The Jenin Freedom Theatre issued a press release today: acting student Rami Awni Hwayel, 20, has been arrested by the IDF.
Batool Taleb, one of the female acting students who was in the car with Rami describes what happened: “When they got to our car, they took all our IDs and when they saw Rami’s ID they told him to get out of the car. Once he was out they immediately handcuffed and blindfolded him and put him in the army jeep.”
It has only been ten days since The Freedom Theatre was attacked and raided by IDF special forces who arrested two other members of the theatre at that time, location manager Adnan Naghnaghiye and member of the board Bilal Saadi. Hwayel is now the third member to be detained.
The students had been rehearsing for their final graduation project directed by the Israeli-American Director Udi Aloni in Ramallah.
“This is devastating, Rami is playing the main role in ‘Waiting for Godot’ and doing an amazing job, he’s so dedicated to the work. He just left rehearsals today for the weekend to see his family for Ramadan. It’s terrible, we want our Pozzo back!”, says Udi Aloni.
This breaks my heart. How much agony can this community endure? It makes me wonder what the hell is Israel’s beef with the Freedom Theatre? Maybe they don’t like young creative Palestinian voices. Maybe they want strong young men out on the street aspiring to be martyrs.
