COSATU statement on Israeli security officials 19-07-07

 

COSATU statement on Israeli security officials

The Congress of South African Trade Unions strongly condemns the detention, interrogation and searching of the First Vice-President of the SA Municipal and Allied Workers Union (SAMWU), Xolile Nxu, by Israeli security officials in both Israel and South Africa.

When he arrived at OR Tambo Airport, on his way to attend the Second Annual Conference on Popular Non-Violent Resistance in Palestine, he was detained by a man in plain clothes who claimed to be "The Chief of Security". He says: "I was taken to a small room and subjected to a long and abusive interview, during which I was forced to take off my belt and my pants". The security officials eventually escorted him directly through customs and onto the plane, one minute before it took off, after plastering all his luggage and hand luggage with red stickers.

On arrival in Israel he was again interrogated until after midnight, was the last person to be released from the airport, and then transported to a checkpoint in the West Bank where he was dropped off at 1am. "Because of the apartheid system imposed by Israel on the Palestinians," says SAMWU, "no Palestinian was permitted to collect Mr Nxu at the airport. He had to cross the checkpoint before meeting the Palestinian activists who took him to his accommodation in Bil'in village".

When Nxu left the country he was detained for eight hours at Ben Gurion airport and interrogated about each and every country stamp on his passport. Security staff also threatened him physically when he refused to reveal the names of the Palestinian conference organisers.

COSATU shares SAMWU's alarm that Israeli security appears to have impunity to behave in this fashion at a South African airport, with apparently even more power than customs officials. We shall be taking the matter up with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Airports Authority to check whether this behaviour is condoned and what action the SA government is going to take to protect its citizens from such abuse.

South Africa is a sovereign state and there is no way its citizens should be treated like this by the security forces of a foreign country. There is absolutely no justification for the Israel government to have its own offices, secret police and power to bypass customs at our airports.