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From: MER FlashBack <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Torture in Israel - MER FlashBack
Date: Wednesday, January 13, 1999 12:53 PM
- _______ ____ ______
/ |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
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http://www.MiddleEast.Org
T O R T U R E I N I S R A E L
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M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S
News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups,
and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know.
___________________________________________________________________
MER FLASHBACK - 3rd Week January 1997:
ISRAELI TORTURE IS SYSTEMATIC AND "LEGAL"
[MER - Torture of Palestinians is not only routine and systematic, in
it actually sanctioned by the Israeli legal system that has been
twisted to serve Israeli policies. Going back to the Shinbet scandal
of the early 1980's, even more sadistic forms of torture have given
way to the kinds of 'legalized' torture methods outlined in this
important article from one of the few independent and courageous
media sources in Israel, The Alternative Information Center (AIC).
Among the reasons the Israelis get away with such systematic torture
of Palestinians is that hardly anyone is willing to protest. The so-
called "Palestinian Authority" practices similar and even worse
torture techniques, as do nearly all of the Arab governments in the
region -- so they are hardly in a position to protest. And the
"liberal" American Jewish community has been morally bankrupt about
such issues for so long now that to speak up at this point would be to
condemn themselves for permitting, and even encouraging in many cases,
such Nazi-like behavior by the Israelis for decades.]
ISRAELI JUSTICE ON TORTURE
A Shining Light Unto Nations?
"The entire Israeli establishment
countenances torture..."
First, his head is covered with a thick rancid sack. It�s difficult to
breathe. Handcuffed, he is bound in a twisted position to a
kindergarten chair with hardly any back support and held there for
four days straight. Every time his head falls when sleep overcomes
him, he is slapped on his face to wake up. Maybe on the fifth day the
handcuffs are removed and he is allowed to sleep in a tiny windowless
cell. Music is blaring in the cell around the clock. It is difficult
to sleep with noise and the constant glare of the shining fluorescent
light. On the sixth or seventh day, his head is covered again with the
rancid sack, but this time, he is chained to a pole in the corridor
and made to stand there for four more days. Or perhaps, he is
handcuffed to a hook a meter from the ground and is forced to squat
for three days; three days continuously that is. Or he is undressed
and made to sit in front of a blasting air-conditioner for hours.
There is no sleep. His hands are swollen from the tight handcuffs; he
is vomiting from the prolonged contorted position he is held
in. He smells, unshaven, he wants to sleep.
This is �moderate physical pressure� under Israeli law and it is
legal. Under international law this is torture and is completely
prohibited at all times. This �moderate physical pressure� is
routinely used by the Israeli secret police (�GSS�) to extract
confessions from Palestinian detainees under interrogation. The UN
Convention Against Torture, of which Israel is a signatory, states
that the use of any physical or psychological pressure which causes
pain or humiliation is absolutely prohibited at all times.
What constitutes torture and degrading treatment is subjective --
determined by the victims� sensation of the physical and mental pain
caused to him. Sitting in front of cold air may not on its face
compare to torture methods like electric shock, but after two weeks of
little sleep and sitting in contorted positions, undressed in the
middle of the rainy winter, 12 hours of the �air conditioner� feels
like hell. One detainee described it as �putting the air in a state of
war with me�.
Despite the prohibitions under international law, the entire Israeli
establishment countenances torture: The Israeli military courts
routinely disregard claims of torture and extend the interrogations
until the Israeli secret police finish the interrogation; the Ministry
of Justice defends the torture in the Israeli High Court of Justice;
the High Court of Justice itself puts the stamp of approval on the
torture often rejecting petitions that request the court to order the
GSS to cease the torture; the Israeli Knesset Ministerial Committee
(composed of members of the Labor and Zionist Left parties including
Yossi Sarid) consistently renews the license to the GSS Director
granting him total discretion to determine when torture beyond
�moderate physical pressure� can be used.
The GSS Director has just given his okay for the torture to go �beyond
moderate physical pressure�. The detainee is grabbed by the shoulders
or by his collar and shaken violently for seconds or minutes. His head
convulses, rattled back and forth, incessantly, it feels as if it will
fly off, he loses his stand, dizziness overtakes him, his body is on
fire. Sometimes he falls unconscious; sometimes he just falls to the
ground. Or maybe he is beaten.
No one knows what methods constitute �moderate physical pressure� or
�beyond moderate physical pressure� since GSS activities and methods
are secret and unreviewable by the public. The information we know is
derived solely from testimony of former torture victims.
The Perversion of the Israeli Legal System
Two weeks ago, the Israeli High Court of Justice, lead by Justice
Aaron Barak, ruled that Muhammed Hamdan, a student from Bir Zeit
University, could continue to be tortured. The Court deferred to the
secret police�s �ticking bomb� argument -- that torture was necessary
to uncover information to an imminent bomb attack. This despite the
absolute prohibition against torture under international law and the
fact that the imminence was doubtful -- Hamdan had been in Israeli
custody for over a month. The High Court gave such deference to the
secret police, that one of the justices, Michael Cheshin, rebuked
Hamdan�s lawyer as immoral for petitioning the court to stop the
torture.
Later on that week, the High Court rejected another petition to order
the secret police to stop using torture. In this case, the court ruled
that the secret police could continue to deprive Khader Mubarek --
another victim -- of sleep and to cover his head continuously with a
rancid sack. The court refused to issue a temporary order to halt the
use of moderate physical pressure during the interrogation, but
ordered the secret police to refrain from placing Mubarek in painful
sitting positions.
The High Court�s decisions sanctioning torture demonstrate how
perverted the Israeli legal system has become. In the name of
preserving Israel�s �democracy� and existence, the High Court of
Justice routinely sanctions trespass on the liberal state�s most
cherished assets -- one�s body and one�s liberty. Justice Aaron Barak
-- the President of Israel�s Supreme Court, the same justice that is
invited and honored by Harvard and Yale Law Schools and the American
Bar Association as a leading liberal legal-jurisprudence thinker -- is
also the Justice who permits the GSS to torture, physically and
mentally degrade others.
Instead of remaining true to the two most alienable principles of most
legal systems -- the presumption of innocence and the right to remain
silent -- Israeli justices and judges allow the GSS to treat every
Palestinian under interrogation as a convicted terrorist and to
torture him until he talks. Judge Shlomo Issacson, President of the
Ramallah military court1 and a religious Jew, ruled once that the
Palestinian detainee in front of him deserved the �difficult�
interrogation because he had chosen to remain silent and was not
�cooperating with the interrogators� i.e. confessing. He extended the
detainee�s interrogation for another 14 days with full knowledge that
he was returning the detainee to another round of torture.2 Torture
corrupts both the victim and the torturer. Just as the victim remains
psychologically and, at times, physically scarred by his traumatic
experience, the torturer is mentally corrupted from dehumanizing his
suspect and benefiting from his pain and suffering. The GSS torture
has already corrupted the Israeli legal system. Cloaking themselves in
the moral high ground of security and protecting Israel�s democratic
existence, these justices and judges pervert all principles of human
dignity and liberty and corrode the very foundation and raison d�etre
of a democratic� legal system. By continuingto permit and defend
torture in all its forms, these justices and judges have become
a threat to the same liberal and free principles that they were
appointed to protect.
�When the state itself beats and extorts, it cannot longer be said to
rest on foundations of morality and justice, but rather on force . . .
Just as this situation is one of coercion and submission, so the state
itself, which permits it, becomes a state of coercion and submission.
When a state employs forceful means which no ends can justify, such as
torture, it reduces the moral distance between a governmental act and
a criminal act. . .�.3
1 Despite the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank cities,
the Israelis continue to operate military courts all over the Occupied
Territories. The Gaza military court still functions today as well.
2 In many cases where the GSS cannot obtain a confession because the
detainee kept silent, or where the GSS lacks sufficient evidence to
bring charges, the detainee is not released but rather sent to
administrative detention. The detention is then approved by another
military judge and is extended periodically by the military commander
upon the approval of the civil administration�s legal advisor.
3 Kremnitzer, Mordechai, �The Landau Commission Report -- Was the
Security Service Subordinated to the Law, or the Law to the �Needs� of
the Security Service?., Israel Law Review, Vol. 23, No. 2-3 1989, at
248.
*************************
Allegra Pacheco (Pacheco is an Israeli lawyer at the Palestinian
Society for the Protection of Human Rights (LAWE) and is a member of
the Hebron Solidarity Committee. From: NEWS FROM WITHIN December 1996
Published by the Alternative Information Center -- Jerusalem/Bethlehem
***********************
_________________________________________________________________
For past MER articles go to: http://WWW.MiddleEast.Org.
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