Inquiry after Israeli forces caught using boy as shield (on Jeep)

[donsu]

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=514691

A photograph of a Palestinian boy tied to an Israeli police jeep has been handed to justice officials charged with investigating complaints over the use of "human shields" against demonstrators.

The boy, 13-year-old Mohammed Bedwan, and three adult protesters were tied to border police vehicles last week during one of what have become almost daily demonstrations against the routing of the Israeli government's barrier through Palestinian land.

The photograph, taken by human rights activists in the village of Biddo, north-west of Jerusalem, shows Mohammed tied by an arm to a mesh on the jeep windscreen - a mesh intended to protect the vehicle and its driver against stones and rocks. Police said last night that the Justice Ministry's police complaints unit was investigating the case.

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The Supreme Court barred the use of Palestinians as human shields in 2002 after an incident in which soldiers forced the neighbour of a suspected militant to knock on his door and deliver their ultimatum to surrender. The militant shot and killed the man.

Rabbi Arik Ascherman, who heads the organisation Rabbis for Human Rights, says he was also tied to the front of a separate jeep, along with a Palestinian and a Swedish activist from the International Solidarity Movement, after they protested that the boy had been beaten after he was detained. He said he himself was head-butted by the border police unit commander when he was arrested.
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what a cowardly thing to do