Sam Beamish

Israel tortured and sexually humiliated Greta Thunberg. Some excerpts from her interview with the Swedish paper Aftonblatet: "They grab me, pull me to the ground, and throw an Israeli flag over me." "They dragged me to the opposite side from where the others were sitting, and I had the flag around me the whole time. They hit and kicked me." "They moved me very brutally to a corner that I was turned towards. ‘A special place for a special lady’, they said. And then they had learned ‘Lilla hora’ (Little whore) and ‘Hora Greta’ (Whore Greta) in Swedish, which they repeated all the time." In the corner where Greta was sitting, the police placed a flag. "The flag was placed so that it would touch me. When it fluttered and touched me, they shouted ‘Don’t touch the flag’ and kicked me in the side. After a while, my hands were tied with cable ties, very tightly. A bunch of guards lined up to take selfies with me while I was sitting like that." "They were thrown to the ground and beaten. But I could only see it out of the corner of my eye, because every time I lifted my head from the ground, I was kicked by the guard standing next to me." Greta was then taken into a building to be searched and undressed. "The guards have no empathy or humanity, and they keep taking selfies with me. There’s a lot I don’t remember. So much is happening at once. You’re in shock. You’re in pain, but you go into a state of trying to stay calm." Outside, she was forced to take off her clothes again, she says. "It was mockery, rough handling, and everything was filmed. Everything they do is extremely violent." "It was so hot, like 40 degrees. We begged the whole time: Can we have water? Can we have water? In the end, we screamed. The guards walked in front of the bars the whole time, laughing and holding up their water bottles. They threw the bottles with water in them into the trash cans in front of us." "When people fainted, we banged on the cages and asked for a doctor. Then the guards came and said, ‘We’re going to gas you.’ It was standard for them to say that." "This shows that if Israel, with the whole world watching, can treat a well-known, white person with a Swedish passport this way, just imagine what they do to Palestinians behind closed doors." Thunberg says the Swedish government greatly downplayed the abuse she and her fellow Sumud Flotilla activists suffered, and wouldn't even bring them water. "We were together and told them about the treatment we received. About the lack of food, water, about the abuse. The torture. We showed them the physical injuries we had – bruises and scratches. We gave them all our contact details – I gave them my father's number and the number of our contact in the organization. We were clear: everything we say now must be released to the media." "They didn’t do anything, they just said: ’Our job is to listen to you. We are here and you are entitled to consular support.’" "We said over and over again: we need water. And they saw that the guards had water bottles. The embassy staff said: ’We’ll make a note of that.’ One of us, Vincent, said: ’Next time we meet you, you must bring water.’ Then it took two days before the embassy staff showed up again. "They didn't bring any water, except for a small bottle of their own that was half empty. Vincent, who was in the worst shape, got to drink it. We kept asking the guards, 'Can we have some water?' but they just walked around with their water bottles and didn't answer." "I said, 'Are you going to leave us like this? If you leave now, they will beat us up.' But they just kept walking." When Aftonbladet compares emails sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to relatives, with what the captives describe telling embassy staff, it becomes clear that the seriousness of the situation has been downplayed. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs describes the scene at the port, where Greta Thunberg was beaten for hours, as follows: “She told us about harsh treatment and that she had been sitting on a hard surface for a long time.” On Saturday, several media outlets published testimonies that Greta had been subjected to torture. Aftonbladet has spoken to three other members of the flotilla who largely confirm what Greta Thunberg says and who have all experienced various types of abuse and humiliation. We have also spoken to relatives. Everyone is highly critical of how the Swedish embassy staff acted.