TEL AVIV, June 24, 2009 (WAFA)- The Public Committee against Torture in
The report, published by the Israeli daily Haaretz, which is based on interviews and investigations of 574 arrests and interrogations over the last year, argues that Israeli bodies, especially the IOF and the Shin Bet, habitually bind detainees in a painful and humiliating manner, often constituting torture.
In defiance of Israeli law, High Court rulings and international laws and guidelines, detainees in Israel are usually bound in a way that is designed to cause them pain, and not only to prevent them from escaping, the report says.
This binding, the report goes on to say, is implemented with the express purpose of punishing detainees, frightening them and illegally extracting information and confessions. A large portion of the victims of this practice are Palestinian security prisoners, but this attitude toward detainees has begun to manifest itself in the treatment of other prisoners as well, the report maintains.
'It stands to reason that this type of binding is used to dehumanize the Palestinian detainee, who is subject to the mercy of the occupying regime,' the report declares. 'This type of behavior by members of the authorities, as this report demonstrates, can be classified as humiliating at the very least, and in certain cases as abuse and torture, which are prohibited both morally and by law.'
The report begins with the committee's mission statement, explaining that the group was established in 1990 'in response to long standing government policy that allowed the systematic use of torture and abuse during Shin Bet interrogations.'
'The committee operates to protect the rights of detainees and prisoners and to promote an absolute ban on torture, as is dictated by democracy and moral values, as well as international law,' the group declares.
