ACTNOW! STOP ISRAELI TORTURE, KIDNAPPING IN LEBANON
October 28 is an international day of action to close down the Khiam torture and detention camp operated by the Israeli occupation forces in southern Lebanon. Currently there are 161 Lebanese men, women and children held hostage at Khiam, without any access to family, doctors, lawyers or visits from the International Red Cross.
In co-operation with other organisations, Hanthala Palestine, organised an appeal to call for the hostages to be released and for the camp to be closed down once and for all. This action will support the efforts of people and groups around the world including Amnesty International and the Follow-Up Committee for the Support of the Lebanese Detainees in Israeli Prisons. Protests are planned worldwide including New York, Michigan, Montreal, Stockholm, Tel-Aviv, London, and Beirut.
What is Khiam? Who are the hostages?
The Khiam detention and torture facility was set up in 1985 by the Israeli occupation forces in southern Lebanon. Since then, more than 2,000 Lebanese civilians have been held there, including hundreds of children. Fourteen hostages have died in detention. Recently, the Israeli secret service "Shabak" admitted, after persistently denying well-documented reports of torture and mistreatment, that Israel is closely involved in operating the camp and training its personnel. Some of the hostages have been held at the camp for over twelve years and others have been transferred to prisons inside Israel.
Currently the prisoners include Lebanese journalist Cosette Ibrahim kidnapped this summer while reporting in southern Lebanon. Some of the detainees are children, like 15 year-old Ali Tawbeh, who with his parents was dragged from his home by the Israeli occupation forces in 1997. Other hostages, like Abdeh Malkani, are over seventy years old. Hussein Awada, 65 years old, has been detained since June 1999. He has serious heart problems and can only move with the help of a stick.
Why are the hostages held?
"They kidnapped us from our villages, from our homes, with bread in our hands, not from battle with guns in our hands," was what one detainee wrote to an Amnesty International chapter. (AI News Release, "Israeli Supreme Court Endorses Hostage Taking, 6 March, 1998)
Most of the people held at Khiam are there simply to be used as bargaining chips in exchange for Israeli soldiers captured or killed in occupied southern Lebanon. In March 1998, the Israeli Supreme Court approved the practice of holding civilians as bargaining chips, even though this is a violation of all international human rights law, and of the Fourth Geneva Conventions. Most of the hostages are just ordinary Lebanese who refused to cooperate with the Israeli occupation forces or the Israeli-controlled South Lebanon Army militia.
What the world says
Despite the fact that most of the world condemns what is going on in Khiam, the camp is still open and civilians are still being abducted and mistreated. In April 1999, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling on Israel "to refrain from holding abducted Lebanese citizens incarcerated in its prisons as hostages for barganing purposes, and to release them immediately along with all persons arbitrarily detained in the occupied Lebanese territories," and called on Israel "to allow the International Committee of the Red Cross, the families of the detainees, and other international humanitarian organizations to resume visits to places of detention in order to verify conditions of detention and the circumstances of the decease of some detainees from the after effects of ill-treatment or torture." This resolution passed with forty-nine votes in favor, three abstentions and only one vote against, that of the United States of America. (E/.CN.4/1999/L.25/Rev.1 as cited in United Nations Press Release, HR/CN/99/55, April 23, 1999)
We asked list-members to send an email, fax, letter or make phone calls expressing concern about the holding of Lebanese hostages by Israeli forces in Lebanon and calling on the United States or the European Commission to put pressure on Israel to immediately release all the hostages and close this camp. We also asked to write directly to Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak to demand that Israel close down the camp.
This ACTNOW! was signed by:
Ali Abunimah, ADC Member
Zahi Damuni, ADC Member
Jennifer Bing-Canar, Chicago AFSC
Arjan El Fassed, Hanthala Palestine network
Sawsan Abdulrahim, ADC MemberTo find out more about the Khiam Detention and Torture Camp visit these sites: