In 2023, the young Layan Nasir was arrested by the Israeli army. She was only 21 when they sent her to jail. The crime? Participating in a student committee in which they organized mountain outings, sold cheap snacks and books for the poorest students. Although there was no trial, a military judge condemned her eight months for being “a danger to security.” After two months, his family, of Protestant tradition, got the money to pay bail.
Two years later, he was arrested again. That time, the army entered his house in the town of Birzeit (Bank) during the early morning because he had gone to a demonstration. That time there was also no trial. Not even condemns. He suffered an administrative detention that lasted four months, until the judge decided to release it. She was incommunicado and suffering torture daily.
Now, although he has left all militancy, this Sunday he faces a trial because the state of Israel argues that he must comply what is left for his first arrest, although he paid the bond. They ask him to serve the complete sentence.
Nasir has become the face of the more than 1,600 Palestinian prisoners who, according to the Addameer association, have suffered administrative arrests and have ended up in jail without any trial. She is the face of the campaign that have launched various Spanish entities As Souths, Novact, Mundubat and Hèlia, who asks that the judgment of this young woman be annulled and that all unjustly imprisoned prisoners be released. Nasir attends Eldiario.es by videoconference from his nativenanthane, a few days after the trial.
This Sunday could go back to jail. Do you have any hope that the trial is fair?
Not at all. None. Today (on Wednesday) my lawyer has been talking to the Military Court and they have told him that I have two options. Accept the eight months that ask me and enter the jail directly on Sunday or start a long process, in which we will postpone the trial again and again, with the assurance that, when I end up celebrating, I will increase my sentence until I get to overcome, even, the two years of penalty.
As?
Because we are at war. That is, there are no laws that are worth and can put the condemnation they want. Therefore, my lawyer fears that Sunday arrives and what they ask me not to be eight months, but go to know how much. And of course, the problem is that the decision will have to be taken in the same court, at the moment. I will not have time to think.
Have you been able to reflect on what you want to do?
Not yet. I know this for just a few hours. And I just learned that I can go to jail this Sunday. I did not know that this could be an option. And all roads are terrible. On the one hand I want to end this, because I am tired. Very tired. But on the other hand I am terrified of going back. I have not yet forgotten what happened to me in jail. It was the worst that I have lived in my life.
What happened in prison?
The first time I entered was in 2021 and the second in 2024. And there was a big difference. The first was much easier, even though I was only 21 years old. Then prisons had better conditions thanks to the historical struggle of Palestinian political prisoners. We had many more things. But after the events of October 7, everything changed. They took everything and have the same conditions they had in the 50s.
My first time I could have visits from my family, I could talk to them on the phone, there were notebooks and I could read or spend time studying. But the second time, there was nothing. I couldn't talk to my lawyers and I didn't know anything about what was happening outside: there weren't even radios.
As a consequence of that, his parents never knew in which jail he was and even if he was still alive. How did you carry this lack of communication?
Not knowing anything about our families was what distressed us most. Because, in the absence of news, you get the worst. The situation could be so serious that, sometimes, the dams came to interpret dreams as omen that something bad was happening to their loved ones. It's curious how you think more about them than you. It also happened to me during my second detention.
The soldiers entered my house during the night, without giving any reason. They were very aggressive and violent and the only thing that really scared me was the idea that they did something to my parents. They pointed to my mother at the head with their weapons and my father, who was sleeping, took him out of bed and took him out of the house, also gunned. I didn't care what they could do to me, I just wanted that to end quickly, to arrest me and now, but nothing happened to them.
If at any time I thought about what they could do to me it was because I didn't want them to see it. That's why I calmed down a bit when I saw that my mother's eyes.
They were all strategies to have us weak. I remember, for example, famine. It is a psychological war against political prisoners
In addition to denying him the possibility of communicating, what else did he have to suffer in jail?
They were all strategies to have us weak. I remember, for example, famine. It is a psychological war against political prisoners. The first time I saw her, I thought that could not be food. The portions were small and composed of something that nobody would eat voluntarily.
They brought us rotten food, with mold and that even had bubbles, with an acid taste. And when we complained, they made fun of us, telling us that it knew the food and that we had been forgotten inside that we had forgotten what flavor things had.
Could they complain about their conditions?
Not really. Even looking at a soldier was sufficient reason to punish us. The goal was that we always had fear, that we knew that anything could happen to us at any time. Therefore, every few days they entered the cells during the night, they hit us and changed us from companions. They did not let us take confidence with each other.
In addition, when they entered, they lifted us, touched us and hit us with the excuse of looking for what we could have hidden. And they always punished us, we would have done something or not. I remember a couple of times when we were distributed. One of them were toothbrush and the other underwear. Both are prohibited inside the prison. Well, at a few hours they entered the cells and punished us.
One day the soldiers arrived and, by surprise, they entered the cells and began to attack us. In the end, when they had already cornered us all, they threw gas bombs and closed
What were those punishments?
Depends. They hit us, they threw us from the hair, the women who wore him torn them the hijab… But the worst was an anniversary of October 7. The soldiers arrived and, by surprise, they entered the cells and began to attack us. In the end, when they had already cornered us all, they threw gas bombs and closed. They played us in cells that had neither doors nor windows.
In those cells there were old people, people with epilepsy and sick. We thought about how to get out of that situation, but also how to help the rest, who should be the first to save himself. And, when we got out, reach the patio and breathe air, there were the soldiers …
The first time they put it in jail was under the accusation of being “a threat to security” for belonging to a student committee. Why was it so dangerous?
(Laughs) I don't know myself. The student organization is normal and a right, but not something you can accuse us. We did not do military or resistance formations, nothing that Israel had prohibited. In the list of things I did, to support the accusation, it was that it sold snacks to a Shekel (the currency of Israel), much cheaper than those of the university cafeteria, which is private.
We also sold second -hand books and organized walks through the field. Well, all that, for Israel, is a crime. It is a crime to speak to Palestine students, to ensure that they can study.
Before October 7 it was very difficult for you to send you to jail without trial, even if it were unfair. Now is the common
None of the two times that has gone to jail has been trial. Is that frequent?
It is a way to repress ourselves again and again. Every day administrative detention is resorted to more (detention and imprisonment without judgment or condemnation, normally supported by security reasons). They are usually a few months, because there is no cause, a trial will never be held. It is a measure to scare us. According to Addameer there are 1,613 people in this situation today. And then there are those who have already left prison and have paid, but they stop again, which is what they want to do to me.
Before October 7 it was very difficult for this to happen to you. Yes, there were arbitrary arrests and political prisoners, but it was more complicated to send you to jail without trial, even if it were unfair. Now it is common.
Is it still politically active?
(Smile sad) … No.
You come from a Protestant family. As a person who has been tortured, what do you feel when Israel says that his war is only against the Islamist terrorism of Hamas, not against the Palestinian people?
I have been arrested, arrested and tortured. They say what they want, but they don't care if you are a Christian or Muslim. For them, all Palestinians are the same and that's why they kill us without discriminating. Genocide is against the Palestinian people, either of the religion that is. And Palestinian suffering has always been Muslims and Christians, because it is not the first time it happens. It is not a religious cause, say what they say.
And that is something that everyone can see, every day, live. Everyone sees the suffering of the people of Gaza. Now, what is not so seen is what happens in prisons. The slow death of prisoners. Prisons are cemeteries for living people. There is no food, there is no soap or radios. There is nothing. All people focus on what happens outside because it is terrible but, please, do not leave the dams alone. Do not leave them alone with the soldiers.
