A/HRC/15/21 (a) Processing of the passengers at the port of Ashdod 184. All of the intercepted vessels in the flotilla were taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod where a processing centre had been set up in advance in marquees on the quayside to receive the passengers. The Challenger 1, the fastest vessel in the flotilla, arrived around 1100 hours on 31 May. The last ship to arrive was the Mavi Marmara at around 1800 hours on the same day. As a result of the numbers of passengers to be processed, the disembarkation process was extremely lengthy. Some passengers from the Mavi Marmara said that they had to wait up to 12 hours inside the ship under armed guard after it had arrived at the port and some did not disembark until the next morning. 185. The vessels were greeted by crowds of soldiers and sometimes civilians, including school children, at the quayside, waving flags and cheering the return of the Israeli forces. Some passengers said that they were jeered or taunted by the people on the quay. There were also television camera crews and journalists recording the disembarkation of the passengers. Many passengers said that they found the experience of being “paraded” before the media and the sometimes hostile crowds unsettling and humiliating. 186. Injured passengers who had not been airlifted were diagnosed and sent to nearby hospitals for treatment. Some passengers with serious injuries were made to walk off the Mavi Marmara unaided. Due to the delay in disembarking and processing all passengers, some injured passengers had to wait for considerable periods before they were diagnosed and sent to hospital. Others were not diagnosed until they arrived at the prison later. 187. During processing, all passengers were presented with official papers to sign. Various translations of the papers were in circulation, in English, Turkish and Arabic, but most passengers said that they were given a version in Hebrew and that the contents were not explained to them. According to those able to understand the papers, they stated that the signatory admitted to having entered Israel illegally and consented to deportation and be banned from re-entering Israel for a 10-year period. Some passengers were told that signing the document would expedite early release from custody and repatriation whereas failure to sign would result in a lengthy detention period pending court proceedings. 188. Almost all passengers refused to sign the document on the basis that they had been brought to Israel from international waters against their will or because they did not want to sign a document that they did not understand. There were concerted efforts by some Israeli officers to coerce passengers into signing the forms. Some passengers did sign under duress having annotated the text to reflect the circumstances of their entry into Israel or stating that it was signed “under protest”. Some passengers were threatened with physical violence for refusing to sign; others were beaten or physically abused for refusing to sign or for advising others not to sign. Efforts to persuade passengers to sign the forms continued at the airport almost up to the moment of departure. 189. Passengers were subjected to a series of meticulous searches, including strip searches. Although female officers generally searched the women, some complained that they were searched in full or partial view of male officers. Some male passengers said that they were subjected to or threatened with internal cavity searches. A number of passengers described the process of being searched as being deliberately degrading and humiliating, accompanied by taunts, provocative and insulting language and physical abuse. During the course of their detention in Israel, many passengers were searched multiple times, long after such searches could serve a useful security purpose. 190. During processing, passengers were photographed either for official documentation or, in some cases, for “trophy pictures”. The processing of some passengers was also videotaped. Passengers had their fingerprints and in some cases DNA swabs, were taken. Whilst some successfully declined to submit to fingerprinting, some had their prints taken by force. A victim and witnesses provided a vivid description of the circumstances in which 41