{"id":18447,"date":"2012-04-09T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2012-04-09T11:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=18447"},"modified":"2012-04-05T09:13:12","modified_gmt":"2012-04-05T08:13:12","slug":"new-report-documents-systematic-abuse-of-palestinian-children-in-israeli-military-detention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2012\/04\/new-report-documents-systematic-abuse-of-palestinian-children-in-israeli-military-detention\/","title":{"rendered":"New Report Documents Systematic Abuse of Palestinian Children in Israeli Military Detention"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 1967, Palestinians from the West Bank have been living under Israeli military law\u00a0and prosecuted in military courts. The United Nations (UN) estimates that during the\u00a0last 44 years, around 726,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been prosecuted\u00a0and detained under these emergency laws. In the past 11 years alone, around 7,500\u00a0children, some as young as 12 years, are estimated to have been detained, interrogated,\u00a0and imprisoned within this system. This averages out at between 500-700 children per\u00a0year, or nearly two children, each and every day.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A new, important yet disturbing report<\/a> published on Tuesday by Defence for Children International – Palestine section<\/a> has found that Israel\u2019s routine arrests, detentions, interrogations, abuses and torture<\/a> of Palestinian children are in breach of various UN and international laws, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the\u00a0Convention against Torture, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,\u00a0all of which have been ratified by Israel.<\/p>\n

Based on the testimonies of more than 300 children interviewed between 2008 and 2012,\u00a0DCI-Palestine\u2019s report states in the summary<\/a> that \u201cthere is a systematic pattern of ill-treatment, and in some cases torture, of children held in the military detention system, with the majority of the abuse occurring during the first 48 hours.\u201d 3 of the 311 children who provided testimonies were arrested while they under 11 years old, but the majority of the children interviewed were detained while they were 16 and 17 years old.<\/p>\n

According to the report, 95 percent of the children interviewed stated that their hands had been tied during interrogation, 90 percent had been blindfolded, 75 percent reported physical violence used against them, 33 percent had been strip-searched, and 29 stated they had been shown and\/or forced to sign documents \u2014 including confessions \u2014 written in Hebrew, with no translation or translators available.<\/p>\n

12 percent of the children had been put into solitary confinement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DCI-Palestine also reported that majority (60 percent) of Palestinian children testified that they had been arrested by heavily-armed Israeli forces who snatched them from their homes between midnight and 5am, and then taken to an \u201cunknown location for interrogation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report adds<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The arrest and transfer\u00a0process is often accompanied by verbal abuse and humiliation, threats as well as physical\u00a0violence. Hours later the children find themselves in an interrogation room, alone, sleep\u00a0deprived, bruised and scared. Unlike Israeli children living in settlements in the West Bank,\u00a0Palestinian children are not accompanied by a parent and are generally interrogated\u00a0without the benefit of legal advice, or being informed of their right to silence.<\/p>\n

\u2026 Within eight days of their arrest, the children are brought in chains to a military court\u00a0where, in most cases, they will see a lawyer and their parents for the first time. Although\u00a0many children maintain their innocence, in the end at least 90 percent will plead guilty,\u00a0as this is the quickest way out of a system that denies children bail in 87 percent of cases.\u00a0Within days of their arrest, nearly two-thirds of the children are transferred to prisons\u00a0inside Israel in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits\u00a0such transfers. The practical consequences of this is that many children receive either\u00a0limited, or no family visits, due to freedom of movement restrictions and the time it takes\u00a0to issue a permit to visit the prisons.<\/p>\n

\u2026\u00a0Out of 311 testimonies, no child was accompanied\u00a0by a lawyer during their interrogation, and only\u00a0two children (0.6 percent) were accompanied by\u00a0a parent. This is significant because third-party\u00a0scrutiny of the methods of interrogation can be\u00a0an effective measure to limit the use of torture, illtreatment and other coercive techniques during\u00a0questioning.<\/p>\n

DCI-Palestine\u2019s report also includes in-depth testimonies from some of the Palestinian children, interviews with medical and psychological experts, and testimonies from former Israeli soldiers \u2014 now with the group Breaking the Silence \u2014 who participated in the arrest and interrogation of children.<\/p>\n

_____________________<\/p>\n

Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and editor with The Electronic Intifada, and contributes to Al-Jazeera English, Inter Press Service, Truthout.org, Left Turn magazine, and various other international media outlets. From 2003-2010, she was the Senior Producer and co-host of Flashpoints, an award-winning investigative newsmagazine operating out of KPFA\/Pacifica Radio in Berkeley, California. Nora has been regularly reporting from Palestine since 2004.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 electronicintifada.net<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Join the BDS-BOYCOTT, DIVESTMENT, SANCTIONS<\/em> <\/strong><\/span>campaign to protest the Israeli barbaric siege of Gaza, illegal occupation of the Palestine nation\u2019s territory, the apartheid wall, its inhuman and degrading treatment of the Palestinian people, and the more than 7,000 Palestinian men, women, elderly and children arbitrarily locked up in Israeli prisons.<\/p>\n

DON’T BUY<\/strong> PRODUCTS WHOSE<\/strong> BARCODE<\/strong> STARTS WITH<\/strong> 729<\/strong>,<\/span> which indicates that it is produced in Israel.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 DO YOUR PART! MAKE A DIFFERENCE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

7 2 9: BOYCOTT FOR JUSTICE!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The United Nations (UN) estimates that during the last 44 years, around 726,000 Palestinian men, women and children have been prosecuted and detained under Israeli emergency military laws. In the past 11 years alone, around 7,500 children, some as young as 12 years, are estimated to have been detained, interrogated, and imprisoned within this system. This averages out at between 500-700 children per year, or nearly two children, each and every day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18447\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}