MEGAN Sethuraman witnessed and documented human rights abuses against Palestinians during her three months in the Occupied West Bank.
The 24-year-old has returned from the region having spent three months in Bethlehem with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI). The EAPPI is neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Palestinian, but grounded in human rights and international humanitarian law. Before leaving for Palestine Megan had an internship with the Andersonstown News.
In the West Bank she spent most of her time meeting with families and communities and documenting human rights abuses against them.
While most of the world's focus has been on the horrendous loss of life in Gaza since the Hamas attack on October 7, Megan says that human rights abuses in the Occupied West Bank have sky-rocketed over the same period.
“There was a lot of violence,” said Megan, about her time in Bethlehem. “We visited a lot of farmers who are not being allowed to access their own land. They had the papers for it, and they would go to work on their lands and armed [Israeli] settlers would tell them to leave.
“We also went to this farm on a hill and it’s surrounded by [Israeli] settlements and the Israeli government are trying to take over the farm to have all the hilltops. So, the settlers would come every day and tell them to leave and ask to see their ID, because a lot of settlers are also reservists in the army so they have the uniform and they are able to come up and ask for their IDs and have the farmers sitting in the hot sun for hours and hours.”
Megan Sethuraman back in Belfast
Megan says for Palestinians it’s tough living under occupation “but they never show it”.
“They keep going and keep living even though the occupation is happening. They still want to live. Their whole idea is 'existence is resistance'. They don’t want to attack the Israelis they want to live and that alone is resistance."
Megan spoke about one woman who studies in Ramallah, which is on the other side of Jerusalem from Bethlehem.
“To get from Bethlehem to Ramallah she can’t go through Jerusalem because she doesn’t have a Jerusalem ID so she is not allowed to go through Jerusalem, she has to go all the way around and there were settlers throwing stones at cars on the road, so it is a dangerous journey. And so a journey that should have taken only two hours, it took six and a half hours,” recalled Megan
“I witnessed at a checkpoint the border police chasing after a guy and grabbing him by the neck and putting his neck between his legs.”
Megan stressed that the EAPPI is an independent organisation.
“It’s not pro-Palestinian or pro-Israeli, it’s pro-international law and pro-human rights,” she said. “Whoever the human rights abuses is against we will monitor it and we will report it, but while I was there I didn’t witness any human rights abuses against Israelis which I think speaks for itself.”
