 For more videos on People's Juggles, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. Shabao Dei, nurse and director of the Health Work Committees in Palestine, was arrested by Israeli occupying forces on July 7, 2021. The arrest came after a ban on Health Work Committees operations implemented as part of a wider strategy for limiting the reach of Palestinian civil society by the Israeli occupying forces. Today, we speak with Shapa's daughter, Shireen, about the latest developments in the case and the stifling of civil society voices in Palestine at the hands of the IOF. My name is Delende La Paz, a health activist from the People's Health Movement's thematic circle on health in settings of war and conflict. Welcome, Shireen, and thank you for meeting with me and being with me in this forum to discuss the latest developments on the situation of your mother, Shata. First of all, I'd like to ask, could you describe the night of the arrest and the chain charges that were brought against Shabao? Yes, I just have to say on the the raid on our house in Ramallah happened on the night of the 7th of July. I wasn't in Palestine back then, I was still traveling, packing, and what I know from according to the family members, especially my sister and my father, is that around 2 a.m. in the morning, the Israeli occupying forces raided our house. They forcibly detained my mother, they terrorized the family. We had family members visiting us on that day, so I had my aunties, one of my cousins and her children. They came, the Israeli soldiers, they were knocking really hard on our door. They then came in. When they came in, they were asking, where is Shada? And she introduced herself. She said, I'm Shada. They told her, go get your ID, give us the keys to the car of the association that is usually with her as she is the general director of the organization. And they told her to give her cell phone, the one that she uses for personal and for work calls. And then they put all the family members in the living area. And they told my mom to go get dressed because they want to speak to her. And then they told the family members that they're going to be taking my mom to do an interrogation with her at Aoufer military camp, which is just like it's inside. It's very close to Ramallah. And that the interrogation will last from 8 a.m., the same day on the 7th, until 10 and by 10 a.m. she will call her husband to come and pick her up. There's nothing to be worried about, et cetera, and that they needed to leave now, now. And so they took my mom. They told her, bring your medication with you. So she came out holding her medication. She wasn't allowed to take a bag or anything to hold them. She gave them her cell phone, the keys to the car. And they told her, okay, now you can say goodbye to them. She wasn't allowed to hug anyone or to say to give kisses or anything. No one was allowed to accompany her while she was dressing and while she was being taken outside. And they told the family members, no one is supposed to, no one should follow us. And that's it. They closed the door, and no one basically followed them. And she was taken to to a military camp, which is Atara. It's close to Brizette. Regarding the charges that they were bringing against my mother, it was only on the 27th of the 26th of July, sorry, during the fourth hearing of my mom. This is when the military prosecution presented five charges against her, which are the following. First, they were talking about holding a position in unlawful association. They were referring to an Israeli military order by the military commander, which was announced on the 22nd of January 2020, that described the health work committee's organization as an unlawful organization, but they did not inform any of the employees of this decision. Neither also the Palestinian Authority. The second charge that they brought against her was in relation to a presence in a public event on the 14th of May 2019. This is based on the military prosecution basically was referring to an event commemorating the death of Dr. Rabah Mahana and others. This was a public event that was attended by many Palestinians, including political figures, but they are referring to it as if it was illegal. The third charge was related to receiving and bringing funds illegally into the area. Here by the area, the military prosecution was referring to the occupied West Bank. The fourth charge was receiving funds and support fraudulently. They are referring to the funds allocated for the activities of health work committees. The fifth charge was the fraudulent use of documents. The Israeli military prosecution alleges that the documents of the organization are forged. So these are the main five charges that are brought against my mother. Yeah, I could imagine it must be very hard for Shata because especially health-wise, you know, Shata was my roommate in Bangkok in January of 2019 when we attended the Storing Committee of the People's Health Movement. She was then the coordinator of the MENA region, the Middle East North Africa region, and I was ending my term as coordinator of Southeast Asia, Australian Pacific, and we shared a room in the hotel and she was telling me about also her work in Palestine. So I can really imagine how these charges could have really been fabricated because these are all legal activities. So how can they be illegal? After the arrest, would you know how she was treated for the next few weeks in the area where she was put in prison? How are they being treated as prisoners? Yeah, it's very, very difficult, obviously. Basically, as you mentioned, my mom, she has, her health is basically extremely compromised. Her conditions, her health condition is very critical. She's diagnosed with chronic illnesses, including hypertension, hyperlimidemia, diabetes, and irritable bowel syndrome. She, on a daily basis, she takes about eight medications. One of her medications that is specifically for the irritable bowel syndrome, she was denied to take it for up until the 15th of July only after basically the lawyer presented a report explaining why this medication is important to her. This is when she actually managed to take it. At the beginning, when they arrested her, they took her to Alfred for doing the investigation. And what I know from the lawyers is that just before the interrogation started, she, her diabetes level went up and it was very risky because this means that she could enter into a coma easily. And so they had to stop the interrogation, try to manage the diabetes level in order for her to continue with the interrogation. Also, up until the third heating, up until then, basically, my mother did not have any underclothing or clothes to change. It wasn't until the 18th of July, which was a Sunday, when she was allowed to have some of her clothes. This is with regard to the clothes. And then she was also asking to be changed, because the hasharon is like a detention facility. So this is where the female detainees are usually kept, when they had court hearings or when they are still undergoing investigations. But the conditions of this prison, this prison is very, very difficult. First of all, they're not clean. Like she was allowed to get only one blanket. She did not have a pillow. Her room was disgusting. It's full of insects. They had a surveillance camera the whole time in the room. Obviously, they weren't allowed to have access to proper food back at the hasharon detention facility. She was only allowed, like for smokers, they are only allowed to three cigarettes per day. And obviously, the food was very, very bad. And that's the reason why she lost nine kilos. Not to mention, obviously, the stress. When she had to do, when she had to undergo any of the investigation, she was moved from hasharon prison to Awfar camp. Usually, it takes only like about an hour and a half, like a ride in a car from hasharon, which is between Tulkarem and Natanya Road, to get to Awfar camp in Ramallah. But the problem is the Bosta, which is basically a method of transfer that they do to the detainees. They take them from one prison. They take all the prisoners who have hearings or investigations from the other prisons. So she does a tour of all these prisons until she reaches Awfar at 8 a.m. in the morning. So she wakes up at 2.30. They tell her to get ready. They go inside the bus. Usually the bus for the females, they have like a special room, a metal special room inside the bus. So imagine, we're talking about a very, very hot weather. She's kept inside this room, shackled the whole time from her wrists, from her feet, and not allowed to have access to the toilet, anything. And then up until they reach Awfar at 8 a.m. in the morning, they do the interrogation. And then she's put back inside one of the metal rooms at Awfar military camp, waiting until all the other detainees, prisoners, they finish their interrogation, their hearings, and then they leave at 6 p.m. and they go back to the prisons. By the time she reaches Hasharon detention facility, it's already midnight. We're talking about 24 hours of journey that she has to do the whole time, shackles. And obviously, the interrogation, when it started at the beginning, she did not have access to her lawyer. So when they wanted to start the first interrogation on the 7th of July, she asked them, she wanted to talk to her lawyer. She wanted her lawyer's presence. They told her she's not allowed. But then because she insisted, and she said, I will not start the interrogation, they told her, okay, you are allowed to call your lawyer on the phone, which she did. And obviously, we're talking about hearings that were done in Hebrew, a language that she doesn't understand, neither of us understand it. And there was very, very poor translation to Arabic. So to follow up on what is happening in the court that was even impossible, like we couldn't understand. The only thing we understood at the end was basically there's going to be another court hearing on this date. What about the civil society organizations in Palestine? How are they doing now? How is this issue affecting them? Has there been also an increase in oppression among the CSOs? I mean, it's clearly a systematic policy and practice against civil society. I mean, the health work committees was raided and closed on the 9th of June, 2021. But before that, since 2019, the health work committees was raided four times. And the last time is the one where they closed it with a military order saying that this is an unlawful organization saying that they are closing it for security reasons, very ambiguous without actually explaining what is the security threat exactly. And then on the same day, on the 29th, the Defense for Children International Palestine Organization was raided. And on the same day, another organization was raided, which was the Bisan Center. And on the same day of the arrest of my mother on the 7th, they closed also the health agriculture committees. And they closed it and also for the same thing for security reasons. The funny thing is also in the list of charges against my mother, they mentioned that all these organizations, they are terrorist organization, and they mentioned seven organizations saying that these organizations are all like illegal and they are operating illegally. I mean, without any kind of basis, just saying that they are terrorist organization, they're giving services to a specific political party, which is absolutely, absolutely ridiculous. These are just the organization. Imagine the only organization that we have in Palestine that works on children's rights. The DCI is now considered a terrorist organization. But I mean, I mean, I think this is the price sometimes maybe that we as Palestinians, we have to pay. And I believe in our organizations, I believe in the fight that we are doing as Palestinians and that this is not an issue that will end. I mean, it's continuous. This is something that we will keep fighting for our rights to enjoy them like any other human beings around the world. And I mean, I know that Palestinian people are resilient. And there are so many initiatives that are going on locally and internationally to criticize what is going on and to stop this crackdown on the civil society. Thank you so much, Shirin, for sharing all this with me today. And I'm sorry if it again raised a lot of issues that made you really emotional about it. But it's something that we, the People's Health Movement and the People's Dispatch, are in solidarity with, with you and your family. We shut off, of course, because we know her personally and with everybody else who are fighting for the right to live in Palestine. We really have to call out on the international groups that we have to stop the aggressive forces and the oppressive forces of the Israeli occupying forces that are now really impinging on the rights of the Palestinian people.