Israeli activist Ezra Nawi was sentenced to a month in prison today on trumped up charges that he assaulted a police officer in July 2007 while protesting the demolition of a Palestinian home in the South Hebron Hills.
After the sentencing Nawi told Ynet:
"The court has been permitting the occupation for years, they are trying to stop me at all costs. The judge doesn’t scare me, and neither does the 30-day sentence. This is testimonium paupertatis to the court, I tried to stop criminal activity, and I ended up having to pay two officers who acted brutally. This is the Israeli reality."
Fellow Ta’ayush activist Joseph Dana adds:
The worst aspect of this sentence is that the judge also sentenced him to 6 months in prison if he violates law in the occupied territories in the next 3 years. Most of Ezra’s work and that of Ta’ayush in the occupied territories is about protest and nonviolently opposing the occupation, which in many cases translates to violation of law according to the Israeli legal system. In this way the state got, in my estimation, exactly what it was after.
