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08-17-2021
07:40 PM
Palestinian Detainees in Israeli Prisons: What You Need to Know
Despite issues of mass censorship on far-reaching social media sites including Twitter and Instagram, Palestine is in the international spotlight online and in the streets after recent escalations. Thousands across the world continue to protest in solidarity with the Palestinian families set to be forcefully evicted and displaced by Israel’s government from their homes in the neighborhoods in Silwan and Sheikh Jarrah (East Jerusalem) to expand Israeli settlements. Because of this, western media has grown more familiar with the faces of two young activists from Sheik Jarrah who have been fighting against the ethnic cleansing of their neighborhood their entire lives.
Siblings Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd were arrested during Israeli police raids for “public disturbances”, “committing acts that disturb public security”, and “taking part in riots” (Aljazeera). Mohammed, a poet, and writer has drawn global attention through social media to his neighborhood, as well as calling out Palestinian expulsion for what it is; ethnic cleansing. He has been using his platform to take a stand since the Nakba when 700,000 Palestinians were removed or fled from Israel in 1948. He has amplified the voice of Palestinian liberation, appearing on television news, going live on Instagram with celebrities, and speaking on remote panels. Muna, with international voices in agreement, believes that she was detained because she has become a recognizable symbol of Sheik Jarrah, even going viral when she confronted one of the Israeli settlers who forcefully moved into half of her family home.
To Gen Z-ers, it may not be surprising to hear that younger generations are getting a lot of their news from social media. When Mohammed El-Kurd tweets out a 2019 video in 2021 of “IDF soldiers storming Naqab prison, assaulting 55 prisoners'' and “leaving them tied-up atop each other for many hours”, it reaches hundreds of thousands of people, some of whom will have little knowledge about Israel. In April, the Human Rights Watch released a 213-page report declaring Israel an apartheid state, which is defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, detailing human rights violations against the Palestinian people. (United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken has not retracted his statement saying that the U.S. is opposed to the International Criminal Court opening an investigation.) With the world holding its breath as Muna and Mohammed were detained and then released, there was also the recorded arrest of a Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Givera Budeiri, who was detained four hours before getting treated for injuries inflicted by Israeli police. All the images, news stories, and tweets from Palestinian voices such as the El-Kurd twins, as well as Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, have demanded attention to Israel’s justice system, including the treatment of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. Let’s break down some of what you need to know.
Palestinians are tried in military court.
The five categories of indictments are: 1) “Hostile terrorist activity” such as membership in illegal associations or firearms violations 2) Illegal entry in Israel without a permit 3) Criminal offenses 4) Traffic violations and 5) “Public disturbances” such as throwing stones or participating in demonstrations (B'tselem). Throwing stones at vehicles with the intent of bodily harm is punishable by up to a maximum of 20 years in jail, and up to 10 years if the intent cannot be proven.
In the West Bank, approximately 100% of all court cases heard in the military court end in conviction.
The majority of these cases end in plea deals before reaching evidentiary trial because of a practice in military courts which remands a person in custody after interrogation and before sentencing until the proceedings are over. Military judges, including reserve soldiers with legal training, preside over hearings to extend the length of detention. Palestinians are subjected to a system in which The Military Court of Appeals can opt to extend their detention in 6-month increments if the trial is not completed within the time span of 18 months. Comparatively, the limit for detainment in an Israeli civilian court is 9 months. In the 1980s, the Attorney General decided that Israelis, including West Bank Jewish-Israeli settlers being tried for the same security offenses that would see a Palestinian in military court, are to be tried in a civilian court with Israeli penal laws (Addameer). This means that there are parallel justice systems: one for Palestinians and another for Jewish Israelis.
Language is also an issue in court and in interrogations. Although an interrogation and statement is required to occur in a detainee’s native language, as it is used as evidence in court, detainees have reported not having access to a translator. Israeli police have also had Palestinian children sign Hebrew statements that they cannot understand (HRW).
Today, there are 5,300 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centers, including 250 children and 520 administrative detainees.
Administrative detainment is defined as when the Israeli military “hold(s) prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial” for an “unlimited amount of time”, without allowing the detainee or their lawyer access to any evidence that could be used against them in court (Addameer). The majority of administrative detainees are jailed within Israeli prisons, which requires transfer from occupied territory into Israel, violating international humanitarian law. Since the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, passed the Unlawful Combatants Law in 2002, it has been used to also put Palestinians from Gaza into administrative detention. Unlawful combatants “(have) participated either directly or indirectly in hostile acts against the State of Israel or is a member of a force perpetrating hostile acts against the State of Israel” (HRW).
3 out of 4 Palestinian children are reported to have been subject to physical violence following their arrest.
500-700 Palestinian children a year are prosecuted in the military courts per year, as young as 12-years-old, the age of criminal responsibility determined by the Israeli government (Defense for Children International). Palestinians can be tried as adults in military court at the age of 16, in contrast to 18 in the Israeli justice system. The courts rely on little evidence besides soldier testimony, and interrogation techniques that have been recognized by international human rights groups as human rights violations. Minors report being taken from their home in the middle of the night, being subject to unnecessary force and threats, not being allowed to have a parent present during interrogation, being held in pretrial detention without access to legal counsel. In some cases, parents have not been told of their child’s location. The most common indictment is for throwing stones, which makes them “security detainees” that are not allowed to use a telephone, despite the majority of imprisoned children not having family visits. In 2020, there were 27 Palestinian children in solitary confinement. While imprisoned, access to education is limited to subjects decided by the Israeli Prison Service and determined by the facility.
In between 2001 and 2020, there have been 1,300 complaints of torture filed with Israel’s Justice Ministry, which has resulted in only 1 investigation and no prosecutions (HRW).
Palestinian detainees are fighting back against injustice from inside Israeli jails. One of the most common forms of protest from within Israeli prisons has been hunger strikes. In 2017, over 1,000 Palestinians led a hunger strike to fight for an end to solitary confinement, an end to administrative detention, an end to medical negligence, family visits, amongst other demands. This May, Palestinian journalist Alaa Al-Rimawi began a hunger strike after his arrest for media coverage of the Palestinian elections. He was placed in solitary confinement in Ofer prison, where Israeli guards held a barbeque outside his cell to force him to eat. Israel has been criticized for arresting journalists, reporters, and members of the media for political speech.
You can do something to support Palestinians and put pressure on the Israeli government.
- Email and call your representatives demanding that your country put international pressure on Israel to end administrative detention and to accept the ICC investigation on human rights violations.
- Organize or join a protest in your city in solidarity with Palestinians.
- Follow Palestinian activists on social media such as Mohammed El-Kurd and post about Palestinian prisoners.
- Organize a boycott in your city of a corporation that is profiting off Israeli prisons.
CITATIONS
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/05/28/facebook-palestinian-censorship/
https://jewishcurrents.org/a-guide-to-the-current-crisis-in-israel-palestine/
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/17/mapping-palestinian-solidarity-protests-around-the-world
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/6/6/israeli-police-arrest-sheikh-jarrah-activist-muna-al-kurd
https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3dvdb/mohammed-el-kurd-cnn-interview-sheikh-jarrah
https://docs.google.com/document/d/12B7BWLnOS1I7yujlZWNRRAk08ofgsLjmarjxBTinjdU/edit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqn2_os_LJY
https://www.digitalnewsreport.org/survey/2019/how-younger-generations-consume-news-differently/
https://twitter.com/m7mdkurd/status/1402963071610544128
https://www.icc-cpi.int/resource-library/documents/rs-eng.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJvt6NNN9x0
https://thisisapartheid.btselem.org/eng/#1
https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/sites/default/files2/201506_presumed_guilty_eng.pdf
https://www.haaretz.com/1.5214377
https://www.addameer.org/index.php/israeli_military_judicial_system/military_courts
https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/19/israel-security-forces-abuse-palestinian-children
https://www.addameer.org/statistics
https://www.addameer.org/index.php/prisons-and-detention-centers
https://www.addameer.org/the_prisoners/administrative_detainees
https://nwttac.dci-palestine.org/resources
https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/2011-no-minor-matter
https://www.hrw.org/news/2017/05/02/hunger-strikes-highlight-isolation-palestinian-prisoners
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