Prisoner Speaks Out From Israeli Jail

[ConsAreLiars]

RAMALLAH, Nov 11, 2010 (IPS) - Samer Hamdan*, a 26-year-old Palestinian prisoner, recalls being beaten until he bled. Seeing other prisoners covered in blood and screaming is the norm in the Israeli prison, he says.

Hamdan is serving a nine-year sentence in Ketziot prison in the Negev desert for membership of an "illegal organisation".
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"I was interrogated day and night and deprived of sleep. During interrogation I was handcuffed and beaten. A foul-smelling sack was placed over my head. In between interrogation sessions I was placed in solitary confinement in an underground cell where a fluorescent light was on 24 hours daily. I was not allowed a change of clothes nor was I able to shower. A bucket served as a toilet and was emptied only periodically."

Last week two Israeli human rights organisations released a report based on the testimonies of 121 Palestinians held in an Israeli detention facility, which accused Israeli authorities of gross abuses of the prisoners.

B'Tselem and the Hamoked Centre for the Defence of the Individual said detainees were subjected to continuous handcuffing, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, beatings and disgraceful hygienic conditions, amongst other severe human rights violations.

More at http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53527

The summary is here: http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/201010_Kept_in_the_Dark.asp

A little from that summary:

The treatment of detainees, as revealed in the report, is consistent with an interrogation doctrine that seeks to break the spirit of the detainee by inducing anxiety and shock, completely removing him from his normal life, and subjecting him to extreme deprivation of sensory stimuli, movement, and human contact. Added to these is the induced enfeebling of the detainee by means of sleep deprivation, food reduction, exposure to cold and heat, and causing pain, mainly through forced stiff postures. This doctrine appeared in the CIA interrogation manuals of the 1960s and 1980s, used, among other thinsgs, as guides to interrogators operating in Latin American dictatorships. According to the manuals, these methods result in the mental regression of the detainee, who becomes putty in the interrogator's hands.

The Israeli authorities sanction such treatment of detainees, as described in the report. Since 2001, 645 interrogee complaints have been made to the Ministry of Justice concerning Israel Security Agency interrogators, but none have led to a criminal investigation. The official Israeli position concerning soldiers' use of violence during arrest is that such violence is forbidden. However, despite the repeated alerts, the practice is still prevalent, and it seems the soldiers receive mixed messages from their commanders, to say the least.

The measures depicted in the report constitute cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, at times amounting to torture. All are prohibited, absolutely and without exception. International law unequivocally stipulates that no state of emergency may be invoked to justify such acts.

The full report is at: http://www.btselem.org/Download/201010_Kept_in_the_Dark_Eng.pdf

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1. There's no justification at all for treating any prisoner that way n/t

[ConsAreLiars]

2. New Scandals in Child Prisoner Torture: Soldiers Urinate on 13-Year-Old Boys

He said the soldiers then pushed them into a bathroom and forced them to take off their clothes. They said they were left naked in the bathroom for two days without food or water and that the soldiers set the air conditioning unit to blow cold air for the duration.

Mukhaymar said he was very thirsty and had to drink the toilet water and suffered from severe chills, and every time he and Radwan tried to sleep, the soldiers came into wake them up.

He said the worst thing that happened, however, was that when the soldiers came in they didn’t relieve themselves in the toilet, but urinated on the boys’ heads and faces instead. The soldiers then mocked and laughed at them while one took pictures.

After the two days in this cruel condition, said Mukhaymar, they were led into Binyamin settlement and interrogated from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m., then taken to Ofer Military Camp. They remained there for three months, then were transported to the youth prison in Rimonim. They were never arraigned in court.

More at: http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9046&Itemid=56