BETHLEHEM, March 29, 2016 (WAFA) – The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) Tuesday said that three Palestinian teenagers were maltreated by Israeli forces prior to their detention and throughout their four-hour journey to the Israeli interrogation center of Etzion.
PPS lawyer, Jaklin Fararjeh, said Ahmad Jadallah, 16, Mohammed S. Othman, 17, and Mohammed M. Othman, all of whom are from Ramallah’s Beit Ur al-Tahta village, were subjected to severe physical abuse from the moment of their arrest and throughout the four-hour journey to Etzion interrogation center.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights center, said, “In 1999 Israel’s HCJ [Israel High Court of Justice] prohibited the use of torture, abuse, or degradation by the ISA [the Israel Security Agency]. In the sixteen years since that ruling, thousands of Palestinians have been interrogated, many by those very methods prohibited.”
“We must once more reiterate the demand for what ought to be a given: Israel must immediately cease the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, as well as the abuse and torture of detainees, both in overt interrogation and through the conditions in which they are held.”
B’Tselem affirmed, “the right of every person not to be subjected to ill-treatment or torture (whether physical or mental), stressing that, “it is one of the few human rights that are considered absolute.”
“As an absolute right, it may never be "balanced" against other rights and values, nor suspended or ed, even in difficult circumstances such as war or fighting terrorism.”
The center added, “A confession obtained through violation of this right can certainly not serve as the basis for a conviction.”
B’Tselem noted that, “From 2009 to 2013, B‘Tselem sent 31 complaints to the Department for Investigation of Police (DIP) on behalf of Palestinians who reported they had been subjected to violence and threats by interrogators at the Etzion station.’
‘The high number of reports B‘Tselem has received regarding violent interrogations at the Etzion station, and the fact that they span several years, gives rise to heavy suspicion that this is not a case of a single interrogator who chose to use illegal interrogation methods, but rather an entire apparatus that backs him up and allows such conduct to take place”
On 1 June 2014, Adalah, the legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, sent an urgent letter to the Attorney General (AG) demanding an end to the practice of physical and psychological torture and ill-treatment against Palestinian children from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) during their arrest and interrogation by Israeli security personnel.
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