By Jennifer Thompson
Recent rulings by the Israeli High Court have explicitly allowed Israeli secret police (GSS or Shin Bet) to continue to use torture during interrogation of Palestinian detainees.
On November 15, the court approved increasing the severity of torture used against Birzeit University student Muhammed Hamdan.
One day later, all 5000 Palestinian political prisoners —who were supposed to be released in stages under the Oslo II agreement — held a one-day hunger strike against the use of torture and their continued detention.
According to the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAWE), the court deferred to the GSS argument that Hamdan falls under the "ticking bomb" category — that the torture is necessary to avert the loss of lives — despite the fact that Hamdan has been in Israeli custody for more than four weeks. Incredibly, Justice Cheshin rebuked Hamdan's defence lawyer as "immoral" for petitioning the court to stop the torture.
According to the November 22 Palestine Report, Hamdan, since his arrest on October 7, had been subjected to violent shaking, sleep deprivation and position abuse. Hamdan reported to his lawyer that his interrogation has not focused on an attack or even on his alleged knowledge of such plans.
During the first 11 days of interrogation, reported Palestine Report, Hamdan spent most of his time tied to a small chair with his hands and legs cuffed and a filthy sack over his head. He was permitted to sleep for two hours every three days. His interrogators reportedly informed Hamdan that he would leave their custody only dead or paralysed.
This treatment was interrupted only briefly when Hamdan's lawyer successfully petitioned the High Court against the methods on November 13. The ruling changed a day later when the GSS claimed they had new information about Hamdan, reported in the Israeli media to be a "known Islamic Jihad activist".
This ruling, despite Israel's ratification of the UN Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Punishment in 1991, is not isolated. On November 18, High Court Justices Michael Cheshin, Dalia Dorner and Eliezer Goldberg permitted the GSS to continue to deprive another Palestinian prisoner, Khader Mubarek, of sleep and to cover his head continuously with a rancid sack.
According to the LAWE, the court refused to issue a temporary order to stop the other methods of torture used, accepting the secret police's argument that the sack, the handcuffs and the "particular positions" utilised in Mubarek's interrogation were to assure that Mubarek won't escape, and not part of the "moderate physical pressure" permitted by Israeli law but illegal by international standards. Deprivation of sleep for five days continuously was not considered torture by the High Court.
Under Israeli regulations, certain forms of torture are legal; others are legal only after the GSS head approves them. Within Israeli legal discourse, the automatically legal torture methods are termed "moderate physical pressure" or "gloves on" interrogation.
From descriptions given by Palestinians, this includes tying prisoners in twisted positions for up to five days continuously, denying sleep for days, covering detainees' heads with thick rancid sacks for days, light body-shaking, placing the detainee in a small windowless cell for weeks and playing blaring music 24 hours a day. LAWE says almost every Palestinian interrogated is tortured in this manner.
A special ministerial committee of the Knesset, made up of representatives from the Meretz, Labour and Likud parties, since 1994 has routinely approved the licence of the GSS head to order more intense forms of abuse. This "licence" killed a 30-year old Palestinian man, Abed Samed Harizat, last year, when he was literally shaken to death. Harizat's death in June was the fifth from GSS "work accidents" in 1995.
Following a November 17 visit by the Birzeit-based Human Rights Action Project (HRAP) lawyer who heard from Hamdan about the interrogation methods used after the "gloves [came] off", Birzeit University said it was gravely concerned about the health and well-being of Hamdan, an educational diploma student. The LAWE also "deplored" the court decision, saying the "ticking bomb" theory developed by the government commission in August 1995 to allow "extensive physical pressure" was wholly outside international law and a "disgraceful legalism used by the court to justify gross violations of Palestinian human rights".
On the same day that the High Court permitted the violation of Mubarek's human rights, Palestine Report's Muhammed Abed Rabbo reported that an Israeli military court in Jaffa had sentenced four Israeli undercover unit officers to one hour in jail and fined them one Israeli agora (less than one cent) for killing a Palestinian three years ago.
The killing took place in November 1993, when a taxi carrying Eyad Mahmoud Awwad, 19, and a friend was stopped by a van carrying the four soldiers; thinking the four were settlers, the occupants of the taxi attempted to flee. The Israelis then opened fire without warning, hitting Awwad in the head and killing him instantly. The Israeli military investigation into the incident concluded that the shooting was caused by "carelessness" in "not following the guidelines for opening fire".
LAWE said that the military court's decision emanated from a deeply rooted racism against Palestinians. The courts' decisions demonstrated how perverted the Israeli legal system had become and that justice for Palestinians could never be assured in an Israeli court.
According to the November 22 Palestine Report, Palestinian prisoners say they are not getting medical care, and that the prison administration does not provide them with adequate clothes or food.
Amongst the 5000 prisoners are around 300 administrative detainees. Administrative detentions — without charge or trial, because of prisoners' political views — have been renewed without any cause, say the prisoners, and family visits have recently been banned. According to the Oslo 2 agreement, Israel is to release the prisoners in stages but instead, since the signing in September 1995, more than 200 Palestinian political prisoners have been taken into administrative detention, tripling their numbers. n