Israel's use of administrative detention in the occupied Palestinian territories and its routine employment of abuse and torture constitute crimes under international law, writes Graham Peebles Detention without trial, the presumption of guilt, the denial of family visits, solitary confinement, torture, violent interrogation, and the denial of access to appropriate health care: such is the Israeli judicial system and the form of prison confinement experienced by Palestinian men, women and children. According to the Israeli human rights group B'T Selem, there are currently "4,484 Palestinians -- security detainees -- confined in Israeli prisons". Family contact is virtually impossible for the prisoners, most of whom are held inside Israel. This contravenes international law in the form of articles 49 and 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which is consistently violated and disregarded by Israel. International laws -- legally binding upon Israel, which is not above the rule of law -- must be respected and enforced. Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, called "on the international community to ensure that Israel complies with international human rights laws and norms in its treatment of Palestinian prisoners" in May this year. The UN has also made its feelings clear in its "Question of Palestine Administrative Detention" report, where it says that Israel "has historically ratified international agreements regarding human rights protection, whilst at the same time refusing to apply the agreements within the occupied Palestinian territories, attempting to create legal justifications for its illegal actions." A comprehensive list of international legally binding agreements dutifully signed, ratified and consequently disregarded by various Israeli governments are cited by the UN, which sits hands tied, impotent it seems, in the face of Israel's illegal and violent occupation and submissive to the imperialist godfather, America. Since the Six-Day War in 1967, an estimated 750,000 Palestinians have been incarcerated in Israeli prisons, including 23,000 women and 25,000 children. This constitutes, Falk states, "approximately 20 per cent of the total Palestinian population in the occupied territories, or 40 per cent of the Palestinian male population." These figures are staggering, even as a whole nation is held captive by an illegal occupying power on its homeland. HUNGRY FOR JUSTICE: On 14 May this year, a major hunger strike by Palestinians held captive within Israeli prisons ended, just in time to save the lives of two prisoners close to death who had not eaten for 77 days. The prisoners were protesting at their treatment in custody and at the Israeli Prison Service's (IPS) use of solitary confinement, torture during interrogation and inside prison, and administrative detention, which allows for incarceration without charge. The peaceful action, initiated by two men held under a draconian administrative detention order in late February, grew into a mass action, which began on 17 April with, the human rights group Amnesty International, estimates, 2,000 prisoners on hunger strike. Israel responded to the strike with its customary brutality, assaulting striking detainees and imposing, Amnesty found in its "Starved of Justice: Palestinians detained without Trial" report, "systematic measures to punish hunger-striking prisoners and detainees and pressure them to end their strikes, putting their lives at risk. These measures included solitary confinement; preventing the detainees from contact with family members and lawyers; and refusing to transfer hunger strikers whose health was in danger to hospitals suitable for their condition." In fact, these were many of the very issues that the strikers were protesting about. An agreement was reached between the Palestinian prisoners and the IPS, in which, the United Nations Information System on the Question of Palestine (UNISPAL) reported on 4 June that "Israel committed to meeting some of the prisoners' demands in exchange for security guarantees." The UN went on to say that "as part of the deal, Israel committed to ease conditions as long as prisoners refrained from 'security activity' inside Israeli prisons, such as recruiting people for terrorist missions." By such easing of conditions, Israel committed itself to moving prisoners from solitary confinement into main prison blocks. In all probability, the prisoners ought not to have been held in isolation to begin with. It also agreed to allow family visits from Gaza, denied since June 2007 when Hamas, to the fury of Israel, was democratically elected and took over governance of the Gaza Strip. However limitations have been placed upon family visits, the details of which Israel has yet to clarify �ê" ambiguity is a weapon of control and manipulation used by the occupying power. In addition, Israel conceded to "ease restrictions on visits from the West Bank, and improve the conditions under which 'security prisoners' are being held." These conditions are sufficiently vague as to be impossible to enforce or monitor. The Israelis also agreed not to extend the detention of those being held under the contentious and illegal, as employed by Israel, administrative detention orders, providing that there is no "new information that requires their detention." Such new information could no doubt be conveniently placed within top-secret files, preventing open scrutiny and remaining undisclosed for "security reasons". This term has been increasingly employed to justify unjust measures in a world built on fear and the perpetuation of injustice. All the measures written into the agreement are long overdue, and they constitute the minimum conditions that should be adhered to within any law-abiding society. If implemented, they would bring about positive effects. It should not, however, take a large group of starving men to force Israel to observe prisoners' human rights, including the due process of law. Israel's concessions have been indifferent to the rule of law, and they have been carefully designed to be easily manipulated and over time forgotten. Aber Issa Zakarni, the wife of Abdallah Zakarni, an imprisoned member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and one of those on hunger strike, said that "if this agreement is implemented, it means a great victory for us and for human rights. But I am also scared. In the end everything might just stay the same." Her fears are well placed: a month after the deal was agreed Amnesty International in its "Starved of Justice" report found that it is "our information that it is business as usual when it comes to detention without charge or trial," and in fact "Israel has renewed at least 30 administrative detention orders and issued at least three new ones since this deal was struck, and family visits for Gazan prisoners have still not started." This failure by Israel to honour the agreement will surprise nobody, but it will disappoint many. Since the Israeli authorities cannot be trusted, close monitoring of any agreements it signs is required, and clear methods of implementation and, indeed, enforcement are necessary. Moreover, standing behind Israel, supporting it ideologically and diplomatically and arming and financing every area of its illegal occupation of Palestine, is its partner in crime, the United States. IMPERIALIST MEASURES: A key issue in the hunger strikers' protest was administrative detention, a brutal relic from an imperialist past. This darkest page within a catalogue of abuse and judicial arrogance is one of a series of repressive measures written into the "Defence [Emergency] Regulations" that formed part of the British authorities' rule-book in mandatory Palestine to control the "Great Arab Revolt" against British colonial rule and the influx of Jews in 1937. The draconian regulations were quietly copied into Israeli domestic legislation in 1948, where they remain, legitimising actions such as house demolitions, extensive stop and search measures, the imposition of curfews, and indefinite administrative detention. Administrative detention gives the occupying Israeli authorities the power to detain Palestinians (or indeed Israelis) without charge, withholding evidence and holding them "presumed guilty" if necessary. As B'T Selem states, "since detainees do not know the evidence against them, they are unable to refute it." With no notification of the "crimes" for which they are being held, these detentions negate due process of law and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. The UN describes administrative detention as "a procedure whereby a person is detained without charge or trial." The observation of due process of law is a fundamental human right. The European Convention on Human Rights, for example, states that "the rights to an effective remedy, to access to court/fair trial, to fair trial in criminal matters, to reputation, to freedom of movement and to property are all contained in the UDHR (Articles 8, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 17 respectively)." Administrative detention is only allowed under international law in extreme circumstances, and it should, the UN makes clear, "be used as a last resort and on an individual, case by case basis." However, far from being exceptional over the past year the number of administrative detentions has almost doubled in the Occupied Territories. As of March 2012, from a total of 4,610 Palestinians being held captive, B'T Selem states that "Israel was holding 320 in administrative detention." Administrative detention should not, the UN goes on to say, "be used as a substitute for criminal prosecution when there is insufficient evidence." As it clearly is being used by Israel in this way, its use "does not meet international standards set by international law." In fact, the UN report found that Israel contravenes the laws that apply to the use of administrative detention in various areas. Among other things, it widely practices the use of torture and corporal punishment; deports and incarcerates administrative detainees outside the Occupied Palestinian Territories; uses administrative detention as a form of collective punishment; engages in humiliating and degrading treatment of administrative detainees; does not inform detainees of the reasons for their detention; and does not always release administrative detainees as soon as the reason for the detention ceases. Moreover, detainees are not given the right to communicate with their families, administrative detainees are not separated from the regular prison population, and the conditions of detention regularly fall below an adequate standard required by international law. In the case of child detainees, Israel regularly fails to take into account the best interests of the child, as is required under international law. A tone of frustration can be heard within every sentence. Israel tramples on international law, believing itself to be above and beyond its reach. Such law, if lined up in opposition to Israeli criminality and abuse and consistently implemented, could be a giant step in righting the wrongs inflicted upon the Palestinian people and creating the conditions for peaceful co-existence. ABUSE AND TORTURE: Detainees under administrative detention are sentenced to periods of six months, at the end of which the term may and inevitably is repeated. Those held captive are not informed if they will be released, or they are held for a further six months until the end of their current term. The Israeli Prison Service manipulates inmates, tormenting them with promises of liberty and threats of incarceration, cultivating hope in order to crush it and maximising suffering and control. The US NGO Human Rights Watch in its report "Israel: Stop Jailing People without Charge" reports the case of one of the hunger strikers, Tha'er Halahleh, who is 33 years of age. "Israel has held him in administrative detention a number of times since 2000, for a total of more than four years in jail without charge or trial," it said, recording four years made up of six-month terms. As well as being illegal under international law, this constitutes psychological torture not only of the prisoner, but also of his family. The latter, as Amnesty has made clear, suffers great anxiety, since "administrative detainees and their families must live with the uncertainty of not knowing how long they will be deprived of their liberty and the injustice of not knowing exactly why they are being detained." Arrests and detention without charge and based all too often on spurious evidence secured by the unaccountable and secretive Israeli intelligence services must also stop. This is a demand that human rights groups have been making for decades, and Amnesty has "urged Israel to end the practice of administrative detention and to release detainees or charge them with an internationally recognisable criminal offence and try them according to international standards." Even Israeli spokesman Mark Regev seems to agree with the need for this, the British newspaper The Guardian reporting in May that "we would prefer that administrative detention was only used when there was no alternative." However, he added that "in some cases, you can't expose in a public forum your confidential sources and methods because it may put lives at risk." By "sources", Regev may be alluding to Guantanamo Bay, where the use of torture is a method employed to elicit or coerce whatever information, coined "evidence," may be required out of detainees. While held in detention by Israel, administrative detainees and regular Palestinian prisoners suffer from verbal and physical abuse. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights 2011 report details that such "methods of torture included: insults; beating using batons, sharp tools, tying the feet and hands to a chair and beating with batons or wires, and other methods. Additionally, detainees were held in cells or small rooms, were placed in solitary confinement, and were forced to stand for long hours in cold weather or under the sun." All these things are illegal under international law, notably with regard to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The practice of isolating inmates from their family constitutes another form of torture, and Palestinian prisoners are not allowed family visits and are denied access to health care, contributing to deteriorating health for those with serious and chronic illnesses. They also face forcible transfers, deportation and solitary confinement. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, quoted in The Guardian in May, "urged that those detained must be charged and face trial with judicial guarantees or released without delay." To all rationally minded people, this is the correct and right course of action, echoed by Amnesty when it wrote that "Israel has a duty to uphold due process and fair trial rights, and to take effective action to end torture and other ill treatment of detainees." It is long overdue for Israel to be treated as the criminal state it is, one that disregards the law, tramples on human rights and sees itself as unaccountable. Action is needed to support calls for the observation of human rights and to enforce repeated demands for justice. Let Israel, which has imprisoned a nation's people, be itself placed in solitary confinement, subjected to sanctions and forced to honour agreements and the rule of law. Perhaps then, after so many painful years, the sufferings of the Palestinian people will come to an end and peace be allowed to settle upon what was once the Holy Land. The writer is director of the Create Trust, a UK-registered NGO.
