ГУЛаг Палестины

Гунин Лев

very basis of human rights in jeopardy. 7) Because we are absolutely certain (and we have presented undenieble evidences to the immigration bord) that we

are going to be beatten, abused or even killed if we will be turned back to Israel.

We came to Israel in 1990 ; as many other people we had a hope for a better life. As the most of Russian-speaking people we were "welcomed" by a

malicious anger, the state unti-Russian propaganda and the most severe discrimination. Our son was 15 when we came to Israel. Each of us (including our

son) was assaulted, abused, beaten, discriminated against.The ignorance of what is going on in Israel with the Russian-speaking people can not make what

we and our friends suffered from in Israel unreal. Batteries, assaults, abuses were real and happened to us in real life. If my son could come to school and

could hear a discussion about the last article in a Hebrew newspaper, in which "Russians" were called sons of a bitch, prostitutes, fools and thieves: was it

"unreal"? And the computer games in Hebrew accompanied by songs with words like "Russians, go home":They were as real as the real life. And the social

climate in Israel is so horrible that if a child is beaten at school "because he's Russian" - he is forced to feel guilty himself as if he's guilty in not being an Israeli

but being a Russian.

Any person with conciseness (a journalist, an immigration official, a human right organization official) could take a translator from Hebrew, go to a library or

to an archive and find articles in Hebrew newspapers which have highly aggressive untie-Russian contest. And what about thousands of articles in Russian

newspapers published in Israel about what can be called almost a genocide against "Russians"?

When they began to call my son to a draft board (because Israel has a compulsory military service) he asked an alternative military service each time they

called him: because he was afraid of hostility towards "Russians" within the Israeli army and also because of the rule that a single son can not be taken into the

front-line units against his will. They gave him no decision, but kept ordering him to came to the draft point again and again. One day a new routine order to

come to the draft point arrived. My son was ordered to come one day but the order have been sent one day later then the date of his appearance. A couple

of other days past before he got the order. But as soon as he got it he immediately went to the draft board.

When he came they have arrested him incriminating him a disobedience to the order to come. No excuse, no explanation were admitted. Everything

happened so fast that there is no doubt: they were prepared. So, they have submitted this order for him later then the date he was called to intentionally. He

was accused in a refusal to come to the draft board (the ignored his voluntarial arrival) and in avoiding the military service. They have treated him like if he

already was a soldier and flied from a military unit. He was also given a soldier's number as if he was a soldier when in reality he never entered the army and

never wearied a military uniform. When he admitted that he's going to become mentally ill because of the military prison they refused to give him a

Russian-speaking psychologist, and the Hebrew- speaking psychologist couldn't speak with our son, but wrote a report based on ungrounded insinuations.

When later a Russian-speaking psychologist appeared he translated him that report but told that it is impossible now to dispute what the Israeli wrote.

When our son was in the military prison severe humiliations were committed over him. All the violations of the rules and of the moral norms in his case were

too innumerable to mention them. During his imprisonment our son was transformed from a healthy person to a mentally ill boy. When he was released from

the military prison (he was in the prison more then 3 months; no charges were posed against him, no court took place) the military medical committee

recognized him as a mentally ill person. When he was just imprisoned he was recognized as a fully healthy person suitable to the military service.He received

some treatment here, in Canada, and the immigration board know it. We did everything we could to release our son from the military prison. But the civil

lawyers refused to take his case as soon as they heard about the conflict with the army. Some of them assaulted us refusing to take the case.We demanded a

military lawyer but the military commandature in Jaffo denied us a military lawyer. We turned to all the possible places like Israel Bar Association, human

rights organizations, Sharansky's Zionist Forum, Israel and foreign media, state officials: nobody couldn't or didn't want to help us. Then we decided to send

a letter to Amnesty International. A friend of us - a dissident and a journalist Lev G.
– has contacted Amnesty International and later submitted several faxes

to them. When the authorities realized that we complained to Amnesty International they released our son from the military prison.

We couldn't live in Israel any more after what happened to us and to our son there, and also because we were afraid that our son can be arrested again if we

will stay in Israel. The only reasonable solution for us was to escape. And the only way to do it was to become refugee claimants. We flied to Montreal in

November, 1994.

We have submitted all the documentary proof we had to support our claim to the immigration board (committee). We also sincerely described what

happened to us in our claim's atory without any distortion or exaggeration. But what happened to us in the immigration courtroom and between and after our

2 hearings is just incredible...