School By Day, Prison By Night

Palestine Monitor

Most students catch the bus to campus, other come in cars, Mohammed is escorted from his cell to the university gates by soldiers. At the end of a day’s studying, while his peers go off to smoke argeela (water pipe) and shoot pool in the cafes around town, he is escorted back to his cramped cell. His story represents the wider tale of denial and disruption of education enacted by the Israeli occupation.

I meet Mohammed (name changed to protect his identity) near one of the West Bank’s eight higher education institutions. He is a calm, reserved 25-year old Palestinian studying to become a primary school teacher.
Five years ago, Mohammed threw rocks at an Israeli convoy on one of its routine raids into the refugee camp where he lives. For this he was shot in the leg and saw his best friend die in his arms. “I can’t forget that” he tells me. At first he took to sleeping in the streets to avoid arrest, but the Israelis warned his parents that if he didn’t turn himself in they would kill him and destroy the family home.
At the request of the Israelis, Mohammed was taken into a Palestinian Authority-run prison. He claims he did not receive a trial and for the first two years wasn’t allowed to leave.
After his two year internment he was granted permission to leave his cell during the day, provided he returned by eight o’clock to spend the night there. Mohammed has always wanted to be a primary school teacher and went about securing a place at the best local University, no mean feat for a boy from a refugee camp.
While the academic rigour required of all university students is a challenge in itself Mohammed’s predicament has made studying a far greater task. He is one of hundreds of Palestinian higher education students that have suffered at the hands of the Israelis. Birzeit University as of 2009 had 87 of its students incarcerated in jail, 47 of which had yet to be found guilty on any charge.
Every day Palestinian soldiers would escort Mohammed both to and from the University campus. I ask if he is able to study in his cell. He looks at me incredulously "can’t study" he replies, in reference to the prison‘s unbearable heat. We sit in a spacious room on the third floor with two fans whirring above our heads and the room’s numerous windows all open, "but in my cell the window is tiny". He uses his hands to indicate a window approximately 20 centimetres in both height and width.
It is not merely the climactic conditions that prevent him from studying he informs me, but the "bad, feeling" he experiences when sat in his cell. Recently his next door neighbour deliberately set his cell alight as an act of protest inadvertently setting himself aflame in the process. Such harrowing tales are common in the prison. This, coupled with his loneliness, makes writing essays and swotting for exams virtually impossible. Neither is he able to sleep, leaving him desperately tired during his classes.
Mohammed tells me that he never feels relaxed enough to fully concentrate on his studies. One teacher I talked to described how during a recent lesson Mohammed had left abruptly. His friend explained at the end of the lesson that, "the soldiers were calling him, they want to take him to jail." This occurs every time the IDF (Israeli Defence Force) launches a raid in the surrounding area. Should they see him out during this exercise he would almost certainly be shot.
Mohammed describes to me how his heart skips a beat every time his phone rings with an unrecognised number, fearing it is a summons to jail. I ask him what would happen if he ignored the call or didn’t turn up at eight, "Israelis will kill me" he replies. This is no idle threat, A fellow inmate was shot by the Israelis recently whilst walking with friends through town. This occurred before the curfew deadline of eight o’clock. He received no treatment and was left to die on the road.
Mohammed is constantly on edge, cars revving their engines and people shouting all make him cast a nervous glance over his shoulder. His parents are petrified for their son’s safety, having already had one son killed by the Israelis. He tells me his mum rings him every night at eight o’clock to make sure he is back in his cell. Despite being in constant fear for his life Mohammed still manages to keep up with his studies. One of his lecturers that I interviewed described him as a ‘bright and studious boy’.
Every three to six months the Israelis produce a list of prisoners to be freed. Though he has no idea if and when he will be on that list he prays that it will be soon. Mohammed is desperate to get on with his life, to finish university, begin a career as a primary school teacher and at long last be able to sleep, in his own bed.

 

For further info on The Right to Education Campaign, click here [>http://right2edu.birzeit.edu/]
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