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Fear and trembling - Torture in Israel
Nimer | 06/03/2004 - 01:35
Fear and trembling
By Joseph Algazy www.haaretzdaily.com 3 June 2004
On December 18, 2002, the United Nations General Assembly approved by majority vote the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The UN announced that representatives of 127 states, among them Israel, voted in favor of the protocol; four opposed it (the United States, the Marshall Islands, Nigeria and Palau) and 42 abstained. The next day, Israel Radio broadcast this news, along with an interview with the advisor to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yuval Ginbar, who is pursuing a doctorate in Britain in international law and human rights.
But two days later, Israel Radio broadcast that Israel's vote in favor of the Protocol had been "a mistake." A senior source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem explained that from the outset, Israel had intended to vote against approving the resolution, but because of a "human technical error" it had voted in favor of it. When the error became known, the Israeli delegation hastened to inform the UN institutions of it and the latter undertook to correct it in their subsequent announcements.
The senior source also explained that during the deliberations prior to the vote, Israel had expressed its opposition to the protocol, the aim of which is to expand and strengthen the mechanisms for inspection and supervision of the Commission Against Torture, which has been active for years on the basis of the existing Convention on Torture - which was passed by the UN in 1984 and ratified by Israel in 1991. Despite its ratification of the Convention, which includes arrangements for visits by inspection committees to the prison facilities of the countries that participate in the convention, to make certain that torture is not taking place in them - the government of Israel has never allowed members of the committees to make visits and inspections in the prison facilities under its control.
Israel, like the United States, opposed the passage of the optional protocol on the grounds that there is no need for any further mechanism in addition to the one in the old Convention. The United States, which has been subject to mounting criticism for violations of human rights in the war against terror, tried to torpedo the resolution on the protocol at the UN. It brought up a proposal that would be funded only by the states that ratify it, but its proposal was rejected by a majority vote.
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on Torture is aimed at advancing and strengthening the means for implementing the existing convention - protecting people whose freedom has been denied, preventing their torture and ensuring respect for their human rights. Following the passage of the optional protocol, the UN Secretary General was asked to open it, beginning on January 1 of this year, to all the states that signed the old convention.
The aim of the protocol is to establish a system of regular visits to prison facilities, to be carried out by independent national and international bodies. Under the optional protocol, a 10-member subcommittee for the prevention of torture will be established that will operate in the framework of the UN, be funded by it and serve as the executive arm of the existing committee on torture, which issues periodic reports that review the situation in the countries that are signatories to it.
The members of the subcommittee will come from the fields of law enforcement, law, medicine and welfare. They will be appointed from the states that ratify the protocol. Alongside the subcommittee, in every member state, there will be a national, local mechanism to prevent torture. States that ratify the optional protocol will be committed to granting the subcommittee free access to their prison facilities, to providing it with all information concerning these facilities and prison conditions and to allowing it to conduct personal and confidential interviews with the prisoners.
A real loophole
During discussions at the UN of the draft of the protocol, world human rights organizations, including the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, welcomed the new initiative, but expressed reservations about some of its provisions. The Israeli committee asked to strengthen the formulation of the provisions that prohibit torture by adding the term "total prohibition" in order to prevent turning a blind eye to practices that until recently were forbidden but have come into use in the framework of the "international war against terror."
The Committee Against Torture in Israel expressed reservations about the provision on visits to prison facilities that stipulated that these visits would be regular and prearranged, and asked that it be stipulated that the visits would not be prearranged. It also expressed its opposition to the provision that allows countries to oppose visits by the subcommittee to prisons in their territory on the grounds of urgent security needs, essential to the security of the state. This provision, said the Israeli committee, is a real loophole, which raises the suspicion that states will misuse it.
The issue of the torture of Palestinian residents of the territories when they are under arrest and their questioning at interrogation and detention facilities in Israel came up frequently at the UN committee against torture. In a report it submitted in November, 2001, the government of Israel acknowledged that in isolated cases during the past two years, Shin Bet security service investigators applied force to individuals suspected of being "ticking bombs" as a way of preventing terror attacks. It claimed that this received the approval of the Supreme Court, in a ruling that prohibited the use of physical means against suspects. At the Shin Bet and the State Prosecutor's Office they do not generally specify what means of special interrogation are used on suspects defined as "ticking bombs" to extract information and confessions from them, and they do not use the term "torture."
In February and March 2002, following complaints of torture submitted individually by two Palestinians, Nasser Massoud Ayad and Jihad Rida Shuman, the director of the department for special assignments in the State Prosecutor's office, attorney Talia Shushan, acknowledged to the Committee Against Torture in Israel that interrogators had used exceptional means in their interrogation of the two.
In identically formulated responses, Shushan wrote: "The interrogation of Ayad [as well as Shuman - J.A.] was conducted when he was suspected of being a `ticking bomb.' In the means of interrogation used, among the considerations was the weighty suspicion and the material there was against him, the essential and urgent nature of the need to obtain the information in his possession and the fact that no way was found to get to that information. The investigation of the modes of interrogation that were employed within the context of the considerations that were presented [in the wake of the examination that was carried out - J.A.], shows that the modes of interrogation that were employed fall within the `need' defense, and therefore the deputy attorney general [who is also] the state prosecutor, has decided that in this case criminal culpability does not apply to the interrogators for the modes of investigation they employed, and there is no cause to take any legal steps against them. It should be noted that this decision is in accordance, in our opinion, with the method established by the Supreme Court."
In May, 2002, in a joint report submitted to the UN committee on torture by Law - The Palestinian Organization in Defense of Human Rights, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and the Environment and the Geneva-based World Organization Against Torture, the three organizations complained about the multiplicity of cases of torture of Palestinian prisoners that were in effect approved by the Supreme Court.
The small number of media reports about the torture of Palestinian suspects is deceptive and is not congruent with the reality in the field, charge human rights organizations and lawyers. Attorney Gaby Lasky from the Public Committee Against Torture and the Executive Director, Hannah Friedman, explain that the closures and the curfew do not allow access to Palestinian lawyers from the West Bank and Gaza. They are not able to leave their places of residence to meet prisoners. Lawyers find it difficult to obtain permits from the military and investigative authorities to visit prisoners in the detention facilities. The authorities often issue orders to prevent meetings between a detainee and his attorney, part of whose role is to explain to the prisoner his rights and prevent the application of prohibited modes of interrogation.
Threats, blows, shaking
Complaints about torture that are sent to the State Prosecutor's Office often receive the response that, according to its examination, the investigation is being conducted in a proper way. However, when at long last a meeting with the lawyer is made possible, the lawyer hears from the detainee that force was applied to him during his interrogation. Many prisoners are reluctant to complain about their interrogators from the Shin Bet during the period of their interrogation for fear of revenge being taken against them. Many among the prisoners who are released prefer to maintain a low profile so as not to be arrested and harmed again.
In the opinion of Bassem Eid, executive director of the Palestinian rights group, Shin Bet interrogators employ torture for one purpose - eliciting maximum information from the suspects - even though they are aware that torture does not constitute a means of preventing terror attacks. Torture instills fear, primarily among the families of the suspects and in their immediate environment. Eid tells of parents who contacted him after their loved ones were arrested and said that they cared less about the arrest; all their fears were concentrated on the beatings during the interrogation.
Ha'aretz has in its possession a number of sworn statements by prisoners - some of which are quoted below - in which they complained of torture to lawyers from the Law organization and The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.
A.G. of Gaza said that during his interrogation he was bound to a chair for more than 10 hours. His interrogators shook him forcefully a number of times and as a result of the shaking he suffers from severe headaches and respiratory problems. He said that the interrogators threatened to arrest his mother and his sisters and rape them. From the transcript of his trial at the military court in Gaza and the verdict against him it emerges that A.G. did not constitute a "ticking bomb" and thus the argument justifying the torture he suffered during his interrogation, including shakings, is invalid.
A.G. was found guilty of belonging to a prohibited organization and of weapons and sabotage training. In the verdict, Military Judge Lieutenant Colonel Yaakov Cohen, who convicted A.G. on the basis of his confession, determined that his level of training was elementary and that his membership in the Al Kutla al Islamiyya organization was not for purposes of sabotage. A.G. was sentenced to four years in prison, of which 32 months were to be served.
K.A. of Nablus complained that after he was arrested in June, 2002, the officer who interrogated him threw him on the ground several times. When he was detained at Hawara, he claimed, soldiers beat him hard. When he was interrogated at the Petah Tikva police station, his interrogators from the Shin Bet tied him to a chair with his back bent toward the floor; he was not allowed to sit on the chair in the ordinary way - until he fainted. During the first 10 days of his interrogation, the interrogators did not allow him to sleep; every time he dozed off they beat him. One night while he was tied to the chair he wet his pants twice - he says this happened because of the force of the tortures and the beatings and because he had not slept enough. That same night his interrogators forced him to shower four times.
H.M. of Nablus, who was arrested on suspicion of possessing weapons, complained that an officer kicked him while he was interrogating him. While he was being driven to the Hawara camp, he said, soldiers hit his knees. As he was blindfolded, he did not know whether he had been hit with a rifle butt or a helmet. At the Hawara camp H.M. was held handcuffed in a cell full of garbage and excrement. He was stung by insects on all parts of his body. H.M. was also held for six days at the Kishon jail, from which he was transferred to another place he cannot identify, where he was held for 25 days. At this prison, interrogators questioned him during all hours of the day with his hands and feet bound to a wooden chair. According to him, an interrogator called "Eldad" beat him on the head with . H.M. complained that he was also kept in an isolation cell in which a very noisy ventilator was being operated. His interrogators would slam the door and shout to prevent him from sleeping.
A.B. of Nablus complained that during his investigation in September, 2002, at the jail at the Russian Compound in Jerusalem, his hands and feet were bound. As he was kept from sleeping, he fainted. He says that his interrogators beat him on all parts of his body. The blows to his nose caused him severe and prolonged pain.
In a sworn statement, H.A. of Hebron complained that during the course of his interrogation at Ashkelon Prison he was tortured by being tied to a chair in a painful position with a sack over his head for more than 12 hours. His interrogators threatened to demolish his home if he did not confess.
M.A. of Gaza, who was also held at Ashkelon Prison, related that he was beaten while bound hand and foot to a chair with metal shackles. Several times he was also held in the so-called "frog" position.
Requests to examine the complaints of these prisoners that were submitted by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel to the director of the department for special assignments at the State Prosecutor's Office, attorney Shushan, have remained unanswered. The office of the Justice Ministry spokesman has said that the complaints are being investigated.
By Joseph Algazy www.haaretzdaily.com 3 June 2004
On December 18, 2002, the United Nations General Assembly approved by majority vote the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. The UN announced that representatives of 127 states, among them Israel, voted in favor of the protocol; four opposed it (the United States, the Marshall Islands, Nigeria and Palau) and 42 abstained. The next day, Israel Radio broadcast this news, along with an interview with the advisor to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Yuval Ginbar, who is pursuing a doctorate in Britain in international law and human rights.
But two days later, Israel Radio broadcast that Israel's vote in favor of the Protocol had been "a mistake." A senior source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jerusalem explained that from the outset, Israel had intended to vote against approving the resolution, but because of a "human technical error" it had voted in favor of it. When the error became known, the Israeli delegation hastened to inform the UN institutions of it and the latter undertook to correct it in their subsequent announcements.
The senior source also explained that during the deliberations prior to the vote, Israel had expressed its opposition to the protocol, the aim of which is to expand and strengthen the mechanisms for inspection and supervision of the Commission Against Torture, which has been active for years on the basis of the existing Convention on Torture - which was passed by the UN in 1984 and ratified by Israel in 1991. Despite its ratification of the Convention, which includes arrangements for visits by inspection committees to the prison facilities of the countries that participate in the convention, to make certain that torture is not taking place in them - the government of Israel has never allowed members of the committees to make visits and inspections in the prison facilities under its control.
Israel, like the United States, opposed the passage of the optional protocol on the grounds that there is no need for any further mechanism in addition to the one in the old Convention. The United States, which has been subject to mounting criticism for violations of human rights in the war against terror, tried to torpedo the resolution on the protocol at the UN. It brought up a proposal that would be funded only by the states that ratify it, but its proposal was rejected by a majority vote.
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on Torture is aimed at advancing and strengthening the means for implementing the existing convention - protecting people whose freedom has been denied, preventing their torture and ensuring respect for their human rights. Following the passage of the optional protocol, the UN Secretary General was asked to open it, beginning on January 1 of this year, to all the states that signed the old convention.
The aim of the protocol is to establish a system of regular visits to prison facilities, to be carried out by independent national and international bodies. Under the optional protocol, a 10-member subcommittee for the prevention of torture will be established that will operate in the framework of the UN, be funded by it and serve as the executive arm of the existing committee on torture, which issues periodic reports that review the situation in the countries that are signatories to it.
The members of the subcommittee will come from the fields of law enforcement, law, medicine and welfare. They will be appointed from the states that ratify the protocol. Alongside the subcommittee, in every member state, there will be a national, local mechanism to prevent torture. States that ratify the optional protocol will be committed to granting the subcommittee free access to their prison facilities, to providing it with all information concerning these facilities and prison conditions and to allowing it to conduct personal and confidential interviews with the prisoners.
A real loophole
During discussions at the UN of the draft of the protocol, world human rights organizations, including the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, welcomed the new initiative, but expressed reservations about some of its provisions. The Israeli committee asked to strengthen the formulation of the provisions that prohibit torture by adding the term "total prohibition" in order to prevent turning a blind eye to practices that until recently were forbidden but have come into use in the framework of the "international war against terror."
The Committee Against Torture in Israel expressed reservations about the provision on visits to prison facilities that stipulated that these visits would be regular and prearranged, and asked that it be stipulated that the visits would not be prearranged. It also expressed its opposition to the provision that allows countries to oppose visits by the subcommittee to prisons in their territory on the grounds of urgent security needs, essential to the security of the state. This provision, said the Israeli committee, is a real loophole, which raises the suspicion that states will misuse it.
The issue of the torture of Palestinian residents of the territories when they are under arrest and their questioning at interrogation and detention facilities in Israel came up frequently at the UN committee against torture. In a report it submitted in November, 2001, the government of Israel acknowledged that in isolated cases during the past two years, Shin Bet security service investigators applied force to individuals suspected of being "ticking bombs" as a way of preventing terror attacks. It claimed that this received the approval of the Supreme Court, in a ruling that prohibited the use of physical means against suspects. At the Shin Bet and the State Prosecutor's Office they do not generally specify what means of special interrogation are used on suspects defined as "ticking bombs" to extract information and confessions from them, and they do not use the term "torture."
In February and March 2002, following complaints of torture submitted individually by two Palestinians, Nasser Massoud Ayad and Jihad Rida Shuman, the director of the department for special assignments in the State Prosecutor's office, attorney Talia Shushan, acknowledged to the Committee Against Torture in Israel that interrogators had used exceptional means in their interrogation of the two.
In identically formulated responses, Shushan wrote: "The interrogation of Ayad [as well as Shuman - J.A.] was conducted when he was suspected of being a `ticking bomb.' In the means of interrogation used, among the considerations was the weighty suspicion and the material there was against him, the essential and urgent nature of the need to obtain the information in his possession and the fact that no way was found to get to that information. The investigation of the modes of interrogation that were employed within the context of the considerations that were presented [in the wake of the examination that was carried out - J.A.], shows that the modes of interrogation that were employed fall within the `need' defense, and therefore the deputy attorney general [who is also] the state prosecutor, has decided that in this case criminal culpability does not apply to the interrogators for the modes of investigation they employed, and there is no cause to take any legal steps against them. It should be noted that this decision is in accordance, in our opinion, with the method established by the Supreme Court."
In May, 2002, in a joint report submitted to the UN committee on torture by Law - The Palestinian Organization in Defense of Human Rights, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel and the Environment and the Geneva-based World Organization Against Torture, the three organizations complained about the multiplicity of cases of torture of Palestinian prisoners that were in effect approved by the Supreme Court.
The small number of media reports about the torture of Palestinian suspects is deceptive and is not congruent with the reality in the field, charge human rights organizations and lawyers. Attorney Gaby Lasky from the Public Committee Against Torture and the Executive Director, Hannah Friedman, explain that the closures and the curfew do not allow access to Palestinian lawyers from the West Bank and Gaza. They are not able to leave their places of residence to meet prisoners. Lawyers find it difficult to obtain permits from the military and investigative authorities to visit prisoners in the detention facilities. The authorities often issue orders to prevent meetings between a detainee and his attorney, part of whose role is to explain to the prisoner his rights and prevent the application of prohibited modes of interrogation.
Threats, blows, shaking
Complaints about torture that are sent to the State Prosecutor's Office often receive the response that, according to its examination, the investigation is being conducted in a proper way. However, when at long last a meeting with the lawyer is made possible, the lawyer hears from the detainee that force was applied to him during his interrogation. Many prisoners are reluctant to complain about their interrogators from the Shin Bet during the period of their interrogation for fear of revenge being taken against them. Many among the prisoners who are released prefer to maintain a low profile so as not to be arrested and harmed again.
In the opinion of Bassem Eid, executive director of the Palestinian rights group, Shin Bet interrogators employ torture for one purpose - eliciting maximum information from the suspects - even though they are aware that torture does not constitute a means of preventing terror attacks. Torture instills fear, primarily among the families of the suspects and in their immediate environment. Eid tells of parents who contacted him after their loved ones were arrested and said that they cared less about the arrest; all their fears were concentrated on the beatings during the interrogation.
Ha'aretz has in its possession a number of sworn statements by prisoners - some of which are quoted below - in which they complained of torture to lawyers from the Law organization and The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel.
A.G. of Gaza said that during his interrogation he was bound to a chair for more than 10 hours. His interrogators shook him forcefully a number of times and as a result of the shaking he suffers from severe headaches and respiratory problems. He said that the interrogators threatened to arrest his mother and his sisters and rape them. From the transcript of his trial at the military court in Gaza and the verdict against him it emerges that A.G. did not constitute a "ticking bomb" and thus the argument justifying the torture he suffered during his interrogation, including shakings, is invalid.
A.G. was found guilty of belonging to a prohibited organization and of weapons and sabotage training. In the verdict, Military Judge Lieutenant Colonel Yaakov Cohen, who convicted A.G. on the basis of his confession, determined that his level of training was elementary and that his membership in the Al Kutla al Islamiyya organization was not for purposes of sabotage. A.G. was sentenced to four years in prison, of which 32 months were to be served.
K.A. of Nablus complained that after he was arrested in June, 2002, the officer who interrogated him threw him on the ground several times. When he was detained at Hawara, he claimed, soldiers beat him hard. When he was interrogated at the Petah Tikva police station, his interrogators from the Shin Bet tied him to a chair with his back bent toward the floor; he was not allowed to sit on the chair in the ordinary way - until he fainted. During the first 10 days of his interrogation, the interrogators did not allow him to sleep; every time he dozed off they beat him. One night while he was tied to the chair he wet his pants twice - he says this happened because of the force of the tortures and the beatings and because he had not slept enough. That same night his interrogators forced him to shower four times.
H.M. of Nablus, who was arrested on suspicion of possessing weapons, complained that an officer kicked him while he was interrogating him. While he was being driven to the Hawara camp, he said, soldiers hit his knees. As he was blindfolded, he did not know whether he had been hit with a rifle butt or a helmet. At the Hawara camp H.M. was held handcuffed in a cell full of garbage and excrement. He was stung by insects on all parts of his body. H.M. was also held for six days at the Kishon jail, from which he was transferred to another place he cannot identify, where he was held for 25 days. At this prison, interrogators questioned him during all hours of the day with his hands and feet bound to a wooden chair. According to him, an interrogator called "Eldad" beat him on the head with . H.M. complained that he was also kept in an isolation cell in which a very noisy ventilator was being operated. His interrogators would slam the door and shout to prevent him from sleeping.
A.B. of Nablus complained that during his investigation in September, 2002, at the jail at the Russian Compound in Jerusalem, his hands and feet were bound. As he was kept from sleeping, he fainted. He says that his interrogators beat him on all parts of his body. The blows to his nose caused him severe and prolonged pain.
In a sworn statement, H.A. of Hebron complained that during the course of his interrogation at Ashkelon Prison he was tortured by being tied to a chair in a painful position with a sack over his head for more than 12 hours. His interrogators threatened to demolish his home if he did not confess.
M.A. of Gaza, who was also held at Ashkelon Prison, related that he was beaten while bound hand and foot to a chair with metal shackles. Several times he was also held in the so-called "frog" position.
Requests to examine the complaints of these prisoners that were submitted by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel to the director of the department for special assignments at the State Prosecutor's Office, attorney Shushan, have remained unanswered. The office of the Justice Ministry spokesman has said that the complaints are being investigated.
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