Ref: 50/2009
Date: 16 April 2009
Time: 11: 30 GMT
On Palestinian Prisoner’s Day,
Thousands of prisoners continue to suffer in Israeli jails
Each year the 17th of April marks the
anniversary of the release of Palestinian prisoners in the first
prisoner swap deal of 17 April 1974. This date is commemorated annually
in support of those Palestinian who remain in Israeli custody.
This year, Palestinian prisoners’ day comes at a time
when Palestinian civilians are subject to increasingly cruel and inhuman
conditions as a result of Israeli human rights violations. In
particular, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails continue to be denied
their basic rights. Recently, they have been used as political
bargaining chips, in flagrant violation of international human rights
and humanitarian law.
Since their occupation of the Palestinian territories in
1967, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have implemented sweeping
arrest and detention policies, in an attempt to ensure Palestinian
civilians’ obedience and to prevent all forms of resistance. Over nearly
42 years, this policy has resulted in the arrest of hundreds of
thousands of Palestinian civilians. Following the outbreak of the Second
Intifada in September 2000, IOF intensified this campaign; recent years
have seen a steady increase in the number of Palestinian prisoners
detained in Israeli jails.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights’ (PCHR)
statistics indicate that there are more than 9,000 Palestinians,
including 69 women and 248 children, in jails and detention centers
inside Israel. The number includes 337 Palestinians who were in prison
before the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1994, while the majority of
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails were arrested after the outbreak
of the second Intifada in 2000. Approximately 7,500 prisoners are from
the West Bank, while there are 1,100 prisoners from the Gaza Strip. The
total number also includes 900 administrative detainees.
Palestinian prisoners’ conditions are expected to be
worsened in the near future, following the establishment of an Israeli
ministerial committee that is dedicated to examining measures aimed at
intentionally worsening the conditions of Palestinian prisoners, in
order to exert political pressure. Current violations committed by IOF
against Palestinian prisoners and their rights include:
· Ill-treatment
and poor detention conditions
Palestinian prisoners are detained in below minimum
standard conditions. They are detained in narrow, overcrowded and poorly
ventilated cells. Israeli jails dedicated for the detention of
Palestinians lack necessary sanitation facilities, and Palestinian
prisoners are denied access to personal cleanliness and hygiene. Israeli
prison administrations do not provide enough food, in terms of quantity
and quality, for the Palestinian prisoners. Detained Palestinian
children and patients do not get food suitable to ensuring their
physical wellbeing.
· denying
visitation rights
IOF deny Palestinian prisoners their visitation rights
via the imposition of different conditions that hinder or prevent visits
of Palestinian families to their relatives in Israeli jails. These
conditions include: linking visitations 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. Since 6 July 2007,
families in Gaza have not been able to visit their relatives in Israeli
jails.
· Medical
negligence and denial of healthcare
Due to poor detention conditions, hundreds of Palestinian
prisoners are suffering ill health. Israeli jails lack specialized
medical personnel and clinics. Israeli prison administrations have
consistently refused the provision of medicines and medical equipment
necessary for the treatment of some sick prisoners. In addition, these
administrations ignore the dietary requirements of some detained
patients.
· Torture
IOF subject Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons to
numerous instances of torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment. Apart from using poor detention conditions as a means to
exert psychological pressure and cause physical weakness, IOF also
mistreat Palestinian detainees in order to extract confessions. Known
methods include: preventing detainees from meeting with their lawyers,
beatings, verbal abuse and insults, threats, the use of Shabhah,
sleep deprivation, forcing detainees into the ‘frog crotch’ and the
‘banana’ positions, tightening handcuffs and shackles around hands and
legs, suspending by legs, and so on. The isolation of prisoners in
poorly-ventilated solitary confinement cells, where they are denied
visitation rights and contact with other prisoners, is one of the
cruelest punishments applied to Palestinian prisoners. Solitary
confinement cells are narrow, poorly ventilated and highly humid;
conditions that facilitate the spread of diseases.
· administrative
detention:
IOF hold Palestinian detainees for long periods without
bringing them to trial or informing them of the reasons for their
detention. This is a flagrant violation of detainees rights to: fair
judicial proceedings, an adequate defense, to be informed of charges
against them, and the right to be brought to trial. These periods of
administrative detention may be renewed indefinitely. Administrative
detention orders are not limited to new detainees; these orders may be
applied to prisoners who have ended their terms. Prisoners may thus be
forced to stay in detention for indefinite periods, in some cases past
their initial release date.
IOF violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights
constitute serious violations of International Humanitarian Law. In
particular, ill-treatment of prisoners, denial of visitation rights,
medical negligence, torture and administrative detentions are violations
of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 relative to the protection of
civilians in times of war, and against the United Nations Standard
Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners.
On the occasion of the Palestinian prisoners’ day, PCHR
highlight a number of pressing issues:
·
Israel closed the military
court at Erez and transferred Palestinian prisoners’ cases to a civil
court in Beersheba following its (contested) announcement of an end to
Isralie occupation of the Gaza Strip, while the Israeli law provides for
the prosecution of non-residents in the court of the Capital. This is
illustrative of Israel’s continuing efforts to deny Gaza prisoners’
their legal rights, including their right to select their lawyers and
the right that prisoners’ families attend their trail session.
·
Israel issued or amended
legislations to ensure that Israel’s internal security service can
detain “suspected” Palestinians for long periods without bringing them
to trial. To ensure applying imprisonment sanctions on civilians from
Gaza, Israel issued the Criminal Procedure (Enforcement Powers - Special
Provisions for Investigating Security Offenses of Non-Residents) Law,
5765 – 2005. This Law grants the internal security service broad powers
to detain Palestinian “suspects” and extend their detention periods
without trials. In addition, Israel amended its Penal Code no. 5737 of
the year 1977 and added amendment 6a, relative to imprisonment sanctions
imposed on Gaza prisoners to the Law Extending the Validity of the
Emergency Regulations (Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip) of the year
1967. Furthermore, Israel began to utilize the contested “illegal
combatant” concept with respect to Gazan prisoners. The use of this
concept grants the Army Chief of Staff the power to issue an arrest
warrant against whoever it considers an “illegal combatant”.
Classification criteria is determined by the Army Chief of Staff and the
disclosure of evidence is not required.
·
Recently, Israel
established a ministerial committee aimed at intentionally worsening the
conditions of Palestinian prisoners. The committee will examine a number
of potential measures, including reducing the monetary allowances
transferred to prisoners by their families to supplement living and
dietary conditions, restricting means of communication and news sources,
reducing family visits and education possibilities, as well as
preventing any physical contact between detainees and their families. It
is believed that these measures aim to reduce detention conditions to
perceived ‘minimal standards’. Worsened conditions may negatively impact
on prisoner’s physical and psychological well-being.
·
Israel continues to arrest
hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including members of the Palestinian
Legislative Council, in the West Bank. In addition, during their recent
offensive on the Gaza Strip, IOF arrested dozens of civilians from the
Gaza strip.
PCHR remind Israel that, as a signatory to the Fourth
Geneva Convention, it is legally bound by the terms and provisions of
the Convention, which regulates its actions in occupied Palestinian
territory.
PCHR also highlight the consequences of the international
community’s silence with respect to the treatment of Palestinian
prisoners. Such silence serves to effectively endorse violations of
International Humanitarian Law, compromising overall respect for the
rule of law. There are many actions that the international community can
take, if its members have the desire and the will, to ensure Israel’s
respect for Palestinian prisoners’ rights. Through its silence, the
international community encourages Israel to continue, and even
increase, its violations.
In view of the above above, PCHR calls upon:
·
The European Union to
activate Article 2 of the Euro-Israel Association Agreement, which
provides that Israel must respect human rights as a precondition for
economic cooperation between the EU states and Israel. PCHR further
calls upon the EU to reconsider and backtrack on its decision to lift
partnership levels with Israel that was taken in last December.
·
The High Contracting
Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their legal
obligations, especially the obligation to ensure respect for the
Convention.
·
International institutions
working in the field of human rights and prisoners’ rights to take
action in order to improve the detention conditions of Palestinian
prisoners, reduce violations committed against them, and ensure the
fulfillment of their rights, as guaranteed under International
Humanitarian Law.
