- The numbers vary but range at any time from over 7,000
to 12,000 or more. In April 2008, the Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority
Rights in Israel cited 11,000, including 345 children and 98 women. Over
1,000 suffered from chronic or other diseases. Around 150 were seriously
ill from heart disease, cancer, and other diseases, and 195 or more Palestinians
died or were killed in prison since 1967.
-
- As of January 2009, Adalah said about "22,500 individuals
were imprisoned or detained in Israeli prisons; around 70% (or 15,750 are)
Arabs." Included are 9,735 Palestinians, nearly 80% classified as
"security." Of these, 570 were administrative detainees, uncharged
by order of an administrative official, not a judge.
-
- Another 20 were so-called "unlawful combatants"
under Israel's Unlawful Combatants Law (UCL), saying they're not entitled
to POW status under international law because they either took part in
hostilities against Israel (directly or indirectly) or belong to a force
carrying them out. No proof is needed, only "a reasonable basis for
believing" the designation is accurate, and under UCL, detentions
can be permanent, without trial or judicial fairness.
-
- According to the Addameer Prisoners' Support and Human
Rights Association, since 1967, "over 650,000 have been detained by
Israel," about 20% of the total Occupied Territory (OPT) population
and 40% of the male population. Most are held in Palestine, but many thousands
in Israeli civil and military prisons, in violation of numerous Fourth
Geneva provisions, including Article 49 stating:
-
- "....forcible transfers, as well as deportations
of protected persons (including prisoners) from occupied territory to the
territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied
or not, are prohibited, regardless of their motive."
-
- This applies to OPT prisoners, most of whom are political
victims of militarized oppression, or in other words, guilty of being Palestinian.
In addition, Fourth Geneva states protected persons shall be detained in
the occupied territory and, if convicted, serve there sentences therein.
-
- OPT arrests and detentions come under about 1,500 military
regulations for the West Bank and over 1,400 for Gaza. The IDF commander
issues orders, but new ones aren't revealed until implemented because they're
issued any time for any reason, often arbitrarily and capriciously.
-
- Israeli prisons and military detention facilities are
mainly located within Israel's 1948 borders. They include five interrogation
centers, six detention/holding facilities, three military detention camps,
and about 20 prisons where OPT Palestinians are held.
-
- A secret Facility 1391 at an unknown location is notorious
for using severe torture. Gilboa Prison, north of the West Bank, is also
believed to administer extreme treatment.
-
- "The location of prisons within Israel and the transfer
of detainees to locations within the occupying power's territory are illegal
under international law and constitute a war crime."
-
- On June 7, 1967, Military proclamation No. 1 justified
them "in the interests of security and public order," weasel
words meaning anything. Since then, over 2,900 orders were issued, gravely
harming Palestinians' welfare. "These orders serve as justification
every time the Israeli authorities arrest a Palestinian...."
-
- They can be held for extended periods, interrogations
lasting up to six months, during which time torture, abuse and other degrading
treatment is commonplace, against the great majority in custody.
-
- After interrogation, Palestinians can be detained administratively
without charge or tried in military courts where "military orders
take precedence over Israeli and international law."
-
- Under Military Order 1530, months may elapse between
being charged and trial. The entire process is structured to deny due process
and judicial fairness, unlike for most Jews in civil courts.
-
- Activists, protestors and human rights defenders are
especially at risk. In July 2008, Israeli authorities, by military order,
closed the Nafha Society for the Defense of Prisoners and Human Rights.
It's one of several organizations representing Palestinian detainees in
Israeli courts and advocates for them in prisons and detention centers.
-
- Currently, Israeli security forces, politicians and extremist
groups are targeting human rights groups in response to their support for
the Goldstone Commission report. Among those affected are:
-
- -- B'Tselem
-
- -- Adalah
-
- -- Breaking the Silence
-
- -- the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI)
-
- -- Yesh Din
-
- -- the Centre for the Defence of the Individual
-
- -- the Public Committee Against Torture in Israeli (PACTI)
-
- -- the Israel Religious Action Centre
-
- -- Physicians for Human Rights - Israel
-
- -- Rabbis for Human Rights, and
-
- -- the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) that
condemned the practice in a February 8 press release stating:
-
- PCHR "condemns the continued persecution of international
human rights defenders in the West Bank....and the deportation of international
activists from the country."
-
- On February 7, PCHR learned that Israeli security forces
entered Ramallah and al-Bireh, storming an al-Bireh apartment building
and arresting Spanish journalist Ariadna Jove Marti and Australian student
Bridgette Chappell. They were taken to Ofer Prison pending their deportation,
citing expired visas as pretext. The two women are International Solidarity
Movement activists known, according to an IDF spokesman, "for being
involved in illegal riots that obstruct Israeli security operations."
-
- Other activists were also arrested, Israel now issuing
tourist visas only to 150 selected NGOs operating in the West Bank and
East Jerusalem, including Oxfam, Save the Children, and Doctors Without
Borders. However, they'll be excluded from Area C under Israeli control,
comprising 60% of the West Bank, thus hampering their work and imposing
additional hardships on Palestinians.
-
- PCHR condemned the action and recommends that international
civil society and human rights organizations, bar associations, and international
solidarity groups continue exposing suspected Israeli war criminals and
pressuring their governments to prosecute them according to provisions
of international law.
-
- The extremist Netanyahu government won't tolerate criticism
or censure nor its expansionist West Bank plans, including making all Jerusalem
exclusively Jewish.
-
- His cabinet introduced a Knesset bill prohibiting organizations
from receiving funding from foreign political institutions unless registered
with the Registrar of Political Parties.
-
- They must then provide details about all "foreign
political entity" donations, the source, amount, purpose, commitment
made for its use, and more, as a way to harass and make the process more
cumbersome.
-
- The bill's susposed purpose is to:
-
- "increase the transparency and to correct lacunas
(empty spaces or missing parts) in the law regarding the funding of political
activity in Israel by foreign political entities (where such activity is
defined as being) aimed at influencing public opinion in Israel or one
of the branches of government in Israel regarding any element of Israel's
domestic or foreign policy."
-
- In fact, it's to stifle free expression, dissent and
activism, the way police states do it, how Israel always treats Palestinians,
now increasingly toward outspoken Jews and international human rights organizations
as well.
-
- Conditions in Israeli Prisons
-
- Israel willfully and systematically violates international
humanitarian law, including Common Article 3 applying to the four Geneva
Conventions, requiring:
-
- "humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands,
specifically prohibit(ing) murder, mutilation, torture, cruel, humiliating
and degrading treatment (and) unfair trial(s)."
-
- Fourth Geneva's Article 4 calls "protected persons"
those held by parties to a conflict or occupation "of which they are
not nationals." They must "be treated with humanity and, in case
of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial
prescribed by the present Convention." They're entitled to full Fourth
Geneva rights. Prisoners of war under Third Geneva have the same rights
and those under Common Article 3.
-
- Israel willfully denies them. Under the 1971 Israeli
Prison Ordinance, no provision defines prisoner rights. It only provides
binding rules for the Interior Minister who can interpret them freely by
administrative decree. For example, it's legal to intern 20 inmates in
a cell as small as five meters long, four meters wide and three meters
high, including an open lavatory, and they can be confined there up to
23 hours daily.
-
- An April 2009 PCHR press release said thousands of Palestinians
"continue to suffer in Israeli jails" under horrific conditions,
including:
-
- -- severe overcrowding;
-
- -- poor ventilation and sanitation;
-
- -- no change of clothes or adequate clothing;
-
- -- sleeping on wooden planks with thin mattresses, some
infested with vermin; blankets are often torn, filthy and inadequate; hot
water is rare and soap is rationed;
-
- -- at the Negev Ketziot military detention camp, threadbare
tents are used, exposing detainees to extreme weather conditions; in summer,
vermin, insects, scorpions, parasites, rats, and other reptiles are a major
problem;
-
- -- Megiddo and Ofer also use tents; in addition, Ofer
uses oil-soiled hangers;
-
- -- for some, isolation in tiny, poorly ventilated solitary
confinement with no visitation rights or contact with counsel or other
prisoners;
-
- -- no access to personal cleanliness and hygiene; toilet
facilities are restricted, forcing prisoners to urinate in bottles in their
cells;
-
- -- inadequate food in terms of quality, quantity, and
dietary requirements;
-
- -- poor medical care, including lack of specialized personnel,
mental health treatment, and denial of needed medicines and equipment;
as a result, many suffer ill health; doctors are also pressured to deny
proper treatment, some later admitting it;
-
- -- extreme psychological pressure to break detainees'
will;
-
- -- widespread use of torture, abuse, cruel and degrading
treatment;
-
- -- women and children are treated the same as men;
-
- -- NGOs like Physicians for Human Rights - Israel and
the ICRC are deterred from aiding detainees;
-
- -- denied or hindered access to family members and counsel;
-
- -- imposed conditions link visits:
-
- "with the overall security situation, requiring
that prisoners must not be security prisoners and that persons applying
for visits must not have a security record, requiring that visitors be
first-degree relatives and that brothers or sons applying for visits must
be under the age of 18."
-
- Treatment of Gazans Arrested During and After Operation
Cast Lead
-
- On January 28, 2009, a complaint to Israel's Military
Judge Advocate General, Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblit, by seven
Israeli human rights organizations, cited degrading and appalling conditions
in which detainees, including minors, were held.
-
- Before transfer to the Israel Prison Service, they were
held for many hours or days in pits dug in the ground, handcuffed and blindfolded,
under extreme weather conditions. No sanitation was provided and limited
amounts of food. Some, in fact, were held in combat areas, in violation
of international law prohibiting their exposure to danger.
-
- After removal from pits, some were held overnight in
a truck, handcuffed, with one blanket for two people in winter. Others
were kept for extended periods in the rain with little food or water. Incidents
of extreme violence and humiliation were also reported that continued after
prison transfers.
-
- Legal Department Director of the Public Committee Against
Torture in Israel (PACTI), Bana Shoughry-Badarne, said:
-
- "Israel's indifference to its moral and legal obligations
to detainees is particularly objectionable in view of the fact" that
the IDF completely ignored "the basic rights of the detainees and
captives" under international law, violations committed against every
detainee held.
-
- Since July 2007, Gazan families have been denied access
to their relatives in Israeli prisons. Non-Israeli Palestinian lawyers
can't represent them in military courts. Travel restrictions impede all
lawyers. Meetings with their clients aren't confidential, and most prisoners
have no access to an attorney.
-
- In 2006, B'Tselem issued a report titled, "Barred
from Contact: Violation of the Right to Visit Palestinians Held in Israeli
Prisons," citing obstacles families face to visit their relatives.
They include difficulties obtaining required permits and "grueling
journeys" of up to 24 hours, the result of long distances through
numerous checkpoints plus delays.
-
- This "arbitrary and disproportionate policy not
only infringes the right to family visits, it also results in violation
of other rights and principles of international humanitarian and human
rights law, as well as domestic Israeli law."
-
- In January 2010, Adalah addressed the same issue stating:
-
- On December 9, 2009, "Israel's Supreme Court (HCJ)
decided that the state has no obligation to allow family visits for Gazans
detained in Israel." Writer Grietje Baars, a UK lawyer, said the HCJ
rejected petitions by detainees, their relatives and Palestinian and Israeli
human rights organizations, claiming that "Israel's rights as a sovereign
state" lets it deny "foreigners" entry in violation of international
law - a clear act of persecution.
-
- Under Article 7(g) of the Rome Statute of the International
Criminal Court (HCJ), crimes against humanity include:
-
- "Persecution (meaning) the intentional and severe
deprivation of fundamental rights contrary to international law by reason
of the identity of the group or collectivity."
-
- In a previous decision, the HCJ held that:
-
- "It is a firmly established precept that the human
rights to which a person is entitled simply by being human remain even
when he is detained or imprisoned, and the fact that he is incarcerated
cannot serve to deprive him of any right."
-
- Denying them defies that ruling, and the fact that hundreds
of Gazan detainees in Israel are held indefinitely without trial, are in
virtual isolation, and can only send their families occasional messages
through ICRC representatives.
-
- Petitioners call banning visits "collective punishment"
under Fourth Geneva's Article 33 stating:
-
- "No protected person may be punished for an offence
he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties....are prohibited."
-
- Doing so (along with torture and other forms of abuse)
aims to break their spirit to get them to cooperate or confess to crimes
they didn't commit.
-
- Baars concluded:
-
- "Aside from the right to have their rights hououred
and protected, and to live their lives in dignity and freedom, the Gazans
and the Palestinians in general, have the right to an effective judicial
remedy. Without domestic enforcement of international law, the onus is
on the international community to fulfill these rights and uphold the rule
of law, internationally, for the benefit of all."
-
- The international community's failure to comply with
international law lets Israel violate its provisions freely. Unless changed,
Israel's lawlessness will continue unchecked, a no longer to be tolerated
grim prospect.
-
- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the
Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays
at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs
are archived for easy listening.
-
- http://prognewshour.progressiveradionetwork.org/
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