AUGUST 2004

SMARTER THAN THE GUARDS AT ABU GHRAIB

Torture of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons

Oscar Garschagen

 "A democratic country, a Jewish state, Israel, with a history of Holocaust, should condemn all forms of torture

Earsplitting music, sleep deprivation, spoiled food, beatings, endless interrogations, solitary confinement, extreme heat and cold, detention without trial for months on end, no visiting rights. These are forms of “physical and psychological pressure” applied by the Israeli army and security services in their hunt after “ticking bombs.” How far can a democracy go in the battle against real and imaginary terrorists? And at what price?

Madalla

Sighing and shedding a tear here and there, Madalla, frail, traditional, but tastefully dressed in a head scarf of expensive silk, rings on both hands, tells us of her experiences with the Shabak (General Security Services – GSS). For sixty days Madalla didn’t see anyone. Sick with worry and spoiled food, suffering from a permanent headache from exhaustion, unwashed and soiled from top to toe, Madalla was not allowed to see a lawyer, or friends and family, only her interrogators. One exception to this was the day she was shown her husband sitting behind a glass wall: “He was slumped in a chair, bound and beaten. They wanted to put him under pressure, to break him. He was only half conscious.”

Shortly afterwards she was transferred to the women prison of Israel, Neve Tirtza. There she spend another 120 days in an overcrowded room with Palestinian and Israeli women, some of them with babies. Then, suddenly, she was released. That was two months ago. She just heard that her husband was sentence to seven years in prison in a closed chamber trial. Details concerning the charge, except for membership in Hamas, are not available. The only thing she knows is that she will see him again in their luxurious apartment in Ramallah in 2011 at the earliest. Visiting is impossible since she will be able to pass the Israeli checkpoint and road blocks and won’t be able to get a permit to visit her husband in the Negev desert prison facilities under the auspices of the Red Cross. Her daughter in Chicago want her to come the US, “but  I can’t leave my husband and children and my country just like that.”

Mosquitoes and rats

Madalla is one of 31,000 Palestinians who were interrogated by the army and the GSS since the year 2000. Her husband is one of 8,362 detainees (according to numbers published this week) in the military prisons (3,962) or the Israeli Prison Authority (4,400). A new record and a spectacular increase, since at the end of 1999 there were only 802 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

Israeli prisons are the same for all: Israeli murderers, drug dealers etc. and Palestinians. Barely adequate bordering on cruel is the description given by an Israeli authority, the Office of Public Defense, to portray the situation in the political as well as the ordinary prisons. Prisons are full to overflow, hygienic conditions are deplorable, kitchens are filthy, mosquitoes and rats are rampant, there are not enough beds, not enough mattresses, lighting is insufficient as is ventilation etc. Twelve to sixteen prisoners in a cell of 4x4 meter (Russian Compound), no recreation or airing facilities, no visitor facilities and always problems with lawyer access is the norm. Most Palestinians have not had visitors for years since their families are considered to pose a security risk, or are of the “wrong” age (men and women between the ages of 15-50 can never get a permit), of simply can not face the long wait at the checkpoints.

Since the Six-day War of 1967, 650,000 Palestinians, some 20% of the total population and 40% of the Palestinian males have spent time in prison. Of the 8,329 prisoners now in prison, 1941 have “blood on their hands” according to the army; 477 of those have been sentenced to more than one consecutive life sentences. The number of “administrative detainees” – prisoners who are incarcerated for months and sometimes years without charge – is 1150. With the rise in numbers, the complaints of cruelty during arrest by the army and the border police as well as torture during interrogation by the GSS also increases.

“Since 2000, with the start of the second intifada, we are witnessing a spectacular rise in the number of arrests as well in the use of interrogation methods which we consider to be torture. Madalla’s story fits in a pattern which we also record” says Hannah Friedman of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. Friedman, originally from the Netherlands, and her colleague at the time, Professor Stanley Cohen, won a protracted lawsuit at the Supreme Court of Israel in September 1999 in which practically all forms of torture in interrogations of terrorists and pseudo-terrorists was prohibited. Before 1999, the army and the security services had to keep to secret instruction from 1987 which prescribed that detainees could be subjected to “moderate physical and psychological pressure”. The word torture was not used, but in practice that’s what it was and it was supported by successive prime ministers.

1. “When interrogators of the Shabak deal with a Palestinians they consider a “ticking bomb”, they can use physical pressure and ask for authorization afterwards. This has to come from the highest office of justice in the country and they defend the right to use these torture techniques,” says Friedman. Physical pressure includes prolonged interrogation in the interest of national security, sleep deprivation justified by be acute threat to the country and tying down of the prisoner in order to guarantee the safety of the interrogators. In reality these measures are used for harsh interrogations.
   
2. Friedman: “after the arrest of torture in 1999, the security services largely kept to the new rules, but after the massive suicide attacks of 2000, 2001, 2002, the torture techniques were again employed. For instance, physical shaking up, slapping with a flat hand in a very painful manner, tying backwards on a chair or bench or in a cage were used again.”

The Shabak, which answers directly to the prime minister, is not willing to react to Friedman’s allegations. However, the director of the security services, Avi Dichter, has affirmed in the media that every year some 90 Palestinians are considered “ticking bombs” and are therefore allowed to be interrogated under “physical pressure”.

Friedman’s organization thinks this number is higher. They base their assessment on affidavits given under oath and on official declarations checked by lawyers and physicians. “We think the real figure is in the hundreds per year. We think that torture has become the norm again, a norm carried out in an orderly and institutional fashion,” says Friedman.

“The Israeli public is of the opinion that there are fewer attacks and that everything is allowed. In addition, most Israelis think that the Palestinians lie when they say they are tortured. But we control the declarations very carefully. When someone alleges that his arm was broken during interrogation, but cannot show an X-ray, we don’t go into it” says Friedman, who does understand the “ticking bomb” argument but does not accept it as valid. “After all is said and done, that is of no importance. Israel signed the 1991 UN-Convention against torture but does not comply with it. The Israeli High Court prohibited all forms of torture in 1999, except, alas, for a few. A democratic country, a Jewish state, Israel , with a history of Holocaust, should condemn all forms of torture and respect all international treaties. We should not discredit our society by trampling on internationally recognized human rights.” And: “We should end the super-expensive and bloody occupation, with its liquidations and the construction of the terribly expensive, mad great wall, while there is no money for schools, hospitals and prisons. Israel, 56 years after its establishment, still lives with the fear of being annihilated. That is absurd, we have the largest army in the Middle-East.”

 From: Bilha Golan and A.S.Kawar