·
Introduction
·
Overview and General Statistics
·
Exceptionally Terrible Prisons
·
Total Number of Prisoners (Sorted by Region)
·
Prisoners Sorted by Sentences
·
Prisoners’ Marital Status
·
Detainees Arrested before al-Aqsa Intifadah
·
“Old” Prisoners (Arrested before Oslo
Agreement)
·
Women Prisoners
·
Arrested children
·
Arrested Palestinian Government and Council Members
·
Prisoners who spent more than 10 years in jail
·
Health Conditions
·
The Inhuman Role of Doctors
·
Torture in Israeli Prisons and Detentions: A Crime against
Humanity
·
Martyrs of the Imprisoned National Movement, according to our
records at the statistics department
·
Strategy of Killing after Arrest
·
Conclusion
·
Note
·
Introduction
In Accordance
with the celebration of Eid al-Fitr (Lesser Bairam), the
Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs released a
comprehensive statistical report, prepared by Abdul-Naser
Ferwana, head of statistics department. The report stated that
the Israeli occupation government has arrested around one fourth
of the Palestinian population currently residing in Palestine
(25%). There is no one single family that didn’t experience the
arrest of one of its members. On the contrary, there are
families whom all their members were arrested, and individuals
who experienced arrest several times. In many cases, whole
families including elderly and women were arrested as a means of
pressure on their detained sons or as a punishment. There were
hundreds of cases when the houses of the detainees were
demolished as a punishment for bringing up such
fighters-for-freedom family members. In other cases, friends and
neighbors were also arrested, solely for being their friends and
neighbors.
Apparently,
these arrests were not unjustifiable. Primarily, it was because
they were Palestinians, and Fighting against the occupation, and
against the tyranny and oppression that this occupation
symbolizes and practices. In addition, they were in consistent
pursuit for freedom, independence, their identity, their country
and their flag. Though, arrests didn’t and won’t put on ice the
flames of anger from the occupation. They won’t stop the fight
against the occupation and against its repressing practices.
Months and decades of prison didn’t eliminate the detainees’
humanity or their Palestinian identity, nor did it sway them
away from their central issue.
Detainees are
armed with will and determination, with strong believes in the
certainty of victory, and from that they derive their stamina
and steadfastness.
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Currently there are 10,500 Palestinian and Arab
Prisoner, held in the Israeli
prisons and detentions, and their number is
increasing rapidly.
The prisons
are distributed over more than 30 prisons and detentions and
arrest
centers,
among which are Nafha, Asqalan (Shikma), Birsheva, Ramleh,
Shatta, Gilboa, Megiddo, Ofer, Negev, Telmond, Nitzan, Damun,
al-Maskubieh, al-Jalameh (Kishon), etc… These prisons and
detentions suffer hard situations, inhuman conditions, and bad
brutal behaviors towards the detainees. In addition, they lack
many of the basic human life requirements. Such prisons and
detentions do rarely exist in other places in the world and they
glaringly contradict with the fundamental human rights’
conventions and the very basic detainee’s rights. The situation
even worsened, in general, during al-Aqsa Intifada, and
these prisons were (and are still) used as substitutes for
capital punishment, where the most horrible acts of
psychological, emotional, and physical torture. With the
introduction and construction of the Apartheid Wall, prisoners
suffered even being unable to see their relatives, families, or
touch their kids’ fingers. All the pictures revealed to the
world about what happened in “Abu Gharib”, is what happened and
is still happening every moment and for years in Israeli
prisons.
Palestinian
Prisoners, along with Arabs in Israeli prisons experience
conditions that are far worse and harder than the conditions at
the infamous Abu- Gharib prison. Israel, that claims democracy,
confesses and admits in public, torturing the prisoners.
Besides, these torture methods used against the Palestinians in
Israeli prisons are supported by the Israeli public, that isn’t
blamed by conscious.
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10,500 is the total number of current prisoners,
distributed by region as
Following:
The following
tables included detailed prisoners’ statistics for each of the
Above five
regions:
As for Arab Prisoners, the numbers are
based on data provided by the prisoners’ families in Syrian
Golan Height and Jordan, and what the information we already
had.
Note:
As for administrative detainees, the above statistics do include
their numbers.
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Table 7 shows the distribution of
prisoners with respect to their sentence
types.
Table 8 shows how sentenced prisoners (5133
prisoners in total) sorted by the
Sentence’s Duration.
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Table 9 shows the prisoners’ marital status’
statistics.
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553 is the
total number of detainees arrested before al-Aqsa Intifadah,
i.e. 5.3% of the total number of prisoners. Some of these are
even detained before Oslo Agreement and the establishment of
Palestinian National Authority in 4 May 1994.
The latter
are referred to as “Old” Prisoners, and currently they are 367,
i.e. 3.5% of total prisoners. The remaining 186 prisoners were
arrested after Oslo Agreement and before the outbreak of al-Aqsa
Intifadah (1.85 of the total number of detainees). They are
geographically distributed as follows:
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There are 367
prisoners arrested prior to Oslo Agreement and the establishment
of the Palestinian National Authority in May 4th, 1994. These
prisoners constitute 3.5% of the total number of prisoners.
Arab Prisoners Prior to Oslo Agreement (total of 9
prisoners) are presented in table 12.
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The Israeli
Occupation Forces arrested more than 500 female Palestinian
citizens during al-Aqsa Intifada, of whom around 115 are
held till now. Three Prisoners delivered during their arrest.
These are: Mirvat Taha (released), Manal Ghanem who is still
arrested and whose baby child was taken away from her after
completing two years of his life, and Samar Sobeih who delivered
few months ago
and is still
under arrest. A similar case is the case of ’Itaf al-’Ulayyan,
the administrative detainee in Talmond Prison, who is held with
her two-years-old girl
’A’isha al-Houdaly.
Women
Prisoners live in hard conditions, and experience cruel inhuman
treatment, and frustrating scrutiny. In Many occasions, women
prisoners set out hunger-strikes as a form of struggle for
demanding the restoration of their rights, from which they are
deprived, or for their dignity, that is violated on a daily
basis by the prison guards.
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More
than 5,000 children arrested since the outbreak of al-Aqsa
Intifada (September 28th, 2000).
Around 400
children are under arrest. The vast majority of these children
suffer torture in its different forms, such as hooding their
heads and faces in sacks, Shabah (forcing the prisoners
to stand or sit in extremely painful and harmful forms, in most
cases with their hands tied together and eyes banded.
This
procedure causes the prisoners severe damages in the spinal cord
and vertebral column) and Whipping. In addition, hundreds of
children were arrested while young and grew up in jail, and
currently they are above 18, and still under arrest.
These
children aren’t provided with special treatment that takes into
consideration their childhood needs. Yet worse, they are
deprived of basic childhood rights indicated by the UN
convention, which in turn indicate a violation of the
international law, that gives children the right not to be
isolated from their families and keeping them always in contact
with them. The Israeli Occupation’s Government prevents the
arrested children’s families from visiting them for the absurd
pretext of security excuses.
The
Occupation’s Government treats detained Palestinian children in
a way that violates all the agreed upon conventions in the
international community, including these conventions agreed upon
and signed by Israel itself. Arrested children suffer hard and
inhuman arrest conditions, that don’t meet the minimal
international standards for children’s rights nor the detainees’
rights. This all is practiced in a deliberately set policy by
the Israelis.
In addition,
child detainees suffer as well as regular detainees from
contagious diseases and infections, absence of necessary and
sufficient medical care, and isolation from the outer-world
including their parents. Moreover, they are deprived from their
right of education and learning, and this all does affect
negatively their future.
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36
members of the recently elected Legislative Council and 4
ministers of the recent Palestinian Government are behind bars.
From the
above mentioned 36, 25 were arrested since last June, following
the “Shattered Illusion” operation in which the Israeli soldier
Gilad Shalit was captured by the Palestinian resistance. Among
these are ’Aziz Dowaik, the speaker of the Legislative Council,
and Mahmud al-Ramahy, the Council’s General Secretary. Before
that, 11 members of the same council had been arrested, 7 of
them are affiliated with Hamas (Islamic Resistance Movement), 3
with Fatah (The Palestinian National Liberation Movement), and
the member Sa’dat, General Secretary of al-Jabha al-Sha’abiyyah
(Popular Front) who was elected while in prison.
Besides, four
ministers of the Palestinian Government are still being held,
from a total of nine ministers who were arrested. These four
are: ’Omar Abdul-Razeq, Minister of Finance, ’Issa al-Ja’abary,
Minister of Local Governance, Khaled Abu Arafeh, Minister of al-Quds
(Jerusalem) Affairs, and Nayef al-Rajub, Minister of Awqaf
(Endorsements) and Religious Affairs. Recently, Minister Dr.
Naser Eddin al Shaer, deputy Prime Minister and Minister of
Education and Higher Education was released. The Israeli
Occupation Authorities also released Minister Samir Abu Eisheh,
Planning Minister for a 5,000 shekel reimbursement, and Minister
Wasfi Mustafa Qabha, Minister of Prisoners’ Affairs following a
one-month arrest, Minister Fakhri Turkman, Minister of Social
Affairs after a 16-days arrest and for a bail of 10,000 shekel,
and Minister Mohammed Barghouthi, Minister of Labor.
Capturing
and Holding the Ministers and Council Members is considered as
an explicit violation of the simplest international norms and
conventions. It is an outright aggressive act against the
Legitimate Palestinian institutions and human rights and the
Legislative Council and Cabinet members’ immunity, for the sake
of knocking down the Palestinian authority and weakening the
government. In accordance, the Arab League and concerned
International Institutions and Organizations, friend countries,
and all the world’s free minds are asked to act instantly and
steadily for the sake of the freedom of all the other ministers
and council members currently arrested.
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Many prisoners have already spent more than ten
years in jail. Table 13 shows
Statistics of prisoners sorted by the length of
duration spent till the end of 2006.
According
to the preceding table, 64 prisoners have already spent more
than 20 years in jail. Table 14 indicates how these 64 prisoners
are sorted by region.
Among
the above, are seven prisoners who spent more than 25 years and
are yet
imprisoned.
These are:
1- Sa’eed
Wajih Sa’eed al-’Atbah Arrested since 29 July, 1977, in
’Asqalan (i.e. for more than 29 years). Single, born in Nablus,
1951.Sa’eed is the oldest Palestinian prisoner in terms of
the duration spent in jail.
2- Na’el
Salih Abdullah al-Barghothi Arrested since 4 April, 1978, in
’Asqalan (i.e. for more than 28 years). Single, born in Ramallah,
1957.
3- Fakhri
’Asfour Abdullah al-Barghothi Arrested since 23 June, 1978,
in ’Asqalan (i.e. for more than 28 years). Married, born in
Ramallah, 1954. Fakhri met his two children few months ago
in jail.
4- Arab
Prisoner, Samir Sami ’Ali Qintar Arrested since 22 April,
1979, in Hdarim (i.e. for more than 27 years).Single, born in
Lebanon, 1962.
5- Akram
Abdul-’Aziz Sa’eed Mansour Arrested since 2 August, 1979, in
’Asqalan (i.e. for more than 27 years).Single, born in Qalqilya,
1962.
6-
Muhammad Ibrahim Mahmoud Abu ’Ali Arrested since 21 August,
1980, in Bir al-Sabi’i (i.e. for more than 26 years). Married,
born in Yata al-Khalil (Heron), 1956.
7-
Fo’ad Qasim ’Arafat al-Razim Arrested since 4 April, 1978, in
’Asqalan (i.e. for more than 28 years).Single, born in al-Quds
(Jerusalem), 1957.
There are
117 Prisoners already spent between 15 and 20 years in jail as
table 15
shows
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In his
report, Abdul-Naser Ferwana, discussed the health conditions of
prisoners, stating that the current living circumstances and
hardships in the Israeli prisons, the cruel and harsh treatment
and the strategy of continuous negligence and deferment of
medical treatment and intentional medical carelessness, result
in the prisoners’ suffering from various diseases and illnesses.
Further complications and effects of these diseases, makes their
treatment them even more difficult.
Almost all
the detainees suffer from various physical and psychological
diseases due to the mentioned circumstances. 1200 of these
detainees are sick with diseases that require immediate and
indispensable treatment. Delaying this treatment further, will
increase the illness irreversibly to a much more serious stage.
Specifically, around 250 of the above mentioned detainees’
diseases are very critical, including chronic diseases in the
heart, cartilage, joints, sight and eyes, abdomen, and serious
psychological illnesses.
In addition,
there are tens of detainees in need for immediate vital
surgeries to save their lives, among them are elderly, children,
women whose request for inhospital medication was denied by the
administration. There are also detainees who were arrested while
injured with bullets, and the bullets are still in their bodies
till now, without receiving the proper medication. Instead, they
are given the “magical” Akamol [form of Aspirin, painkiller],
recommended by the doctors for all cases and illnesses no mater
how different or serious these diseases are.
Ferwana also
explained that the jail’s clinics lack specialized doctors, such
as ophthalmologists, dentists, ENT doctors (ear, nose, throat),
lack psychiatrists, therapists and counselors, and do lack
proper medicines as well. This violates the article 91 (part IV)
of the fourth Geneva Convention, Hygiene and Medical Attention,
which states that “Every place of internment shall have an
adequate infirmary, under the direction of a qualified doctor,
where internees may have the attention they require, as well as
appropriate diet. Isolation wards shall be set aside for cases
of contagious or mental diseases.”
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Besides all
what was mentioned before, comes the role of the doctor in
Israeli jails. These doctors treat the sick prisoner as an enemy
not as a human. In many cases, doctors torture the patient
prisoner, hurt them, or leave them for pain intentionally. In
other cases, the prisoner is offered to be treated at the price
of collaborating with them, which contradicts with the pure
humanitarian nature of the medical profession.
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Humanity
About the
issue of torture in Israeli prisons and detentions, Ferwana
assured that Israel is the only country in the world where
torture, forbidden internationally in all its physical and
psychological forms, becomes lawful, being decreed in its
various judicial and security bodies, giving it all the
necessary legal cover, and rewarding those who practice it.
This led to
the Israeli various security bodies, originating and practicing
more than seventy physical and psychological forms of torture,
among which are:
whipping,
putting in the freezer, al-Shabah (described before),
standing for a long time, deprivation of sleep, deprivation of
food, isolation, harming sexual parts, breaking ribs, hitting on
already wounded places, arresting relatives and torturing them
in front of the concerned prisoner, spitting on the face, tying
them up in a banana form, hitting the abdomen and the back of
the head, etc ….
Though, it
is noticeable that whipping is the most used form, since 99% of
the detainees experienced it, not to forget the fact that the
vast majority of detainees
experience
more than one, actually many, different forms of torture. Hence,
tens of detainees died in the investigation cellars, and tens of
others die after liberation due to the consequences of the
torture they experienced. There are also thousands of liberated
prisoners who suffered and still suffer from these serious
consequences and complications.
Not all
those who were tortured sustained torture to stay alive, and not
all those who sustained, sustained enough to be able to speak
out, but there are many cases of detainees who survived and
talked virulently about their experience.
Some of
these are still suffering even though many years have passed
since their release.
What is
worse is what did the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reveal few
months ago, that the Israeli investigators enjoy torturing the
prisoners, and that every Palestinian is an enemy. It added that
these inhuman practices with prisoners are justified by the
personal feeling of the soldier or investigator, that he/she
will not be judged on such practices and that he will rather get
support from his friends and chiefs.
There is no
one previous record or incident in which an Israeli official was
judged or asked about war crimes committed in the investigation
cellars or in jails, because these investigators are protected
and covered by laws.
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183
prisoners died as a result of torture or killed on purpose
following their arrest, or because of medical negligence, the
last of these was the prisoner Suleiman Mouhammad Mahmoud
Darayjah, who passed away on 26 April 2006 in Hasharon Prison,
as a result of the prison’s administration’s carelessness.
Suleiman then was 23 years old, and he was a citizen of al-Taybah,
in the Occupied Territories in 1948, and he was sentenced seven
years jail.
Regarding
this issue, Abdul-Naser Ferwana, head of Statistics Department,
states that there are hundreds of prisoners who passed away only
few days following their liberation or weeks or months later as
an implication of the torture, medical negligence, and
carelessness they suffered in the Israeli Prisons.
Hence there
is a mass crowd of victims, some of them died behind bars or
after their release, but thousands others are still waiting.
Because of our job and relations (Statistics Department, the
Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs), and from our follow
up for the martyrs and ill individuals among prisoners or former
prisoners, we got the feeling that jail effects are consistently
there.
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Ferwana
added that, since torture and medical carelessness are
mentioned, the strategy of “on-purpose killing after arrest”
should also be mentioned. This strategy is a new-old strategy
that has been practiced against the prisoners since the early
years of occupation. However, it has been used increasingly
during al-Aqsa Intifada, in which 47 Palestinians were
killed in this brutal way.
This
strategy is applied in many forms. The prisoner is either killed
directly after arresting him with gun shoot from a near space,
or he is moved to another place where he is shot and then
announced as a prisoner who tried to escape or escaped and thus
shot and killed, even though the prisoner is unarmed and he can
be easily rearrested.
Some other
injured prisoners are killed by continuous torment and attacks,
and by keeping medical aids out of their reach, and thus leave
them bleeding till death.
The
International Committee of the Red Cross, is required to send
its representatives and medical teams in visits for all the
Israeli Prisons and Detentions, immediately to have a look on
the harsh and inhuman conditions there; these conditions that do
contradict with all the known international conventions,
agreements and norms. They are also asked to press on the
Israeli Occupation Government to force it to respect the
international conventions that guarantee the rights of the
prisoners and detainees, specifically the Geneva Convention.
In addition,
the International Community and the peace and democracy
activists are asked to recognize that the prisoners’ Case is a
central case for the Palestinian people and a stabilizing factor
in the region. Most people long for living peacefully, but for
this to happen and for any agreement to succeed, the prisoners
should be released without any terms, conditions or
discrimination.
All the
Institutions concerned with human rights and humanity, and
media, whether read, written or seen, are asked to shed the
light on the prisoners’ case and their suffering, to expose to
public the practices of the Israeli forces against them, and to
work collectively and consistently for keeping the Palestinian
prisoners’ case sound until they are all released.
It is time
now for the whole world to look around a bit at what is
happening inside the Israeli prisons and detentions; look with
their eyes at the systematic terrorism of the Israeli
Occupation, that violates the United Nation’s human rights
conventions and international agreements on the treatment of
prisoners and civilians during wartime.
The
statistics mentioned are approximations and not 100% exact, for
many
reasons, the
most important of which are:
- Prisoners
who are members of the Palestinian Police don’t get any salary
from
the Ministry
of Prisoners’ Affairs are thus are not registered in our
database.
- There are
hundreds of recently arrested prisoners whose registration
procedures in our database are yet to be finished. Thus, these
numbers are approximate.
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