Page 12 - Presbyterian Connection, Spring 2020

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PRESBYTERIAN
SPRING 2020
presbyterian.ca
Connection
JUSTICE
No Way to Treat a Child
As appeared on the KAIROS: Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives website at kairoscanada.org. Written by the Rev. Helen Smith, retired Presbyterian minister who recently served on the KAIROS Steering Committee.
In November 2019, Helen Smith par- ticipated in a church leaders’ delega- tion to Palestine and Israel organized by KAIROS. The following article de- scribes Helen’s reflections from one day of the journey.
Yesterday, when we visited Yad Vashem (The World Holocaust Re- membrance Center), the most diffi- cult part for me was the sights and sounds of the children—in the ghet- tos and camps.
Today began with a trip to Mehwar, a women’s shelter. The name means “core.” Women are the core of the society. The shelter addressed pre- vention, empowerment, integration back into the community for women who have been abused, and their children. Unlike shelters in Canada it was very open. Its gym was also
used by people in the community. We even joined a Zumba class, much to the hilarity of the regular participants. Community members could come for seminars. The shelter part was in the middle, not obvious to the rest of the facility, so the women and their children were safe and secure. Chil- dren from the community, as well as children of staff and children of the women in the shelter used a well- equipped nursery with a great out- door playground. Again, the lives of children came to the forefront for me.
Our next visit was with Bishop Sani Azar, ELCJHL in the Cathedral Church of the Redeemer, the old city, Jerusa- lem. He began by telling us how the Lutheran Church work started here with Germans setting up a school for girls in 1853, and for boys in 1860. And they are still involved with the work of education with four schools, 2,500 students—about half of whom are Christian and half are Muslim. Again, a focus on children.
At lunch we were joined by Yusef (WCC-JIC). He is involved with the EAPPI program of the WCC. Al-
though the number of accompaniers is down, I knew that many accom- panied children on the way to school to make sure they got fair treatment at the checkpoints. Children again. There is a thread running through this day. Yusef also gave us one of our favourite quotes: “Equality is the precondition for justice, and peace is the fruit.”
The last visit of the day was very hard. At the office of the Defense of Children International-Palestine we heard of the work they do monitoring the violations of the rights of Pales- tinian children in the military court, in which they are tried. We heard the tragic stories of family homes invaded in the middle of the night, of children from 12 to 18 taken into custody, blindfolded, cuffed with plastic ties, of many violations of their rights, from not having a family member present for their interroga- tion, to being asked under threat of harm to family members to sign doc- uments in Hebrew which they didn’t understand and which amounted to a confession of guilt. Most alleged
The Rev. Helen Smith (right) presenting Sawsan Bitar from Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Centre with Laura Alary’s book. PHOTO CREDIT: RACHEL WARDEN, KAIROS CANADA.
crimes are stone throwing and the conviction rate is 99%. Defense of Children International, in being pro- active, holds workshops with Pal- estinian children to demonstrate to them what happens if/when they are arrested and what their rights are. It is a tragedy that these workshops are needed rather than the workshops Canadian children might have on bi-
cycle safety or orienteering.
Last night at the reception with
church and civic leaders, Bishop At- tallon Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Church spoke of how in a month or so we would be home celebrating the birth of the Child of Bethlehem. He said that when we do this, “do not forget the children of Palestine.” May it be so.
PCC Endorses No Way to Treat a Child Campaign
By Justice Ministries
This year, one of the topics that the International Affairs Committee chose to address in their report to the General Assembly was the prac-
tice of Palestinian children being tried as adults in Israeli military courts. No Way to Treat a Child is a campaign started by Defense for Children Inter- national – Palestine and staff from the American Friends Service Committee
to raise awareness about the wide- spread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system.
Since 1967, Israel has operated two separate legal systems in the same territory. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers are subject to the civilian and criminal legal system while Palestinians live under military law. Palestinian children in the West Bank, like adults, face arrest, pros- ecution, and imprisonment under an Israeli military detention system that denies them basic rights. Israel is the only country in the world that automatically prosecutes children in military courts that lack fundamen- tal fair trial rights and protections.
In 1991, Israel ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires that chil- dren should only be deprived of their liber ty as a measure of last resor t, must not be unlawfully or arbitrarily detained,andmustnotbesubjected to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punish- ment. Despite this, according to affidavits collected from 739 West Bank children detained between
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, KENORA
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For more information contact: Robert Murray, Interim Moderator pcf@pinawa.church 204-753-8439
A checkpoint in Palestine.
2013 and 2018, 73% of Palestin- ian children experienced physical violence following arrest. Many also faced verbal abuse. In 96% of the cases, children had no parent pre- sent during the interrogation. Israeli police also did not properly inform them of their rights in 74% of the cases.
Despite sustained engagement by UNICEF and repeated calls to end night arrests and ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children in Is- raeli military detention, Israeli au- thorities have persistently failed to implement practical changes to stop violence against child detainees. By
drawing attention to these human rights abuses, the No Way to Treat a Child campaign is committed to securing a just and viable future for Palestinian children living in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and envisions a world where all children attain rights in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Commissioners at the 2019 Gen- eralAssemblyvotedforThePresby- terian Church in Canada to endorse No Way to Treat a Child. You can learn more about the campaign and how you can help at nwttac.canada. dci-palestine.org.