A group of international victims of torture - though none from the Middle East - will join Danish parliamentarian Soren Sondergaard at a Danish police station on Friday to ask that Israel's ambassador designate to Denmark, Carmi Gillon, be arrested, said Haaretz newspaper.
The Danish MP said that he would ask the police to make the arrest according to Article 6 of the UN Treaty against Torture.
Under Gillon's leadership in the mid-1990s, Shin Bet agents tortured hundreds of Palestinian detainees, according to B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights organization, cited in a July 29 Washington Post report.
In the same vein, according to Amnesty International, Israel arrested more than 8,000 Palestinians and routinely subjected them to torture in the period 1993-1998.
Sondergaard said he thought that a court had to decide whether the Vienna treaty guaranteeing diplomatic immunity took precedence over the UN treaty.
"This is not just about Israel or Gillon," he said. "And all that talk about anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism is nonsense. Tomorrow this could happen to [someone from] China, Syria, Egypt, anywhere. In our group we have victims from South America, Kurdistan, Bosnia and India. The point is that the treaty commits us to bringing Gillon to justice," Haaretz quoted him as saying.
Gillon, who arrived Wednesday in Copenhagen under heavy guard and amidst fierce Danish criticism regarding his appointment, refused to answer most of the questions put to him by the large press contingent who waited for him and offered only limited comments, AFP and Haaretz said.
"It is a great honor," he said, referring to his new posting, said Haaretz.
Hundreds of demonstrators gathered at the Israeli embassy in Copenhagen on Wednesday for a peaceful protest over the appointment of the former Shin Bet security service chief as Israel's ambassador to Denmark.
The majority of the protestors were Palestinians, although they were joined by a number of Danish left-wing activists and anti-torture human rights activists, AFP said.
Also present outside the embassy was a group supporting Gillon's appointment.
Gillon remained in the ambassador's residence throughout the demonstrations.
The demonstrators, waving Hizbollah and Palestinian flags, protested Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories and called on the Danish government to reject Gillon's appointment and expel him from the country.
Danish police have cordoned off the street on which the embassy is located, with up to 60 policemen with riot gear and dogs at the scene.
Gillon was ordered by the Israeli Foreign Ministry not to be interviewed until he takes up his post, which is expected to be on September 11, Haaretz said.
He sparked a huge controversy over his appointment when he told a television interviewer that Israel might need to resume using "moderate physical pressure" to get information from "ticking bomb" terrorists.
Haaretz reported Wednesday that if there were any chance of Gillon being arrested, he would not be going to Denmark.
"We didn't take any chances," said a senior Israeli official.
Denmark's foreign minister, Mogens Lykketoft, has denounced Gillon's actions associated with the Shin Bet, but argues that criticism should be directed at the Israeli government and not personally at Gillon.
Lykketoft had said that Gillon would be treated like any other diplomat. – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
