Abu Dis, SawahreSunday pm, March 6th 2005Watchers: Ofra A. and Ronny P. (reporting) and visitors from New York and boston from “Doctors for just peace”We drove straight to Sawahre and were met by 2 very festively dressed couple- black suit and white shirt and an ellegant woman wearing a black suit. A sight like that stands out in the military zone environment. We approached the soldiers and informewd them of our visitors and heard their story: a young Jerusalemite attcked a BP soldier. We also talked to the couple . They were on their way to a wedding in Bethlehem- he is the bride’s brother from Jenin with an OK permit but the woman and her son are Jerusalemites. When they were negotiating with the soldiers to let them through, the son got really upset and annoyed and that lead to the soldiers claiming that it is a case of “tkifat shoter” . Pascal was sitting apart ,handcuffed and the uncle and mother tried to reason with the soldiers.The son works at the American Colony Hotel and the family lives in Beit Hanina and maybe because they who come from a setting in Jerusalem we know and suddenly find themse lives in a “war zone” so to speak made the scene so painful ,cruel,absurd,unbearable. We have met the the soldiers before and understood that pleading won’t help. We asked questions about the incident and got the soldiers to admit that they were not really attacked,hit, pushed but that the furious guy just waved his arms and they caught him to restrain him.It was extremely frustrating to know that had we come 10 minutes earlier this may not have happened. we met the crew before and they are approachable.We thought to ourselves that this is an example of a situation when it is important that we are there to witness. The soldiers saw that we gave the mother the Human Rights watch card and we were prepared to testify if it was needed. Since the police van was on its way to take him to the police station we called Avi Biton and told him the story as we understood it from the mother and the soldiers. He said that the complaint cannot be “annulled” but that he will talk to the checkpoint commander.Yesterday we heard from the mother that her son was released. They just didn’t make it to the wedding.