Ar-Ram Saturday, July 10, 2004, 9-11 A.M.Testimony of Rachel H. and Nina M. on a violent incident at the Ar-Ram checkpoint.Description of the event:We saw a regular policeman issuing a traffic ticket to one of the drivers. At the checkpoint there was also a minibus (Ar-Ram-Jerusalem line) whose passengers were ordered to get off in order to have their documents checked. Suddenly, Y. (blue ID card) emerged from the minibus, bleeding severely from the nose. At this point it was not clear that the bleeding had been caused by violence, since Y. walked around at the checkpoint for several minutes and the soldiers suggested calmly that he should rinse his face. Y. refused; he wanted to make a call on his mobile phone. As he was standing under the iron stairs leading to the observation tower, a soldier approached him and tried to prevent him from making the call, declaring that he was under arrest. Y. resisted, and the soldier pushed him roughly, shoving his head against the stairs.Immediately after that, four soldiers jumped on Y., threw him to the ground and, using a great deal of force, handcuffed him, his hands behind his back. As his whole face was covered with blood, they put him into a closed installation at the checkpoint.We were obliged to move away from the checkpoint, but managed to take a few photos of the violent incident.At this point, we called the army’s “humanitarian” hotline and the hotline of the Border Police in Jerusalem and asked them to sent high-ranking officers to the checkpoint, along with an ambulance. Until the officers arrived, the soldiers were verbally violent toward us and threatened to take our cameras. They said they did not understand why we were so upset, since events like this occur ten times a day.After a while, the commanders E.Z. and J. from the operations room and officer B. and Chief Superintendent of the police A.N. arrived at the checkpoint. In addition, Palestinian women from the Fatma Legal Aid Center arrived with a photographer from Channel 10 television.Y.’s testimony regarding what occurred in the minibus:Y. and the other passengers got out of the vehicle for the document check. A member of the Border Police, D.A. got into the minibus and asked whose bag was on the seat. Y. got back on and said the bag contained his computer. D. asked Y. to open the front of the computer. Y. answered that he didn’t know how to do that. D. asked the driver for a screwdriver and started to bang the computer with it. When Y. objected, D. hit him the face with his hands and with the screwdriver. That was the reason Y.’s nose was bleeding when he got off the bus.Y.’s medical treatment:Y. asked the soldiers to call an ambulance, but they refused. In the end, they used Y.’s cell phone to call an ambulance, and Y., while handcuffed, spoke to Hotline 101. The ambulance arrived with a medical team. Y. asked them not to treat him and not to clean the blood from his face until photographs were taken for evidence.In order for the ambulance to take him to the hospital, he was asked to sign for a fee of NIS 425; he was then taken to Hadassah Hospital, Mt. Scopus. We wish to note that: a.) The army refused to send for an ambulance. b.) Despite the fact that the army caused his injury, they did not agree to sign for the ambulance fee.Medical treatment of Y. at Hadassah Hospital:A woman from the Fatma Legal Aid Center notified us at 11:15 A.M. that the hospital was not willing to treat Y. because he was handcuffed. The solider accompanying him was not willing to remove the handcuffs. We gave the woman the telephone number of one of the high-ranking officers at the checkpoint, A.N., and, apparently through his intervention, Y. was released from the handcuffs and received medical treatment.Testimony at the Neve Yaakov police station:At 3 P.M., Nina M. called J., Y.’s brother, to see how he was. J. told her that he and Y. were at the police station in Neve Yaacov for an investigation. Nina drove to the police station to give her testimony about the event. At 6 P.M., Y. was released and told that his file would be sent to the department investigating complaints against the police. Summary:We were witnesses to extreme and unnecessary violence toward Y. Instead of solving the problem of the computer by calling in an expert in explosives and suspicious objects, the soldier used violence.The soldiers at the checkpoint did not try to prevent the deterioration of the incident, but on the contrary, took part in the violence.We should emphasize that throughout the incident, Y. was passive and did not use violence at all.