TORTURE and ILL- TREATMENT Israel's Interrogation of Palestinians
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ISRAEL Page 1 of 214 Home TORTURE AND ILL- News Releases About HRW TREATMENT Contribute Community Israel's Interrogation of Publications Palestinians from the Occupied Territories Info by Country Africa Americas Human Rights Watch/Middle East Asia Europe/Central Asia (formerly Middle East Watch) Middle East/N. Africa United States Human Rights Watch Global Issues Arms New York · Washington · Los Angeles · London Children's Rights HIV/AIDS International Justice Copyright © June 1994 by Human Rights Watch. Prisons Refugees Women's Rights United Nations More... ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Campaigns The principal writer and researcher of this report is James Ron, a consultant to Human Rights Film Festival Watch/Middle East. Eric Goldstein, research director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East, Photo Galleries researched and wrote several sections, and was the principal editor. Cynthia Brown, program Site Map director of Human Rights Watch, was the final editor. Consultant Walid Batrawi gave valuable Contact Us help and guidance in the field. Fatemeh Ziai, the Orville Schell Fellow with Human Rights Watch, provided research on international law. Human Rights Watch/Middle East Associate Suzanne Howard and Human Rights Watch Associate Bettye Payne were responsible for the production, and Elizabeth Wilcox and Bryce Giddens helped with copy editing. The illustrations in this report were prepared by JFRA Design of Ramallah. Of the many human rights attorneys who provided guidance on Israeli law and the military courts, five deserve special mention: Eliahu Avram and Tamar Pelleg-Sryck of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Shlomo Lecker, Ali Naouq, and Lea Tsemel. Lisa Hajjar and Melissa Phillips read drafts and gave extensive and valuable suggestions. This report would not have been possible without the assistance of several human rights organizations, although responsibility for the findings rest solely with Human Rights Watch. Emma Naughton, of Birzeit University's Human Rights Project, shared data and helped to arrange meetings with ex-detainees. Al-Haq, the Ramallah-based affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists, and B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied http://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/israel/ 01/28/2004 ISRAEL Page 2 of 214 Territories, furnished data, assistance in the field, and advice. Other groups that helped include the Palestinian Lawyers for Human Rights (Khan Yunis), the Association of Israeli-Palestinian Physicians for Human Rights (Tel Aviv), the Mandela Institute for Political Prisoners (Ramallah), and the House of Right and Law (Gaza City). While disappointed that our requests to visit interrogation wings of IDF and GSS detention facilities were refused or ignored, Human Rights Watch appreciates the time that Israeli authorities took to meet with us and to reply to our frequent requests for information. These include officials in the IDF Spokesman's Office and Judge Advocate-General's Corps. Finally, Human Rights Watch would like to thank the former Palestinian detainees who took the time to recount their experiences in detail, and the Israeli soldiers who shared their experiences working in detention facilities. SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS Israel's two main interrogation agencies in the occupied territories engage in a systematic pattern of ill-treatment and torture - according to internationally recognized definitions of the terms - when trying to extract from Palestinian security suspects confessions or information about third parties. This pattern has continued in 1994, despite the peace process now underway. Israel's ill-treatment of Palestinians under interrogation is notable for the enormous number of persons who have experienced it. Well over 100,000 Palestinians have been detained since the start of the intifada in December 1987. Of those arrested, reliable sources indicate that some 4,000 to 6,000 are subjected to interrogation each year. The figures appear to have declined only slightly during the first quarter of 1994. The overriding strategy of Israel's interrogation agencies in getting uncooperative detainees to talk is to subject them to a coordinated, rigid and increasingly painful regime of physical constraints and psychological pressures over days and very often for three or four weeks, during which time the detainees are, almost without exception, denied visits by their lawyers and families. These measures seriously taint the voluntariness of the confessions that they help to bring about, and therefore, compromise the fundamental fairness of the military courts that try Palestinians in the occupied territories. The methods used in nearly all interrogations are prolonged sleep deprivation; prolonged sight deprivation using blindfolds or tight-fitting hoods; forced, prolonged maintenance of body positions that grow increasingly painful; and verbal threats and insults. These methods are almost always combined with some of the following abuses: confinement in tiny, closet-like spaces; exposure to temperature extremes, such as in deliberately overcooled rooms; prolonged toilet and hygiene deprivation; and degrading treatment, such as forcing detainees to eat and use the toilet at the same time. In a large number of cases, detainees are also moderately or severely beaten by their interrogators. Israeli interrogations consistently use methods in combination with one another, over long periods http://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/israel/ 01/28/2004 ISRAEL Page 3 of 214 of time. Thus, a detainee in the custody of the General Security Service (GSS) may spend weeks during which, except for brief respites, he shuttles from a tiny chair to which he is painfully shackled; to a stifling, tiny cubicle in which he can barely move; to questioning sessions in which he is beaten or violently manhandled; and then back to the chair. The intensive, sustained, and combined use of these methods inflicts the severe mental or physical suffering that is central to internationally accepted definitions of torture. Israel's political leadership cannot claim ignorance that ill-treatment is the norm in interrogation centers. The number of victims is too large, and the abuses are too systematic. Official acquiescence is indicated also by the extreme infrequency with which abuses are punished, and the fact that the classified guidelines for GSS interrogators actually permit, under certain circumstances, the use of "moderate" physical pressure to obtain information. Since 1988, there has been only one case in which GSS interrogators were jailed for abusing a detainee under interrogation. There are further obstacles to accountability for abuse: · Many prison doctors and paramedics, in violation of the ethics of their profession, tend to serve the interests of the interrogation agency more than they serve the health interests of the detainee. Rather than ensuring that their patients are not subjected to illegal or health-endangering ill- treatment, these medical personnel tend to intervene in the interrogation process only in order to avert permanent injuries or deaths; and · Palestinian defendants seeking to use the available legal procedure to challenge the voluntariness, and thus, the admissibility, of their confessions, face delays, pressures and obstacles that prejudice this important right. The abuses documented in this report took place between 1992 and 1994. Comparing this period to interrogations during earlier years, as they were documented by other human rights organizations, some trends emerge: · The GSS now resorts less frequently to beatings while relying more extensively on sustained psychological pressures and physical pressures, such as shackling detainees in contorted body positions, which fall short of direct violence but cause severe suffering nonetheless; and · IDF interrogations have become more standardized: beating is still the norm, but instances of extreme violence are less common. Despite these trends, the interrogation practices of both agencies continue to constitute a pattern of torture. Recommendations to the Government of Israel Human Rights Watch calls on the government of Israel to end the practice of torture and ill- treatment of detainees under interrogation, by adhering to and enforcing the provisions of the http://www.hrw.org/reports/1994/israel/ 01/28/2004 ISRAEL Page 4 of 214 United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (Convention against Torture). Israel acceded to the Convention in 1991. Under Article 2, Israel is obliged to take "effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture." To fulfill that obligation, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and his government should: · Enact domestic enabling legislation that makes the Convention against Torture enforceable in Israeli courts; · Publicly state that the provisions of the Convention apply to the conduct of all state agents in the occupied territories; · Make public all existing guidelines relating to the use of pressure during interrogation, including the secret appendix to the Landau Commission report and subsequent modifications of it, so that their compliance with international standards and Israeli domestic law can be assessed; · Revoke those clauses of the GSS interrogation guidelines that permit the use of physical force despite its prohibition in Israel's Penal Code; and · Review and revise the regulations and practices surrounding investigative detention so as to strengthen safeguards against