
The campaign to FREE AHED TAMIMI and ALL PALESTINIAN CHILDREN was launched at a press conference held at the Cape Town Press Club on Wednesday, 31 January 2018. A recording of the press conference is available here.
PSC Press Statement 31 January 2018
Ahed Tamimi is a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who was arrested after a video of her slapping an Israeli soldier went viral. The slap was in response to a group of Israeli soldiers attempting to forcibly enter her home, allegedly to use her house as a vantage point for intimidating other Palestinian children in the area with gunfire. Soldiers had entered the village of Nabi Saleh and had been shooting rubber bullets, sound-bombs and teargas canisters that had shattered several windows in her home. Ahed’s 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi had minutes before, been shot in the face with a rubber-coated metal bullet at close range that penetrated his skull. Ahed was arrested three days after the “slap incident” in a pre-dawn raid on her home on 19 December 2017, has been denied bail and remains in detention.