by Sophie Claudet
JERUSALEM, July 26 (AFP) - A US peace activist, who spent 34 days in police custody after arriving in Israel to film a protest against the West Bank barrier, slammed on her release Monday accusations that she was a "threat to national security."
The judge "called my camera 'a weapon' ... I believe this is the real reason I was denied entry for 34 days and why it was necessary to use a system of 'secret evidence' against me," 44-year-old Ann Petter told reporters, pointing to the fact the reasons for her arrest were never disclosed.
She said she had been to the West Bank last year in a visit co-ordinated with the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) that opposes Israel's occupation of the West Bank an Gaza and that her past "non-violent" work here "formed the basis of denying me entry to Israel."
"By preventing international activists from entering the country, the Israeli government is sending the message that non-violent resistance is not acceptable," she said, adding that such an attitude only served to fuel the Palestinian armed struggle.
"My ordeal shows the Israeli government's policy towards protest and its mislabeling of political issues as 'security issues'. We are fighting for free speech here, the rights to protest," she said.
She said her embassy had declined to help secure her release, arguing she should not have opposed deportation.
Petter, from New York, was arrested when she landed at Ben Gurion airport on June 23 but a Tel Aviv tribunal ordered her release last week if she put up a 12,000 dollar bond. She managed to gather the money on Sunday, her lawyers added.
The tribunal reversed an expulsion order by the interior ministry which had classified Peter a "threat to national security" given her ties to ISM.
The tribunal ordered Peter's release, allowing her to stay in Israel on condition that she not travel in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, take part in demonstrations or approach within a kilometre (less than a mile) of the separation barrier.
Her Israeli lawyer Lea Tzemel said her country had developed "hatred against foreigners."
She hailed her client release as "a victory" and the first of an ISM activist.
"The security at the airport related to ISM as a terrorist organization, (the judge) said that there are no evidence that shows this at all. He resented the fact a person cannot be allowed in although they could not prove violent acts on her behalf," she told reporters.
"I think every Israeli should appreciate the fact other people show great interest in what we do in the occupied territories. We, Israelis, are not allowed to enter, so we need to the eyes and ears of others."
Since April 2002, 70 members of the ISM have been barred from entering Israel and 36 arrested and deported. The group is blacklisted by the Jewish state on the grounds that it hinders security operations in the occupied territories.
Two of its activists were also killed by soldiers in the southern Gaza Strip. A soldier is being investigated in connection with one of the killings.