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Newsletter - March 2019

Detention figures

According to the Israeli Prison Service (IPS), as of 28 February 2019 there were 5,248 Palestinians (West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza) held as “security prisoners” in detention facilities including 205 children (12-17 years). In the case of children there was a 2% decrease in the number compared with the previous month and an annual decrease of 24% compared with 2018. These figures include 2 children held in administrative detention. According to the IPS, 40% of child detainees were forcibly transferred and/or unlawfully detained in Israel in violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention in February.
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The right to silence: update

Under Israeli military law a child must be informed of his/her right to silence prior to interrogation. In October 2013, the military authorities provided assurances to UNICEF that options would be explored to ensure all children are made aware of this right. The military authorities later informed UNICEF that a revised Arabic text informing children of their rights in custody was being developed by the Ministry of Justice. According to recent data collected by MCW, 84% of children detained by the Israeli military in the West Bank are still not informed of their right to silence.

The UNICEF report: 6-years on

This month marked 6-years since UNICEF released the report Children in Israeli Military Detention at a press conference held at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem. In the report UNICEF concluded that:

"the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with [Israel’s] military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalized throughout the process.”

Based on an assessment conducted by MCW, six years after the release of the UNICEF report, just one of the UN agency’s 38 recommendations has so far been substantially implemented. Further, reports of physical violence are up 10 percent.
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US State Department’s human rights report

In March the US State Department published its annual country report on human rights for 2018. As in previous years the Report highlights human rights violations by multiple actors in the region and considers the treatment of Palestinian children held in Israeli military detention in detail. The report cites findings from over 400 testimonies collected from children detained by the Israeli military authorities in the West Bank which point towards the widespread use of blindfolds, hand ties, physical abuse and threats. This body of evidence tends to confirm findings made by UNICEF in February 2013.
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“Endless Trip to Hell”: Israel Jails Hundreds of Palestinian Boys a Year

They’re seized in the dead of night, blindfolded and cuffed, abused and manipulated to confess to crimes they didn't commit. Every year Israel arrests almost 1,000 Palestinian youngsters, some of them not yet 13. "It was a gloomy, typically chilly late-February afternoon in the West Bank village of Beit Ummar, between Bethlehem and Hebron. The weather didn’t deter the children of the Abu-Ayyash family from playing and frolicking outside. One of them, in a Spiderman costume, acted the part by jumping lithely from place to place."
Source: Haaretz

Humiliation Affects Everyone

The arrest of a child or a teenager is particularly injurious and traumatic in the case of Palestinians in the territories. It often takes place in the dead of night; and the boy is cut off from all that is familiar and safe: from his family, from his surroundings and from his language. He is alone, surrounded by hostile, armed soldiers, most of whom do not understand his language and use it only in order to swear at him and his female relatives. A teenager is blindfolded and restrained with painful plastic zip-tie cuffs.
Source: Haaretz

Source: Military Court Watch, Newsletter, March 2019 >>

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Military Court Watch - Newsletter March 2019