ГУЛаг Палестины - Лев Гунин

recomendations(see p.1 of this Document), his translator's sabotage (see Document # 3), or IRB members

refusal to let me speak (see Group of Documents # 4, Document #1). My lawyer's recommendations were good

until the IRB members started to use "unconventional" methods and aggressive behavior. Analyzing my conversation

with Mossad (Shabak) officer at Ben-Gurion airport I came to conclusion that information they could collect some

additional information about me from my manuscripts, which were confiscated during (after) our flight

Warsaw-Tel-Aviv (Lod). Protesting against confiscation of some of my belongings I turned to Ben-Gurion's airport

administration, to other institutions and organizations. You could see a copy of one of my complains composed in

1991: and, if you would doubt that it was composed in 1991, I could give you the original, which could be checked

and which age could be determined in one or another way. (See Supplements, Documents # 40, 41, 42).

I was contacted by Mossad in Israel after the airport's conversation. Defense, suspension of persecutions, and help in

obtaining prosperity were proposed by then in exchange to suspension of my human rights and journalistic activity.

To prove that I could present not only a letter from Israel (which was discussed during our last immigration hearing),

but also other material proofs like business card with the name and telephone number of the person, who contacted

me, and so on. (Supplements, Document # 43).

Here are just several examples of how important were the things, which the IRB did not let me to tell. I could give more examples of the most vital for the valuation of my

case things, which description was blocked by the IRB. They used aggressive behavior, psychological pressure, administrative orders, and even threats for

preventing me from the particular things' description. In the same time, these things might be critical for the question of not just mine, but all family members' life or

death!

One of the most significant indications that the danger to my life always exists in Israel is that Israeli police abused me.

IRB members could speak non-stop about how it was not typical, but they could not deny the fact of abuse itself. In

Israel, where tortures by police or army are legal (see Supplements, Documents # 44), army or police could

always torture and kill me or any other member of my family. In context of all that I described and explained above

police action against me does not looks occasional. To show how police in Israel is dangerous for innocent

unprotected people I support this paragraph by several documents (see Documents # 45, 46, 47).

Please, believe me that I am not exaggerating the risk to my life. I have enough experience to detect it as real: and it

is real!

1.4.

Our removal from Canada back to Israel could be an extreme sanction in itself. Because what happened

in 1991 was not our freewill immigration to Israel but a forcible deportation to Israel executed by both

communist and Israeli authorities (see Document #2). Our removal to a country we do not belong to and

which citizenship was thrust on us against our free will is immoral and inhuman. To extradite us to Israel

means to return us back to captivity.

During more then 3 years I was refused a special permission, which is required for immigrants, to leave Israel (listen

to my 1-st hearing's recording). In supported documents I explain why I did not mention that in my refugee claim but

only during the hearings (see p.1 of this Document). We quit Israel with such extreme difficulties that we never

could leave it any more if removed there, and could not fly persecutions any more. We, adults, and even our children

could stay in captivity there to the rest of our lives!

If we would be removed back to Israel extreme and most vulnerable sanctions could be adopted against us there.

Such sanctions not just highly expected, but are obvious since Israeli authorities already practiced extreme

administrative pressure on us in 1991-1994. There were next administrative sanctions.

A). a) Refusal to give my wife, and me permission to work in our professions. b) Refusal to give me an employment

authorization at all after 1992.

1. We were not given an appropriate language course as all fresh immigrants.

2. The Ministry of Culture and Education refused to make equivalents of my wife's, and mine diplomas, when they

had to do that automatically according to Israeli rules. I have already presented all material evidences to the

Immigration Board, and the board did not express any doubt in these documents authenticity. That fact was also

mentioned during our immigration hearings.

3. Without these equivalents, we were not legitimate for a permission to work in our professions, as well as for the

most of the professional courses available.

4. I was legitimate to enter only one course - "Talpiot", - which was denied me. The reason of the denial was not

given.

My protests and demands to provide me with a reason of the denial were lost without notice. Maitre Stanley Levin, the

only Israeli lawyer who agreed to defend me in Israel, composed a letter to the Minister of Culture and Education Mr.

Amnon Rubinshtein. Maitre S.Levin's letter and Mr. A. Rubinshtein's response were presented to the IRB (see

Documents # 48 in Supplements). That topic was widely discussed during my immigration hearings; the

Immigration Board expressed no doubts that this conflict took place in reality. In the same time the commissioners did

attempts to misrepresent this event and to place it in dependence of mentioned in my wife's Israeli eternal passport

nationality. Maitre Dore, who replaced my main lawyer during the time of the hearings, did a mistake, allowing the

commissioners to lead him in that question. In reality, I would reject "Talpiot's" administration demands to show my

wife's passport-related nationality even if it was marked as "Jewish": because for the people like me such a demand

was disgracing and racist. And I do not think that this little incident was the real reason of the refusal. But I could not

name the "reason" because the term "political persecutions" is too abstract for the commissioners.

5. The Ministry's of Labor governmental Labor Exchange refused to register me as unemployed after the first

accommodative trial period in Israel. Israeli regulations by then put some restrictions on employers to employ a

person who was not registered by the governmental labor exchange. In reality, it was equal to a refusal of an

employment authorization. In the same time this refusal prevented us from getting any social assistance, too. (See

letter from Maitre S. Levin to the Labor Exchange administration: Supplements, Document # 49).

(This also was discussed during the refugee hearings).

6. When - in spite of that - I had found an official job and was employed, and my wife was employed, too, we were

paid less then the minimum wage. We had to be paid by the government an additional amount of money till the level

of the income security, but were refused.

7. We struggled till our last day in Israel for the right to obtain an official explanation in writing of the refusal to register

us at labor exchange, to pay us welfare, and to get an adjustment till the subsisting minimum, which had to be paid us

according to the law. We demanded to present us the reasons of all these refusals, but we did not succeed in our

demands...

8. We also turned to the Civil Court, and the court recognized me as an unemployed. But the labor's exchange

administration refused to register me even then, in spite of the Civil Court's decision. (See this decision in

Supplements, Document #50).

All these above-mentioned items were mentioned during our refugee hearing but the commissioners avoided evaluating them in context of

our refugee claim but transferred the discussions to the demagogical and political spheres.

This justify the next question: was it a refugee hearing or it was a political process or a pro-Israeli propaganda forum?

9. My wife, and me - we turned to a number of personalities, organizations and institutions like lawyer Maitre Stanley

Levin, Histadrut, Sochnut, Civil Court of Petach-Tikva, Ratz (Movement for Human Rights and Peace), municipality of

Petach-Tikva, municipality's legal consultant, and so on, without any result. (See the whole list in Supplements, #8).

This topic was one of the most widely discussed during our refugee hearings!

10. The commissioners could easy conclude that this situation removed our legal status in Israel from us. We became

people without any legal status because we were socially (and legally) totally deprived. We could not obtain a bank card,

credit card, take a loan, be responsible for any business operation, in other words, had no rights of citizens.

11. After my wife was bitten on her job and turned to police, she was not paid her salary. No institution (this event was

discussed during our immigration hearings) expressed a will to defend her rights.

To examine documents related to this part see our file and also Supplements, Documents #51,52.

B). Incredible financial pressure through illegal billing, taxation, or fines.

1. Illegal billings. Exaggerated telephone bills, bills for long-distance calls, which we never did, etc., were coming. We had

to pay all of them because it was no place where to turn to dispute them.

2. Taxation. We had to pay taxes for TV, which we did not have by then (in Israel you must pay taxes for radio and TV), for

medicine and medical services (some of them fresh immigrants or - in other cases - people with small income - did not

have to pay). We were also forced to pay municipal tax instead of the owners of the apartment, which we rented. In that

case as new arrivals we were eligible to pay reduced tax for immovable property, but were given this privilege only in 1994,

short time before we left for Canada. In spite of the law that new immigrants do not pay taxes I was forced to pay taxes

from money I earned playing concerts. Ministry of Taxation and Revenues has also submitted us an application form for

paying taxes as if we had an enterprise and refused to pay taxes. This form was submitted to us not from Tel-Aviv, as

normally was practiced, but from Jerusalem - as if I was a special person. There were other examples of such taxation.

(Examples of such bills were presented to the commissioners).

3. We had to pay fines for things we did not do and for violations we never committed.

Supporting documents are enclosed (see Supplements, Documents #53,54).

C). Draft Board has submitted me orders to appear sometimes every several days. I know that the compulsory military

service for people of my age, who never were in the army in any country before, was not practicing. I do not think that they

had intentions to take me to the army anyway. But they called me to appear there so often that it distorted my whole life

and became an obstacle for work or social activity. I had also to spend a lot of money for bus tickets to appear at draft

board, at Tel-ha-Shomer. They also refused to give me a permission to leave the country during more then 3 years.

Supporting documents are enclosed (see Supplements, Documents #55). They were also presented to the

commissioners.

D). I could not say that the whole issue with my wife's eternal passport ("Tehudat Zehut") - during the refugee hearing

was a well-coordinated with the Israeli side provocation (conspiracy) only because I have no material proof. But there are

a lot of coincidences and indications in favor of such a suggestion. When (first I, and later my wife) we were given

"Tehudat Zehuts", clerks told us that this document is the property of Israeli government and do not has to be shown to

any foreigner or taken abroad. I knew many other Russian-speaking people who were told the same. Even Mrs. Malka, the

immigration officer, has to recognize the existence of this regulation (please, listen to immigration hearings tapes, the last

hearing), but she suggested that (as some of Russian speaking people did) we had to violate the law and to bring

(smuggle!) our "Tehudat Zehuts" to Canada illegally!

When the day of our departure from Israel came, we had completely forgotten about this regulation, and our "Tehudat

Zehuts" among other papers were taken to airport. That happened because for us it was a tremendous moment. (Only a

person with sick imagination could suggest that a family like ours could take a hard decision to fly a country where we

(nominally, but...) were citizens and spent more then 3 years just because of economic reasons or "exaggerations"). Car, in

which I was with my friend Igor Puchinsky (my family went to airport in another car before me) was stopped at the military

post by a solder - a Moroccan origin. He told us to get out from the car and to show our identities. I had only my foreign

passport (my "Tehudat Zehut" was with my wife). He began to shout on me and threaten me by an arrest "because I had

no Israeli ID". He claimed that the foreign passport is considered in Israel as a document for departure only and does not

recognized as an ID. He told that a real ID is only "Tehudat Zehut", which is not permitted to be taken abroad. And he

said that he suspect me in an attempt to smuggle my "Tehudat Zehut" abroad. May be my friend Mr. Puchinski's

respectability, may be the intervention of the officer- an European origin, helped, but I was released. This incident

reminded us that we still have "Tehudat Zehuts" with us. From another hand, even if we had an intention to smuggle

them, we were too much afraid, and we destroyed them in airport.

This I told Mrs. Malka during our last immigration hearing.

(Any one, who had a chance to hold in hands an Israeli "internal passport" ("tehudat zehut") had a chance to notice that

there are not one but two nationality-related marks in it: one is the brutal disclosure of the genetically-related information

about a person, another one mentions his country of origin. Even if Mrs. Malka or her parents do not possess one, she

held Israeli passports of refugee claimants in her hands - and knows that. It is also obvious that Israeli regulations oblige

people to carry "tehudat zehuts" everywhere with them. It was understandable from the context of our immigration claim