Child
Prisoners Of The 'Holy' Land
By Eileen Fleming
14 September, 2007
Countercurrents.org
“It would be better to drown these prisoners, in the Dead Sea
if possible, since that’s the lowest point in the world.”-
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Avigdor Lieberman
Since
the beginning of the second Intifada in September 2000, over 4,000 Palestinian
children have been arrested. [1]
A few of them can be viewed
in a short excerpt from British ITV's expose of Palestinian children
prisoners:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMb1Ye3qpWE
"According to the Convention
on the Rights of the Child, adopted on 20 November 1989 and entered
into force on 2 September 1990 (to which Israel is a signatory), and
to relevant Israeli law, a child is defined as every human being under
the age of 18 years." [2]
Palestinian children in prison
are mistreated as badly as adults under Israeli military regulations
in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Palestinian children over twelve
"may be charged and sentenced in military courts. Between the ages
of 12-14, children can be sentenced for up to 6 months for minor offences,
including throwing a stone. After the age of 14, Palestinian children
are tried as adults, in violation of international law. There are no
juvenile courts for Palestinian children. They also frequently serve
their sentences in cells with adult prisoners, which is in violation
of international law." [3]
"Palestinian children
arrested from Israeli military checkpoints are often made to wait for
hours at the checkpoint, with their hands cuffed, before they are transferred
to detention and interrogation centers. More often than not, Palestinian
child detainees are subject to beatings, curses and threats during the
transfer. In most cases, their families are not informed of their arrest,
with child prisoners additionally being transferred from one prison
to another without informing the family. As a result, it often takes
some time before a child detainee is located and the family informed
of his/her location." [4]
Arrests are frequently made
in raids in 'Holy' Land refugee camps in the middle of the night.
"Soldiers usually do
not have a warrant for arrest or searches. The entire house is searched,
often ransacked and personal property destroyed, occupants humiliated
and harassed…Palestinian child prisoners are held in inhumane
conditions of detention, made to live in overcrowded and filthy cells.
Often, children are placed in small solitary confinement cells, measuring
1.5 square meters that are extremely humid and have no windows for natural
light, or with bright artificial light that is continuously kept on.
This forces prisoners to remain awake at all times, depriving the prisoner
of sleep for days in some cases. Prisoners do not receive sufficient
food to meet the daily nutrition requirements for children, are prevented
from going to the toilet at their will, and are not allowed a change
of clothing." [5]
These children are subjected
to physical and psychological torture and interrogated without family
or lawyers. The majority of confessions and sentences are related to
throwing stones, such as at Caterpillar bulldozers that demolish Palestinian
homes without compensation, in order to grab land for The Wall, that
is NOT being built on the internationally recognized 1949 Green Line
boundary between Israel and the West Bank, but on Palestinian owned
land, and thus illegal under international law. [6]
"For the current generation,
imprisonment is as common and conventional as attending university.
This is not due to an extraordinary level of concentrated crime, but
a result of Israel's strategic political and social methods of control.
When put into context, the emphatic incarceration of Palestinian children
reflects Israel's wider aims of controlling and weakening the OPT. Through
a combination of military discourse and flexible definitions, Israel
repeatedly flaunts international law, and uses the legal system as a
veneer to legitimize its military practices, and in this way indirectly
legitimize the occupation." [7]
On January 5, 2006 this reporter
traveled to the Ramallah Headquarters of ADAMEER [Arabic for conscience]
and learned from spokesperson, Ala Jaradat, "Since 1967, 650,000
to 700,000 Palestinians have been arrested and detained. That totals
20% of the total population and 80% of all adult Palestinian males have
been arrested.
“Most of these arrests
occur after midnight when large numbers of IDF storm into neighborhoods
or refugee camps, horrifying everyone and arresting anyone 14 years
or older. These arrests and detentions are based on military orders;
we live under a kind of Marshall Law which rules every aspect of Palestinian
life: where we live, our license plates that restrict our movement and
limited voting rights. Under these military orders the Israeli government
is free to hold anyone eight days without accusations or charges. They
can hold anyone up to 180 days for interrogation and up to 60 days without
benefit of a lawyer.
”The Israeli government
never agreed to the Second Geneva Convention, the Knesset never ratified
it, and when it comes to the Occupied Territories they totally ignore
it. Israel is the only State that approved torture of detainees. I know
there are dictators who use torture, but Israel is the only State that
supported torture until 1999. That is when International, Israeli and
Palestinian pressure groups forced the issue and Barack was confronted
about it when he visited the United States.
“Any Palestinian under
the age of 16 is tried as an adult, but for an Israeli Jew it is 18
years of age. Under 12 years old the child can be arrested but not detained.
Over 12 they can be arrested, detained, interrogated, prosecuted and
sentenced for throwing stones.
“Most of the Israeli
Jews that are imprisoned are in for violent crimes against society and
they are mixed in with the Palestinian population. The guards encourage
them to do what ever they want to do against the Palestinian population.
This is an open invitation by the Israeli government to incite violence
and terror in the prison system. We have sworn affidavits from Palestinians
claiming it was the guards who encouraged the violence inflicted upon
them.
“In August 2004 the Palestinians went on a hunger strike to raise
awareness of this problem and the Minister of Health who is responsible
for them stated publicly: ‘Our hospitals are off limits to them;
they can all starve themselves to death.’
“No human rights organizations
are allowed access to the prisoners. Only lawyers and the Red Cross
can visit them but have no access to the facilities where they are detained.
“The methods and photos
from Abu Grahib and Guantanamo were no shock to any Palestinian who
had been in prison between 1967 and the ‘80’s. All the methods
used in Abu Grahib were normal procedures against Palestinians. In 1999
Internationals, Palestinians and Israelis for human rights threatened
a boycott against Israel and that is what forced the Supreme Court to
address the torture issue. They did not ban torture and the General
Prosecutor can choose not to prosecute those who still use it."
1.http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article9
2. http://www.addameer.org/detention/children.html
3. http://www.palestinemonitor.org/spip/spip.php?article9
4. http://www.addameer.org/detention/children.html
5. http://www.addameer.org/detention/children.html
6. http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com
_content&task=view&id=91&Itemid=93
7.http://www.alternativenews.org/aic-publications
/other-publications/the-politics-of-prisoners-20050922.html
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