About 100 Palestinians from the ancient village of Sebastia and their supporters held a demonstration today to protest against settlers spilling their sewage onto the village's agricultural lands. This was the third demonstration in two months; villagers are starting weekly demonstrations, much like the ones against the wall and settlements that take place every Friday in Bil'in, Ni'ilin, Ma'asara, Nabi Saleh and Qaddum. Demonstrations took place in all of those villages as well on Friday, some of them with violent confrontations with army forces. In addition, activists in the newly formed popular committee say they are planning to take the matter to the…

Raid comes two weeks after a researcher in one of the NGOs was indicted for organizing and participating in nonviolent demonstrations. The offices of Addammeer – the Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees and the Palestinian NGO Network were all raided by IDF last night. The offices, located in the heart of Ramallah, where Israeli forces are officially not allowed to enter, were searched, and at least in the case of Addameer equipment was confiscated, including four computer hard drives and filming equipment. Security tapes and a video made by neighbors show four IDF jeeps pulling in…

Ayman Nasser, a researcher for the Palestinian prisoners' rights NGO Addameer, has himself become a detainee in an Israeli prison, having been charged with several counts of membership in an illegal organization and of partaking in illegal assembly. According to Physicians for Human Rights, he has been tortured during his 39-day-long interrogation. Nasser, 42, was arrested on October 15 in a nighttime raid by armed soldiers and attack dogs on his house in the village of Saffa in the Ramallah district. According to Physicians for Human Rights, Nasser was taken into custody after a prolonged search in his house and a…

There were 4,937 political prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centers in November 2011 according to Adameer, a Palestinian non-governmental organization. Yazan Abdulhadi was one of them before he was released on November 28, 2011, between the two swaps of the deal between Israel and Hamas to free Gilad Schalit (not as part of the deal). On January 7, 2012, he agreed to give an interview that would be published in +972 Magazine. The conversation took place in Ramallah, at Café Pronto. By Alexis Thiry Yazan spent 15 months in Israeli prisons, accused of being a member of a student…