More than a year has passed on the detention of the Palestinian circus performer Mohammed Abu Sakha by the Israeli authorities with no charges or trials.
On December 14 2015 the 25-year-old young man couldn’t imagine that passing through Zaatara military checkpoint to the south of Nablus to get to his work in Birzeit to the north of Ramallah would put him in the net of detention. Mohammed the talented acrobatic performer was then held in administrative detention.
In the afternoon of that day an Israeli force stopped a Palestinian bus at Zaatara checkpoint and after checking the commuters’ identities Mohammed was asked to step out of the bus to undergo a more precise inspection. The young man was held for 3 hours before he was transferred “blindfolded and handcuffed” to Howara camp to the north of Nablus.
In the camp Mohammed spent seven days before being sentenced to administrative detention without trial or charge for six months. His father Faisal told al-Quds press agency about his son’s career in entertainment and acrobacy “Mohammed’s career at the circus started when he was a 15-year-old gymnast at Jenin Sport Club. Then he moved to Palestine Circus School in 2007 and became a student there. After four years he became a sport trainer and a performer at the school.”
He added “Mohammed had made several performances around the West Bank and participated in various training courses in France Germany and Belgium. He was scheduled to participate in other courses in March and June last year but the detention deprived him of that.”
The Clown … children’s beloved performer
And about the acrobatic performances that Mohammed mastered and performed his father pointed out that his son mastered a lot of acrobatics such as jumping in the air and walking on the rope and juggling in addition to presenting other performances and plays. Mohammed’s mastery of the clown’s role made him “the children’s beloved performer.”
Shady Zomrod co-founder and director of the “Palestine Circus School” spoke about Abu Sakha’s work at the school explaining that “for more than two years Mohammed began to train 30 children and youth with mental and physical disabilities in a humanitarian act that aimed to integrate and rehabilitate that marginalized group in the society. Mohammed’s ambition was to make those disabled people professional circus performers.”
Zomrod mentioned that “Muhammad has achieved great successes in this process. One manifestation is the case of the disabled child Mohammed Barghouti (11 years old) who suffers from impaired mobility since birth but was able to walk more than 8 steps without using a device to help him walk thanks to Mohammed. The Credit goes to Mohammad for transferring the circus into a therapeutic method physically and psychologically.”
The director of the school that has more than 300 students pointed out that “disabled children dramatically clung to Mohammed because of his humor his comedy performances and his patience with them and they’re constantly asking about him and wishing that he’d be released soon.” He added: “Mohammed has a magical ability to draw smiles on the faces of the children I think this is the secret of their love for him.”
Zomrod pointed out that the absence of Abu Sakha has left a vacuum in the performances that he used to perform for the children and the disabled which prompted the school to provide alternative performances.
International Solidarity
And about the solidarity events launched by the school with the detainee Abu Sakha Zomrod said that these activities have started since the first day of his arrest; which included a wide campaign of solidarity in Arab and foreign circus schools that reached to Brazil Canada Denmark Italy and Britain in addition to several protests in front of Israeli embassies around the world and writing telegrams to foreign governments calling on them to sever their relations with the occupation state.
He recalled that Muhammad’s first court session was attended by representatives from the European Union office the Belgian Consulate the Swiss Representative Office the Spanish Agency for Cooperation Amnesty International and an Italian institution and delegates from the International Solidarity Movements.
Zomrod mentioned the most recent of the activities which included designing T-shirts that read in English “freedom for Abu Sakha”; adding that it is going to be worn by a number of international artists singers dancers and circus players during their performances along with a number of doctors.
He criticized the Palestinian government’s failure to follow up on Abu Sakha’s case saying “compared to all the wide international and Arab solidarity we find a huge negligence on the official Palestinian side.”
One of 700 administrative detainees
Abu Sakha is one of 700 administrative detainees held by the Israeli occupation’s prisons without trial or charge. The judge only gets acquainted with the “classified” file provided by the Israeli military prosecution to justify the extension of their detention every time while preventing the defense lawyers to see these files; which are usually a summary of conclusions deductions or speculation by the Israeli intelligence service.
The lawyer of Al-Dameer human rights organization Mahmoud Hassan asserted that the occupation authorities claim that Abu Sakha had carried out several activities in the framework of a banned organization (in reference to PFLP) and they depend in their claims on “one weak evidence.” He pointed out that his administrative detention was extended for six more months for the third time.
He also pointed out that Abu Sakha was interrogated when he was first detained and no violations were proven against him referring to the absence of any new material in his file.
As for his mother who was able to visit her son only once in the Israeli Megiddo prison she noted that Mohammed is training child prisoners inside the jails; especially those with disabilities that resulted from the occupation’s shooting.
She added “Despite his detention Mohammed is keen to continue his role of mitigating those children’s pain through his performances as he also seeks to transform the prison into a small circus or a summer camp for them.”
