“We don’t have doctors for animals.” How members of the Global Sumud Flotilla were treated in Israeli prison
Yesterday while sitting in work, it came across the wire on the Guardian that members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, who had been languishing in Israeli prisons for a week, were being deported to Greece and… Slovakia? Unable to find more info I hopped on Flightradar and checked the incoming flights, and sure enough there was a Slovak government jet bound from Eilat that was due to land in just over an hour. I finished up work and booted it to the airport, texting people I know from Bratislava Pro-Palestine activist groups along the way to make sure they knew about it.
The flotilla made global news last week when they were detained by the Israeli Navy in international waters in the Eastern Mediterranean. Among them were Greta Thunberg, Slovak Peter Švestka and Kata Ite, a Finn who had lived in Bratislava for several years. Reports had come through on the day before they started releasing prisoners that Thunberg had been given especially rough treatment.
I rocked up and met someone from Včera bolo neskoro (Yesterday was already too late), a local activist group. We went to and fro from one end of the airport to the other, following crowds of journalists. We watched the plane touchdown then ran to the other end to the General Aviation Terminal (the VIP entrance). We saw the plane sitting on the tarmac and a mass of police cars surrounding it. At the fence I spoke to a few other local activists from the organisation Front.
I was feeling somewhat jealous of all the other journalists with their awesome cameras and microphones, and myself there armed only with my eyes, ears and my Honor 200 Lite budget smartphone. My own news org, The Slovak Spectator (which shares a publisher with SME) doesn’t quite have the budget to send me with a cameraman.
No phones, money, shower or insulin
We piled into the GAT to meet the first two people through the gate – Miriam from Amsterdam and a man who I immediately recognised as podcaster and journalist Greg J. Stoker. Both of them – along with the other detainees – were clothed in simple prison garb – a white t-shirt, too-small sweatpants and flip-flops.
I have been following Greg for about a year now. He’s a former US Marine and sharp as a tack. He elucidates his points with an ease and clarity that I can only hope to ape in my own endeavours. His willingness to name and break down and describe in detail the workings of American neo-colonialism and imperialism are inspiring. None of the other journalists knew who he was.
I called out “Greg!” and asked him for an interview. His account laid bare their capture and conditions in Ketziot prison:
“Over the past five days, we were kidnapped in international waters, taken to a terrorist detention camp in the middle of the Negev Desert. No one knew where we were. All our medications were confiscated, clothes, personal effects. The only thing we have left to our name is passports and the clothes we were given in detention.”
Stoker said that they had had no contact with his embassy and described the process as “extralegal”:
“Our consulates weren’t informed where we are until yesterday, which was Sunday. We were just randomly put on a flight to Slovakia and brought to Bratislava. Our embassies don’t know we’re here. I’m effectively a stateless citizens right now. We’re just trying to figure it out. I think the Israeli government wanted us out before Tuesday for obvious messaging reasons that we don’t need to go into right now. […] They stole all our personal effects, so we’re without phones, money, or ability to contact anybody.”
Their personal hygiene had been affected, as no showers were made available to them over the five days of their detention. Food and water were scarce, and sleep was “challenging” as “raid squads” entered their room every few hours. In his party there were 13 people in a cell equipped for 8 people. Some members went on hunger strike, as insulin was being denied to diabetic people.
“I think one of our favourite quotes was, “We don’t have doctors for animals.” We complained to our consulates about the lack of medicine. Our consulates said there’s nothing we can do, so again, one of the more egregious things was the withholding of medication from people with pre-established medical conditions.”
Then arrived the man of the hour, Peter Švestka. The main reason Slovak media was there, he was mobbed immediately and debriefed. I am not fantastic in Slovak and couldn’t hear what he was saying. So I settled with getting some shaky video of him speaking to the press. Afterwards, he went and sat with his parents who had come to meet him. Later he emphasized that he wasn’t important. Gaza was, and that they were all just tools to show people about the genocide going on there.
They beat me up because I didn’t want to take off my hijab
Amidst all this, there were six Dutch citizens, greeted at the airport by the Dutch ambassador to Slovakia. I didn’t get all of their names, but I spoke briefly with Miriam from Amsterdam. Her experience echoed the chaos and violence others described:
“I think we had quite an intense experience, but we all know that we had a light version of what they go through every day, but it was still very different from what we’re used to.”
“We were all in the terrorist prison based in Israel,” she said. “We were all taken in the same night and then they brought us to port. They searched us, they beat some people up, and then they took us in buses, blindfolded, to the prison.”
Inside the facility, she said conditions were grim: “We didn’t get water, people were on a hunger strike, there were no hospital medicines, we didn’t get to speak to a lawyer. And well, this is the light version, so it’s probably worse.”
Miriam confirmed that she had briefly met the Dutch ambassador while still in detention but that the transfer to Slovakia came without warning. “We were put on a flight, we didn’t know where we were going,” she said. “We didn’t expect if there was someone waiting for us or not. But the Slovakian comrades gave us some information.”
Despite the ordeal, she expressed relief at being received by supporters upon arrival. “It’s been quite some time, so it’s nice to have people around you,” she said. “And there was a Palestinian person, they are the people that were doing this first, so that was great.”
She also described being assaulted for refusing to remove her hijab. “They took my hijab off. They beat me up because I didn’t want to,” she said. “Then I said I’m not going out without, so I took a t-shirt and I used it.”
Her message after release was clear and defiant: “It’s power to the people, and it will always be power to the people. This is our moment. We did this not for ourselves but for Palestine, and we need all of us to speak up, to pressure our governments because the governments are complicit. Make sure you do anything in your power to break this siege, because it’s now or never.”
Members of the activist group Včera bolo neskoro were on hand to provide support to the detainees. They arranged clothing, coffee, food and cigarettes, and eventually places to stay overnight. Watching them bond and render assistance was an object lesson in solidarity, aid and camaraderie.
The interviews I recorded with Stoker and Miriam have gone viral overnight, drawing attention from the likes of Eurythmics singer Annie Lennox and thousands of others. The message is clear: all eyes on Gaza, and a free Palestine.
Author is a freelance journalist from Ireland, residing in Slovakia. He is a teacher, comedian and publican.
Text je súčasťou projektu PERSPECTIVES – novej značky pre nezávislú, konštruktívnu a multiperspektívnu žurnalistiku. Projekt je financovaný Európskou úniou. Vyjadrené názory a postoje sú názormi a vyhláseniami autora(-ov) a nemusia nevyhnutne odrážať názory a stanoviská Európskej únie alebo Európskej výkonnej agentúry pre vzdelávanie a kultúru (EACEA). Európska únia ani EACEA za ne nepreberajú žiadnu zodpovednosť.