What I offer

I work as a writer for both local and global organizations and media platforms. I offer my writing skills and expertise in peace and justice issues, veganism, climate, and farm animal ethics, both as a writer and speaker. For me a key is to connect how all these aspects are interlinked. Only then we will be able to find sustainable and long-term solutions. With my work I want to inspire change, action and awakening, towards a just world for all.

What I offer

• Texts, interviews, articles, blogs, books and other materials on issues regarding animal rights, veganism, peace, justice and sustainability
• Lectures and seminars on the topics and moderator for events, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxBj239ZS1U, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5dX_5AMGiY, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQy4ffaTidY&list=PLYN7zHlnZ5RWCjLmB1zHVODEly8RJ0-RR&index=2, https://smmi.se/lar-dig-laga-god-halsosam-och-valdigt-billig-vegomat/
• Tailor made texts, articles and interviews for organizations and initiatives

A new world is possible, and we can create it. In fact, we need to create it

We have accumulated a lot of knowledge as humans. We have come far. We live in a super-materialistic time where we can get almost anything we want, at any time, if we have the resources. The invisible war the global society is part of, against the most innocent of victims, Nature, the farmed animals, the powerless, is uncomfortable. Our society has been corrupted and driven by short term winning on the cost of them with no powerful voices, those exploited or sacrificed for ”business as usual”. But the only way we will be able to tackle the challenges of our time, is to cultivate and polish something we all have, but many have forgotten: Wisdom and Compassion. There are no short-cuts to true peace and justice.

My latest article

Palestinian children in Israeli prisons:

The situation has become beyond imagination

“Even if Israel has Ratified the Convention on Rights of the Child, they do not apply this to Palestinian children in the Palestinian occupied territories. There is no accountability. “

Ayed Abu Eqtaish is the Accountability Program Director for Defence for Children International in Palestine, DCI, with the main purpose of defending Palestinian children in the Israeli military legal system, as well as documenting and doing advocacy work.

Many are not aware that Palestinian children can get arrested by Israeli soldiers at anytime, anywhere, without a trial or any clear evidence in the occupied Palestinian territories and in Gaza. Ayed emphasizes how since October 7, 2023, the situation and violence has escalated into levels that they never could have imagined, even if the situation before was very hard. Most of the children who are arrested are boys.

“The most common reason why children are arrested is that they have been throwing stones or threatening with throwing stones. But sometimes they have just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is also common that children are arrested close to settlements when they try to defend their family property against illegal settlers” he says.

According to the Israeli military order in the military legal system, the age of criminal responsibility for Palestinian children is twelve years old. It is common that even much younger children are arrested, but because of their age they are released after a few hours.

“We come across many cases where the Israeli military have arrested children who are seven or eight years old. For such a child, it is a terrifying experience that he will never forget.”

Before there was some protection for children between 12-14 years old. The maximum sentence they could receive regardless of the offence that they were charged off, was six months imprisonment.

“But in 2020 they changed the military order. And today there is no ceiling for the maximum sentence for a Palestinian child, even if they are only twelve years old. That means that a child can get a sentence in prison for ten or twenty years, for throwing a stone”.

Children can be arrested from the streets, if they are participating in demonstrations or marches, but the majority are arrested in their family homes at night. This makes the situation even more traumatic both for the child and the family.

“Usually the Israeli forces, IDF, invade the village and surround the family home. Often, the whole family are forced outside to show their IDs. They usually do not inform the child or the family of the reason for the arrest, or where the child will be taken. In some cases, they start beating the child in front of other family members.”

The child is then handcuffed and blind folded and taken to one of the military jeeps waiting to be taken to one of the interrogation centers.

“The child is most often terrified and exhausted. But the interrogation starts immediately, by the Israeli police or the Israeli security agency. And the children are never allowed to bring a family member with them, not even the youngest.”

Ayed says the reason for the interrogation is to extract confession from the children, regardless of whether the children committed these offenses or not.

“This is not about the stone itself. It is more symbolic. Israel wants to occupy this land, without any resistance. Often these incidents take place nearby Israeli settlements or expansions of settlements. Israel wants the settlers to expand, without being prevented or to be questioned of their rights. Instead, they crush all resistance or protests. “

The types of ill treatment and torture used against the child being interrogated is both physical and psychological. The most common psychological form of torture is putting children in solidarity confinement, which is a cell that is 1×2 meter, without any interaction with any human being. When the child meets with the interrogator after being isolated, they the atmosphere is hostile.

“They make the child believe that nobody knows about them or cares about them. “I can do whatever I want, nobody can intervene in order to protect you”, is the mentality. And when the child, and even adults, are in this kind of situation, he tends to believe what the interrogator communicates to him and feel the only way out is to give a confession.”

Threats are also a common method used in interrogations to get a confession.

”The interrogator can for instance threaten the child with throwing him out from the third floor, demolish his family’s house or arrest family members. This after the child has been disconnected for let say twenty days. In addition to the psychological traumas imposed on the child there is also physical harassment and abuse, both in the interrogation techniques and in the prisons itself.”

Usually, children give confessions regardless of the allegations, out of fear. When the confession is made, the child is asked to give the statement to a police officer in a more friendly environment, in order to make it look like the child is giving the confession without any pressure. This confession will then be presented in the military court. To win time, a plea bargain is usually made between the lawyer and the court, where both sides agree on specific punishment in return for the child pleading guilty.

At the end of March this year, there were 323 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons. One third of them were under administrative detention orders, which is detention without charges or court proceedings. These orders are issued by the military commander of the area and take often up to six months but can be renewable. Since October 7, there is also a new category regarding children in Gaza, called unlawful competence.

“The situation in the prisons is a dark corner for us. Even we at DCI do not have a clear idea of the situation and how the children are treated. Today the children are totally disconnected from the outside world. Before, child-prisoners could have family visits and regular visits from lawyers and the Red Cross. But this has changed.”

Even when the prisoners go to see the lawyers, they could be exposed to beatings from the guards on the way to and from the meeting.

”When I tell you that the situation is beyond imagination – it is beyond imagination,” he emphasizes.

When I met with DCI in Ramallah in 2007, they told me how children many times, when they met the lawyer after being interrogated over time, would hug them and sit very close, since it was the first friendly person they had met for weeks. Today that is not possible. A new practice prohibits any of that, and the lawyers are only allowed to discuss legal issues with the children, not even give greetings from the family. Ayed also explains how it is common that meetings that have been booked between the lawyers and the children, can be cancelled on a short notice without any explanation. And how court decisions are taken place through a video link, which makes the children even more disconnected.

“A little information has leaked from prisoners, and stories collected from released ones. They informed us about the hard situation. Children are suffering from malnutrition, from diseases, especially scabies, that is spread in almost all prisons. In late March this year, a young boy died in the prison. At the Postmortem we could see that he died of medical neglect, malnutrition and head trauma. The treatment from the prison guards is very harsh.”

A few days ago, Ayed was attending a workshop with an organization that provides psychological support for ex – child prisoners. They have been working in this field since years and one of the social workers said:

“Before Oct 7 our role was to make children step on the ground, because they saw themselves as freedom fighters and heroes beyond their ages. But after October 7, we are instead trying to get children out from beneath the ground, because of all the horrific experiences they have been going through in the prison.”

For people in the West Bank and Gaza, there is a common fear of losing your child into the prison system. And for children, there is an ongoing threat of being arrested. Everyone knows the military can come in the middle of the night. A few days ago, DCI collected a statement from a child who was arrested in Gaza.

“His experience is beyond vocabulary. So far, we have not written about it, but he mentioned some things that are just unbelievable. I have not read all, but part of it. Among other things, he was tied with a rope and was hanged from the fifth floor. For twenty minutes.”

Anne Casparsson

”In my journalism, this is my focus. Connecting the dots and see how everything is interlinked.”

Anne Casparsson

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