Лев Гунин - ГУЛаг Палестины

Russian-speaking psychologist, and the Hebrew- speaking psychologist couldn't speak with our son, but wrote a report based on ungrounded insinuations.

When later a Russian-speaking psychologist appeared he translated him that report but told that it is impossible now to dispute what the Israeli wrote.

When our son was in the military prison severe humiliations were committed over him. All the violations of the rules and of the moral norms in his case were too innumerable to mention them. During his imprisonment our son was transformed from a healthy person to a mentally ill boy. When he was released from the military prison (he was in the prison more then 3 months; no charges were posed against him, no court took place) the military medical committee recognized him as a mentally ill person. When he was just imprisoned he was recognized as a fully healthy person suitable to the military service.He received some treatment here, in Canada, and the immigration board know it. We did everything we could to release our son from the military prison. But the civil lawyers refused to take his case as soon as they heard about the conflict with the army. Some of them assaulted us refusing to take the case.We demanded a military lawyer but the military commandature in Jaffo denied us a military lawyer. We turned to all the possible places like Israel Bar Association, human rights organizations, Sharansky's Zionist Forum, Israel and foreign media, state officials: nobody couldn't or didn't want to help us. Then we decided to send a letter to Amnesty International. A friend of us — a dissident and a journalist Lev G. - has contacted Amnesty International and later submitted several faxes to them. When the authorities realized that we complained to Amnesty International they released our son from the military prison.

We couldn't live in Israel any more after what happened to us and to our son there, and also because we were afraid that our son can be arrested again if we will stay in Israel. The only reasonable solution for us was to escape. And the only way to do it was to become refugee claimants. We flied to Montreal in

November, 1994.

We have submitted all the documentary proof we had to support our claim to the immigration board (committee). We also sincerely described what happened to us in our claim's atory without any distortion or exaggeration. But what happened to us in the immigration courtroom and between and after our

2 hearings is just incredible…

Why We Think Our Human Rights Were Violated By the Court?

Inside The Courtroom:

1) Some of the main documentary proofs (statements, affidavits, letters, receipts, articles, ect.) were ignored as if they never existed. 2)Other extremely important documents were mentioned but were ignored (if not — they might be an obstacle to what the judges incriminated us). 3) Other documents (including

Amnesty International's confirmation of our complain) were mentioned as incomplete proof of particular events, when in reality they were given to support other events. In the same time documents which relate to these events were ignored. 4) The same way our words were ignored, too. For example, I was asked an insinuating question. My answer closed that question by a clear and unbeatable conterargument. So, what then? Then the same insinuation was repeated — but this time in an affirmative form: As if I said nothing. The same question could be given 2, 3, 5 times non-stop. If I gave the same answer again and again they shouted on me, used threats, aggression, incredible accusations to force me to change my answer. It's clear that such a method violates moral and legal norms — and any hesitation by a refugee claimant under such an illegal psychological pressure can not be taken into consideration. 5) Too often they questioned us giving us no rights to response. They shuted us down replacing our eventual answer by their own — and later based their conclusions not on our answers but on their own statement posing it as our — not their words. 6) It was repeated again and again that they doubt about our rights to appeal (for a refugee status) because our actions (when we were in Israel) weren't a good solution. As examples of "good solutions" were mentioned: A demolition of our family, a criminal offense — and so on! 7) Several times the bord members expressed their dissaproval by the norms of democracy or by my aproval of the democracy laws. It is absolutely clear that our case was treated not according to Canadians laws but according to the rules and norms of Israel since — in the judges' eyes — we belong not to Canadien but to Israeli jurisdiction. This position — neither being ordered to the bord or being the product of the board itself made the courtroom a part of Israel's territory. 8)The procedure of our immigration hearing wasn't an investigation in our case but a pure pro-Israel's propaganda. It's goal wasn't to detect whether or not our claim for refugee status is justified but to defend the image of Israel as a "good" country in an imprudent and abusing form. The depersonalization of our claim was done in an extreme form ignoring our personal history. So the only criteria chosen to support the bord's point of view was the very fact that we came from Israel. But the only admissible attitude to refugees is to base the decision on what happened to them personally, not on which country they flied. 9)The members of the board expressed their detestation of the human rights defense and verbally denied (directly or indirectly) a number of recognized human rights. 10)Sending requests to Israeli embassy and demanding some definite information about us, the immigration officer violated another moral and judicial principle: Not to announce his claim to the government of a country a refugee claimant escaped from. 11)Reading Amnesty International's and other reports the immigration officer distorted and sometimes falsified the documents. 12) Documents submitted by the Israeli government, by it's dependents or by it's embassy were considered as absolutely reliable and were voluntarily represented by the tribunal as non-debatable. In the same time documents that were represented by our lawyer (or our documents) — newspapers, statements, declarations, and so on — weren't treated as equal to Israeli propaganda papers. More then that: At least our documents were completely ignored: As if they never existed. In the same time the documentation presented by Israeli government can't be treated as an arbitrary source: Because Israel is involved. Meanwhile a number of our documents may be considered as more objective and independent. 13) The immigration officer used 1) an open lie 2) threats 3) desinformation; 4) expressed an unexplained malicious anger towards us; 5) claimed one thing to defend her position during our hearing and claimed the contrary during the hearing in G. family case (our cases are related, and G. was called as a witness to our second hearing); 6) she lied about what I said, about what she previously said, about what was said about the situation in Israel and so on; 7) her behavier towards us and G. family was so incredibly agressive as if she had a personal reason to punish us, or to exterminate us. 14) A 'yes" or "no" answer was demanded in situations when it was clear that such an answer is absolutely impossible. Demanding "yes" or "no" answer only they justified their decision not let us speak. 15) Despite our son's mental illness and the evidence that he can not be asked the immigration officer asked him various questions in an aggressive manner. We understood that questions which she asked him were nothing more then a pure humiliation. 16) Requests which the immigration officer has submitted to Israel weren't justified or necessary.

Outside The Courtroom:

1) Our lawyer's translator did our story translation in an provocative and humiliated manner. She has chosen the declarative style instead of a description intentionally: to make our story sound ridiculous. She also sabotaged G.'s family story. When they came to Montreal G. put everything that happened to his family in Israel in writing and gave that piece of paper to the translator. She sabotaged the translation distorting the sense of his story, inserting her own inventions and sentences which sounded like provocations. He demanded a translation back to Russian from her French version, and she did it. She wrote it by her own hand. That manuscript is quite different from her French version. So, she did it to smoothen the distortions and to prevent G. from complaining.