RAMALLAH, May 19, 2015 (WAFA) – The Israeli authorities have issued administrative detention orders against 24 Palestinian prisoners, according to a statement by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC).

PPC said that three prisoners were given administrative detention orders for the first time, while the remaining 21 received detention orders without charge or trial for the second or third time.

Under administrative detention, prisoners are held without charge or trial and for an indefinite and renewable period of time.

The use of administrative detention dates from the “emergency laws” of the British colonial era in Palestine. Israel uses administrative detention routinely as a form of collective punishment and mass detention of Palestinians, and frequently uses administrative detention when it fails to obtain confessions in interrogations of Palestinian detainees.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, “Israel's use of administrative detention blatantly violates the restrictions of international law. Israel carries it out in a highly classified manner that denies detainees the possibility of mounting a proper defense. Moreover, the detention has no upper time limit.”

“Over the years, Israel has placed thousands of Palestinians in administrative detention for prolonged periods of time, without trying them, without informing them of the charges against them, and without allowing them or their counsel to examine the evidence,” B’Tselem reports.

M.N/M.H