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Police Brutality and Human Rights Violations
Human rights organizations, like ACRI, get regular complaints about police and Border Patrol brutality and harassment. Investigations are seldom conducted, nearly always ending in whitewash, absolving the offenders.
ACRI represented one resident attacked by police, despite displaying no hostility or violence. They dragged, tear-gassed, and handcuffed him, broke his arm, then kicked and beat him. During Cast Lead, over 200 protesters were beaten and arrested, many of them children, and some detainees were assaulted in their homes in the middle of the night, then forcibly taken away.
In addition, various Palestinian civil society and human rights organizations were targeted and shut down, allegedly for unsubstantiated security reasons, in fact, to prevent them from operating.
Free Movement Restrictions and Checkpoint Harassment
Over 100,000 East Jerusalem residents on the Separation Wall's east side have been disconnected from the city. In February 2009, A-Ram checkpoint was closed, leaving Atarot (Kalandia) only, linking northern neighborhoods to the city's center. Atarot also provides residents on the Wall's other side with municipal and urban postal, national insurance, and employment services.
Yet congestion makes crossing "unbearable," and despite promises to alleviate it, residents face long waits, from one - two hours, to get through in either direction. Worse still, the public transportation lane was cancelled, forcing passengers off buses to proceed on foot. As a result, students heading for school are affected. So are car owners allowed passage only through private lanes, but not their passengers (including the sick, elderly and pregnant), forced to get out and walk.
Checkpoint harassment exacerbates the problem, including verbal and physical abuse by soldiers and private security employees. "In East Jerusalem, far from the eye of the public and the media, the authorities (behave) toward residents in a manner that would be inconceivable anywhere in Israel" toward Jews.
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