee camp outside Nablus has about 28 000 residents living within one square kilometer. Such a densely populated area has many consequences. Private life does not exist, the unemployment rate is sky-high, as is the conflict level among the residents. In Balata, more than half of the population is under 18 years old. Activities for children and youths hardly exist. There are no parks or playgrounds, and the homes are too small to gather in. There is nothing else to do other than hang around in the streets. The streets are the children’s world. The youths are unemployed and have nothing to do. As one of them told me: “In the villages they have their land, in the city they have shops and factories, in the camp we have nothing.” The sale of drugs and weapons is widespread in the camps. The resistance movement has always been strong in the camps and they have many martyrs. This has led to the refugee camps being a main target for Israeli military control, with incursions, night raids, arrests, and murders.

Balata refugee camp, ‘If you’re not willing 2 die 4 it, take the word freedom out of your vocabulary’

UNRWA has the humanitarian responsibility for the refugees, and Israel has the military control. The Palestinian National Authority is absent, and conflicts are mostly solved through unofficial conflict resolution processes. Violence is so common that is has become a normalized part of everyday-life. The children are not playing, they are fighting, they do the same in the families, and people use violent language (this is a normal expression here that I am not familiar with in Scandinavia). The children are traumatized. They have experienced night-raids, rockets at their homes, shooting, killing, and everyone has a relative who is martyred or in Israeli military prisons. In Palestine everyone is carrying a history, a man in a refugee camp told me, and continued: “We cry every day, but what can we do, this is life, we smile all the time”.

Letter 7 – Empty Rooms

I hope you all had a good May first. Here, May first is a public holiday, but there are no big celebrations or rallies. There were still some. I went to Tulkarem, north-west of the West Bank. The workers cleaning the streets have traditionally not had a holiday on May first. That is why a local cultural organization has marked this day in recent years in solidarity with the street cleaners. People from all over the West Bank came to

Tulkarem to clean the streets, so the workers could take the day off. As a result, the street cleaners in Tulkarem now have the day off. This year there was a rally in Tulkarem to mark this victory, before we all went to a nearby village where the street cleaners have not yet had their demands met. Hundreds of persons cleaned all the streets in the village. Afterwards, there was a party with traditional Palestinian food, dancing and music.

Cleaning the streets on 1stMay

Speaking about worker’s rights, today all employees at the Birzeit University are on strike. The strike will continue next week as well. The university has stopped disbursement of salaries to all employees. The teachers’ salaries are not high, Ramallah is an expensive city to live in, and the employees hardly manage their daily expenses. To not get the paycheck is a tragedy, leaving many of the employees and their families unable to put food on the table. The Palestinian National Authority has stopped payments to all public servants. When the government sent applications for membership to 15 UN bodies and international conventions, Israel regarded it as a threat and a breach of the peace process. As a reaction, the Israeli government stopped transferring the import taxes that they collect on behalf of the Palestinian National Authority. The consequence is that none of the Palestinian public employees gets their salaries. There is a big public sector in Palestine. The public employees’ paychecks are estimated to feed between one to one and a half million persons. The fact that Fattah

and Hamas agreed on a coalition government and to hold an election within six months didn't make the situation better. Israel answered by freezing more funds.

The agreement between Fattah and Hamas is a big event here. They have been fighting each other the last seven years. In addition to political murders, imprisonment and torture, the conflict has split the West Bank and Gaza, and paralyzed parts of public and political life. Parliament has been suspended for seven years, and there have been no elections held since 2006. Many people have big expectations of the agreement, while others think that it will not make any difference as long as the occupation continues.

In the last few weeks I have conducted observations in courthouses in several cities throughout the West Bank. There are big differences between courts in different cities. All cities have their special characteristic and issues to deal with. In Hebron, where the clan system is strong, close to all conflicts are handled in Sulha (the unofficial conflict resolution). This is something that the formal court has to take into account and deal with. If, for example, a murder case is solved in a Sulha, the judge will lower the sentence with at least to thirds, and release the suspect from detention. Before I went to the Hebron court I thought there might be a conflictual relationship between official and unofficial law, but I learned that they rather seem to complement each other. The Jericho court has other characteristics. Most of the Jericho district is a C-area, which implies that the Palestinians do not have any authority. It is practically impossible to get hold of witnesses and defendants in order to give them a subpoena or get them to the courthouse. A judge in Jericho told me: “The defendant can just go to the nearest gas station which is two kilometers away from here, and we will not have any possibility to get him to court”. Additionally, Jericho is a vacation town. Many of the people in Jericho are Palestinians with a Jerusalem ID or an Israeli passport. The Palestinian legal system has no jurisdiction over them. It was absurd to be in the court in Jericho. The whole court building has been newly renovated with donor funding. Everything is new and nice, the air is clean and cool, and all technical equipment is in place. At the same time, they just sit there, inside this nice building, the judges, prosecutors and lawyers, without a possibility to do anything, except to postpone cases and wait for the rare occasion when all the case’s different actors are in place at the same time, so they can proceed with the case.

The court in Tulkarem has other problems. They are waiting for a new courthouse, and until that is finished all cases are taking place in a small office. The most serious cases have to be transferred to other districts. Because of that, a case can take years to finish and defendants spend years in pre-trial detention waiting for the case to come up in another district. Prisoner transportation from one district to another requires permission from Israel, something that is not easily obtained. When permission is achieved, some luck has to be involved for it to correspond with the time set for the case to appear in court. In addition, it must correspond with the appearance of witnesses and defense lawyers. That the case is taking place in another district

implies traveling distances and often through checkpoints, which can lead to them not showing on time or at all.

Jericho and Tulkarem courts

This was the last letter from me for this time. It is not many days till I return to Sweden. I cannot understand where these three months went. The time has been flying. On the other hand, these months have been so incredible eventful, I have learned a lot, much more than I could have ever expected. And probably and hopefully I have material for years of important research.

Best wishes and see you soon,

Ida

Further readingFor those who might be interested in finding out more about the plural legal system in the West Bank, and the role of international donors and the Israeli occupation mentioned in these letters I can recommend the following literature:

Abdelbaqi, M.H. (2006): Introduction to the Palestinian Criminal Justice System. Freiburg: Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Criminal Law.

al Khalidi, D., D. Mansour, F. Milhem, J. Hilal, L. Taraki, M. Doudeen, M. Fayyad, S. al-Fares, S. Shbaita, I. al Beyouk, J. Dodeen, M. al Manasra, R. Jaber and S. Qdaih (2006): Informal justice: Rule of law and dispute resolution in Palestine. Birzeit: Birzeit University.

Baker, A. and A. Matar (2011): Threat – Palestinian Political Prisoner in Israel. London: Pluto

Press.Bouris, D. (2014): The European Union and Occupied Palestinian Territories: State-building

Without a State. London and New York: Routledge. Jabbour, E. (1996): Sulha: Palestinian traditional peacemaking process. Montrea, NC: House

of Hope Publications. Khalil, A. (2010): “Formal and Informal justice in Palestine: Dealing with the Legacy of

Tribal Law.” In: Tribu à l'heure de la globalisation, Revue Etudes Rurales, N. 184 Kelly, T. (2005): “Law, Culture and Access to Justice under the Palestinian National

Authority.” In: Development and Change, 36(5). Le More, A. (2008): International Assistance to the Palestinians after Oslo. London/New

York: Routledge. Milhem, F. and J. Salem (2011): “Building the Rule of Law in Palestine: Rule of Law

Without Freedom” In: International law and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: A right-based approach to Middle-East peace. S.M. Akram, M. Dumper, M. Lynk and I. Scobbie (eds.). New York: Routledge.

Salem, J. and I.-M. Stettner (2013): “Informal justice in the Palestinian legal system.” In: KAS

international reports, 9/2013Welchman, L. (2009): “The Bedouin Judge, the Mufti, and the Chief Islamic Justice:

Competing Legal Regimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.” In: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 38, No. 2

Zoughbi, Z. (2013): Sulha: Community Based Mediation in Palestine. Bethlehem: Holistic Solutions, Inc.

Zureik, E., D. Lyon and Y. Abu-Laban (2011): Surveillance and Control in Israel/Palestine –

Population, territory, and power. London/New York: Routledge.

Author biographyIda Nafstad has been employed as a post-doctoral fellow at the Sociology of Law Department at Lund University since 2013. Previously, she worked at the Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law at the University of Oslo, where she also completed her Ph.D. Currently, Nafstad is teaching students in sociology of law and working on two research projects – one about legal pluralism in Palestine, and the other on the relation between the non-state legal systems of Roma and Scandinavian state legal system.

III. News from Europe and around the world

Australia

CALL FOR PAPERS: PANEL ON ‘CRIMINOLOGIES OF PROTEST’Chair: Dr Greg Martin, University of SydneyEmail: greg.martin@syney.edu.auIn many jurisdictions across the global, the ‘right to protest’ is often assumed as a fundamental human right. However, whether this right actually exists as well as the scope of the right is a matter of some contention. Rights to speak freely and to assemble peacefully in public are also assumed as aspects of the right to protest. However, these rights too cannot be taken for granted in the current era. This panel will consider how criminology might understand protest rights, especially in a period where states have moved to enhance police power to control public gatherings, and increased generally the use of criminal law, pre-emptive crime control techniques and surveillance technologies in an intensification of law and order politics and penal populism.Abstracts can be submitted online via http://www.flinders.edu.au/ehl/ccpr/anzsoc/abstract-submissions.cfmPlease visit the conference website for a full list of sub-themes and other Roundtable/Panels sessions via http://www.flinders.edu.au/ehl/ccpr/anzsoc/program.cfm

UK

Calls for Papers

The Howard League for Penal Reform will be hosting a 3-day international conference entitled Justice and Penal Reform: Re-shaping the penal landscape from 16–18 March 2016, Keble College Oxford. See http://www.howardleague.org/justice-penal-refm-callforpapers/

Hearing the Hidden Voice: Researching Prisoners’ Lives and Perspectives, University of Dundee, 30 October 2015This one-day workshop seeks to bring together researchers from across the disciplines whose work involves “hearing the hidden voice” of those held in institutions of confinement (including immigration prisons). Proposals, including a title, abstract of up to 250 words, and a short CV, should be sent to z.a.colley@dundee.ac.uk by 31 July 2015.

Conference Report

Conference Report

The Annual JENGba (Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association) Conference was held in The Old Court, Gerrard Winstanley House, Wigan, England on the 20 th June 2015. The courtroom venue was atmospheric and set the tone for the day, for the intention of the organisers was to put ‘Justice on Trial’. The conference opened with the arrival of our conference chair / Judge (Joy France) dressed with cloak and wig and full of pomp and ceremony, who explained the purpose and order of the day. The speakers and performers were to give ‘evidence’ to the ‘court’ about whether the criminal process should be condemned as ‘unfit for purpose’ and members of the audience were to act as the ‘jury’ and come to verdict towards the close of the day.

The first event was a live performance by a local amateur dramatics group, who had written their short play especially for the JENGba conference. The five performers delivered a short but excellent fictionalised account of a murder on a ‘hen night’. Although only one of the four characters had perpetrated the act the judge asked the ‘jury’ (which comprised of around 120 people) to think about who under the current law would be convicted of murder. This illustrated very well the key problem of over criminalisation in the joint enterprise laws, a theme that was explored through the rest of the day.

The first person called to the stand to give evidence was Janet Cuncliffe, one of the founder members of JENGbA. Janet set the tone for the rest of the day with a resolute account of the limitations of the criminal law. Janet talked passionately about the miscarriage of justice concerning her son, Jordan Cunliffe, revealing that even though Jordan was in effect a blind bystander to the death of Gary Newlove in 2007, he still received a 12 year sentence for his murder. Janet questioned the legitimacy of the laws regarding joint enterprise, highlighting the disproportionate nature of sentences; limitations around ‘evidence’ of guilt; and the creation of innocent victims through this laws application. Janet ended her talk demanding “justice for all”.

The next speaker was Janet Alder (Black Lives Matter). Janet gave a heart-wrenching account pf the death of her brother Christopher Alder in 1998 and the subsequent injustices

that she and her family have faced at the hands of the British police. Janet talked about her struggle to uncover the blatant police racism surrounding the death of Christopher. Janet gave details from the 11hours of CCTV footage she had eventually been allowed access, and told a horrified audience about the “monkey and chimpanzee noises” that could be heard whilst Christopher was dying on the floor of the Hull police station. There were even more gasps of despair following the revelation that in November 2011 she discovered that it had been the body of a 77 women, and not that of Christopher who had been buried and that Christopher had remained hidden in an old mortuary for years after his death. When Janet had been able to access materials – a 290 page document – 190 pages had been redacted. Janet talked about the ‘right to life’ (Article 2 of European Convention) and the importance of promoting human rights, both in terms of the European Court of Human Rights and the Human Rights Act, but also in terms of being treated like an ordinary human being.

Martin Foran, the only person in the UK to have been subjected to two miscarriages of justice, was next to bear witness. Martin highlighted harms and injustices wrought by the criminal law and the prison place. He argued that the joint enterprise law was used against working class people rather than the terrible harm generated by the actions of politicians, who seemed to be able to act with impunity. Martin gave an account of his experiences of imprisonment and talked in depth about “assisted suicides in prison” – that is, when prison officers in riot gear enter the cell of a prisoner in the early hours of the morning and place the prisoner in a noose. Martin gave evidence of prison officer brutality and the terrible consequences for his health. Overall Martin made a power plea for greater unity from those struggling against miscarriages of justice and for activists to unite and take their struggle to the streets.

Martin was followed by Simon Pooke, a solicitor who has been engaged in a number of different struggles challenging state power and supporting individuals and groups engaged in actions to protect existing legal rights. Simon made a considered and powerful case against the suppression of evidence, access to truth and repressive policing of protest. Simon talked about a number of cases he had been involved in as a practitioner and pointed an accusing finger at state practises silencing dissent. Simon gave evidence about struggles for justice through prisoner resistance and prisoner rights and also popular protests like those currently around ‘fracking’ in Barton Moss. Simon also pointed to the problems around secret evidence and the denials of truth and joined the chorus of previous speakers in demanding that ordinary people should have a voice. Our Judge for the day, Joy France (Independent Poet) ended the morning session with a wonderful short poem which highlighted the importance of speaking out and being heard. It provided a wonderful summary of proceedings.

The conference reconvened in the afternoon with two speakers from the floor – both of which made powerful contributions highlighting the injustices of the current criminal process. The first speaker, whose brother had been murdered, highlighted the very long sentences for people convicted under the joint enterprise laws. The second speaker pointed to the injustices generated by ‘police spies’ and police covert surveillance which had led to the imprisonment of her father. Terry Renshaw then spoke on behalf of the Shrewsbury Pickets campaign. Terry provided a detailed account of the history of this miscarriage of justice and his own treatment at the hands of the law. He talked with great power about the imprisonment and later death of Des Warren. Des Warren had always maintained his innocence and had

protested against the inhuman and degrading treatment of prison regimes. As a result Des had been given a ‘liquid quosh’ [drugs like largactil to control his behaviour] and only a few years after release he died of “drug induced Parkinsons disease”. Terry also talked about the current struggle to gain access to papers on the case, which as he explained members of Parliament had voted to allow. His points about the suppression of dissident voices, protest and restrictions on access to evidence chimed with much of the evidence presented in the morning session.

Malcolm Jones (Social Work Action Network) spoke next and he, along with the following speaker Tony Taylor (In Defence of Youth Work) shifted direction away from individual cases to one evidencing the scale of injustice facing working people in modern Britain. Malcolm provided a very informed discussion rich with detail, drawing upon data and cases studies to illustrate how the law is used to control the poor. Malcolm covered much ground, highlighting the corrosive impact of privatisation; the sanctioning of people on benefits; the rise of ‘food banks’; the widening of the gap between rich and poor; the consequences of austerity policies; and the growing threats to health, including mental health, in an increasingly unequal society. Tony Taylor then followed up on many of these themes. He located current injustice within the context of Neo-Liberalism and how this was damaging lives, with his main focus on young people – “the war on youth”. Tony explored relationship between young people and the police and talked about the deaths of young people in custody. Like the previous speaker, Tony drew upon a raft of up-to-date statistical data and case studies to evidence his argument. Tony concluded his excellent talk with a call for unity. Like Terry before him, Tony argued that “if one gets kicked, all should limp”.

After questions and an open discussion highlighting concerns about privatisation and the profit motive behind the over-criminalisation of working class people, Janet Cunliffe returned to ask the jury whether, based on the evidence they had heard, if they found the criminal law guilty or not guilty of generating injustice. The answer was immediate and virtually unanimous: Guilty. After the judge had acknowledged and thanked the organisers of the conference, David Scott (Liverpool John Moores University) then brought the conference to a close by summing up a number of the key points. He focused on four core values that had been expressed throughout the day: accountability, human rights, democracy and justice. Evidence from those bearing witness pointed to the lack of accountability of the state and the exercise of power without responsibility. Truth was being suppressed, but the importance of the powerful being truthful, and the people speaking truth to power was reaffirmed. Recognition of our common humanity and its systematic denial by the criminal law, policing and imprisonment was something that many of the speakers spoke passionately about. The current application of the criminal law was undermining human rights and due process, but what the conference speakers and delegates demanded most of all was a right to live and prosper rather than just survive.

Following in the footsteps of Gerrard Winstanley, who had famously argued that “action is the life of all, and if though dost not act, though dost nothing”, the third theme of the day was democracy. This involved a range of calls for a right to protest, for our voices to be heard, for channels to be available to effectively challenge miscarriages of justice. The law should help facilitate rather than impinge upon the democratic participation and will of the people. The final theme of the day concerned the meaning of justice. Much discussion had focussed on “injustice” and the failure of the criminal law to provide justice. But alongside this there had been calls for the promotion of social justice – social and economic equality; solidarity

with other people who had experienced legal repression; and freedom to live and prosper as human beings.

The conference ended with David Scott reading the following short piece which had been written and distributed to ‘members of the jury’ by Martin Foran:

InjusticeAlways it’s the working class

Who suffer“Why?”

Lack of MoneyThe Rich can buy justiceThe poor person has to

Fight for legal aidFight for help

Fight to be heardIf we stand together

We can fight together andStop all injustice

ITV News coverage of the event can be viewed at:http://www.itv.com/news/granada/update/2015-06-20/mother-addresses-justice-conference-in-wigan/

For further details of the JENGba campaign please see:http://www.jointenterprise.co/

Seminars/conferences

Women, Narrative and Crime: An Interdisciplinary Conference Teesside University (Darlington Campus) 9th July 2015 Keynote Speakers: Deborah Jermyn (Roehampton) & Lizzie Seal (Sussex). See http://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/whats_on/events_details.cfm?event_id=7297

Shock and law: Debating the use of tasersWednesday, 15 July 2015, 2.00 pm to 4.00 pm, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, London SW8 1GB. See www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/events

The 7th Annual Postgraduate Criminology Conference will be hosted by Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). The event will be held at QUB on Monday 31st August and 1st

September 2015. See http://blogs.qub.ac.uk/pgcc2015/

When evidence and politics collide: The David Nutt affair. What happens when scientific evidence clashes with political calculation? With Deborah Drake and Reece Walters, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 14th September 2015. See: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=74

Image courtesy of http://www.bootsnall.com/europe-estonia-tallinn

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