The practice of torture in the Israeli prisons

Upon release, many Palestinian prisoners who have been held in the Israeli prisons have talked in some detail about the methods of torture practiced on them during their incarceration. To hear their stories, one would think that we are still living at a time when 'civilized' society does not exist, and the humanity of man is not recognized. Jad'oun Levi has reported on some of the cases involving the torture of Palestinians while they are under investigation in the Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper. One of the most prominent cases was that of a 31-year-old Palestinian named Abed Al-Ahmed who for the last two years vomits two to three times daily as a result of the torture that was inflicted upon him during his time in Israeli prisons. Al-Ahmed has been imprisoned by the Israeli authorities for the last eight years, being released from the latest administrative arrest a short time ago.

Over the years the Israeli Public Security investigators have developed and improved the methods of torture used upon Palestinian prisoners; as a result, Al-Ahmed now vomits repeatedly every day and suffers from severe pains in the lower back.

The practices of the Israeli Public Security Department have been well documented over the last few years, with the reported experiences of a number of prisoners from Nablus, Hebron and Gaza. However, the description given by Al-Ahmed of his time in prison and the forms of torture that he underwent is especially disturbing. Al-Ahmed was not suspected of a specific crime; his arrest and investigation was a matter of routine for the Public Security Department, and which has been undergone by thousands of Palestinians every year since the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Al-Ahmed has been in prison intermittently since 1981, when he was accused of throwing an explosive bottle and recruiting members for the People's Front. Not surprisingly, this has caused him many problems; even when he is not in prison, his life is very difficult because he has no stability. He never knows when he will be arrested again, while the 'investigations' themselves take a long time, the last investigation took two months to complete, while another one lasted 75 days.

In his statement, Al-Ahmed said that the latest arrest and investigation was by far the worst experience, due to the fact that the Israelis have succeeded in developing new methods of torture which while causing severe pain, leave little outward evidence of what has been inflicted. Al-Ahmed described the methods of torture used in great detail: "One investigator pulls the captive forwards while another one pulls him backwards, at the same time treading upon the metallic shackles with their feet; this causes severe pain and is nicknamed the sit-up exercise." They tie the feet to a chair and force the body backwards; the length of this procedure depends upon the condition of the prisoner. Some investigators stop when the prisoner begins to vomit while others continue until he becomes unconscious. Al-Ahmed says that he was forced to practice the 'sit-up' exercises for two or three hours at a time until he vomited, and then they would ask him, 'Why have you dirtied the floor?' They would then bring a container for the prisoner to vomit in, after which they would continue with the torture until the prisoner could no longer talk.

As soon as they stopped one form of torture, they would move on to another exercise; they stop only when the prisoner can no longer talk; it does not matter how much pain the prisoner is in.

Another form of torture used is the shoulder exercise; the wrists are tied up backwards using shackles, then one of the investigators treads on them using his feet, or using pressure from his shoulders. This form of torture continues for the entire session of the investigation. In addition to these two forms of torture, there is the practice of shaking the prisoner, which is perhaps the most difficult and dangerous one of all, with most of the prisoners falling unconscious at this form of abuse. In order to bring the prisoner to, the investigators would beat the unconscious prisoner or pour water on him until he regains consciousness, upon which they continue with the investigation. In general, they deprive the prisoners from sleep for four to five days at a time, and they do not allow him to sleep until he cannot talk at all. They then let them sleep for a maximum of two to three hours. Al-Ahmed states that they once allowed him to sleep because he was unable to talk or even to think properly; he could not see or hear them, and they were unable to wake him up using their usual techniques of splashing with water or slapping the face.

There are no good or bad investigators because they are all the same, and work according to the same principles and standards. Al-Ahmed was able to remember some of their names such as Kohen, Ndab, Dury, Tareq, Jeil and Mandy. He states that the one called Tareq was perhaps the most humane, because he offered him a cup of coffee from time to time. In the winter they used an air conditioning system to torture the prisoners, they would first make the prisoner take off his clothes, then they would tie the prisoner to a chair, or lock him in a very small cupboard, and then they would switch on the air conditioning system, which is extremely cold. The matter of torture is not only physical but it is also psychological because they have turned the simple things, like feeling warm, or being able to move your hands properly, into things you can only dream about.

Words were few; they often prepare the prisoners for the torture by shaking them early in the morning; this was the case especially when a high-ranking officer was to perform the investigation. When this happened, the prisoner's hands would be tied and a sack placed over his head so that he could not see who was carrying out the investigation; in addition, very loud music would be played. On some occasions, the prisoner was tied to a horizontal pole in the hall so that he could neither sit down nor stand up. They would not allow the prisoners to use the lavatory unless they considered that they had been cooperative with them and began to talk. This was especially difficult for the new prisoners, but the more veteran prisoners learnt to deal with this form of torture by simply urinating while standing in their clothes whenever they felt the need to use the lavatory. The investigators would not care about this practice unless the clothes began to smell, when they let one of the guards hose the prisoners down, after which they would place them in front of the air conditioner to dry them off. Sometimes filthy sacks would be placed over the prisoners' heads, which smelt very bad and which Al-Ahmed had seen the guards urinate upon. The food was given to the prisoners in the lavatory and was put in through a hole, they were forced to eat it in the dark so they had no knowledge of what they were eating.

The investigators were often able to get information from those who had committed the actions for which they were charged, but those who were innocent faced continual torture because they did not know anything, and had nothing to say. It was normal practice for them to curse the prisoners, their mothers and their sisters because they knew what this would mean for them as Arabs, and they would even spit in their faces. On another level, it was very easy to irritate the investigators as they were often nervous and more often than not, they were psychologically sick. They would often laugh at the prisoners as they underwent the torture. Al-Ahmed states that no normal person would behave like this unless they were sadists. A doctor was often present during the investigations in order to determine whether the prisoner was fit enough to undergo the investigation, but he would always say, "Yes". The doctor would sometimes ask the prisoner about the areas where they suffered pain; when the prisoner showed him, the investigators proceeded to beat him in that place.

Mr. Al-Ahmed used to be a good karate player with a blue belt but now he could hardly move due to the severe back pains from which he suffers. Doctors have confirmed that Al-Ahmed has a serious problem with the bones of his back, which may need surgery in order to correct the problem.

Translated from Al-Rai Arabic daily, Jordan, 1 July 1998.