The US Friends of The Freedom Theatre sends this update to supporters of the theatre:
NABIL AL RAEE RELEASED; ZAKARIA ZUBEIDI STILL IMPRISONED
Thanks to a worldwide outcry and pressure on Israeli authorities, Nabil Al-Raee, the Artistic Director of The Freedom Theatre, was released on July 7, 2012. He must return for another court hearing at the end of July. Zakaria Zubeidi, a co-founder of The Freedom Theatre, remains in a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho, where he was taken on May 13.
There is no doubt that our ad, placed in Time Out New York on July 5, 2012 and signed by 212 members of the theatre community in the U.S. and abroad, as well as other supporters of The Freedom Theatre, was a significant factor in Nabil’s release.
All of us associated with The Freedom Theatre send profound thanks to everyone who signed the ad and/or made the necessary phone calls to Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
• Nabil’s stay in jail in Ashkelon, Israel, had Kafkaesque qualities. Three times the presiding judge decided there was no evidence to hold him for any reason, and three times the prosecution asked for — and got — “more time” to supposedly find more “evidence.” One of the accusations was that Nabil possessed weapons — utterly ridiculous since he is a non-violent actor and director — and provided car rides and cigarettes to a “wanted person,” in this case, Zakaria, and three additional unnamed persons. But Zakaria is not a wanted person — and it is perfectly natural that he and Nabil would share rides and cigarettes, since they live next door to each other. This bizarre tactic ran its course but there is no way to predict how his court hearing scheduled for July 27-29 will go. These “charges” remain. Nabil was released on the equivalent of $800 bail, a nuisance amount that would never have been considered for a truly dangerous person.
• Zakaria, a former armed resistance fighter who laid down his weapons and received amnesty, remains in hideous conditions in Jericho. No formal charges have been levied against him, but there was talk that he was hiding 50 weapons, another utterly ridiculous “charge,” since he is one of the most visible non-violent resisters in Palestine. He is on sporadic hunger strike. As far as we know, Zakaria has been able to hold a private meeting with his lawyer only twice since his arrest, and has been able to receive a visit from his colleagues at The Freedom Theatre once.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International are investigating the jailing of these two Freedom Theatre stalwarts.
These events are only the latest in a clear pattern of violence and intimidation against The Freedom Theatre, the major cultural institution in the northern West Bank, one that is committed to cultural resistance to the Israeli occupation. Since July 2011, staff, students, and board members have been arrested eight times, all but Zakaria since released. The Theatre or the homes of staff and board members have been ransacked and attacked twice. The entire staff was called in for interrogation in May 2012. All appeared voluntarily.
These attacks are beginning to seriously affect the work of TFT (for instance, a production of Pinter’s “The Caretaker” was supposed to go on the boards in July but has been postponed until September).
WHAT WE MUST DO
We ask The Theatre’s supporters to continue their calls and letters to Palestinian Authority personnel and to Israeli authorities so that Nabil and Zakaria receive an unconditional release. This is a serious situation. Please do what you can.
Phone numbers:
FOR NABIL AL-RAEE (ID-number 906349162):
Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the U.S., 202-364-5500, [email protected]
FOR ZAKARIA ZUBEIDI:
Maen Rashid Areikat, Chief Representative of the PLO Delegation to the U.S., 202-974-6360;
Majd Faraj, Head of Palestinian Intelligence, 011-970-59-777-8887;
Abo Mohammad Shadeh, Head of the Palestinian Authority President’s Security Office, 011-970-59-900-0011