Prisoners: An Introduction

In spite of the fact that Israel released 236 Palestinian detainees from its jails in compliance with the Sharm al-Shiekh agreement, 1400 Palestinian and Arab prisoners, of which 15 are held in administrative detention, are still being held in Israeli jails, a matter violating the Geneva Fourth Convention of 1949 which provides for the prohibition of transferring the detainees from the occupied land to the land of the occupying country. Furthermore, the Israeli prison administration continues to hold prisoners in very bad conditions. This led to the death of two Palestinian detainees during the year.

Moreover, Shabak (the Israeli General Security Services) still subjects detainees to torture despite the verdict of the Israeli High Court issued on September 6 1999, which bans torture and considered torture methods used against Palestinian detainees illegal. During the same year the Israeli occupying forces arrested many Palestinians. LAW was able to obtain release decisions for 22 prisoners from Israeli jails. The release came within the framework of LAW's program, which is dedicated to release prisoners who serve two thirds of their sentence.

Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centres continue to be exposed to torture by the Israeli General Security Services (GSS) in spite of the September 6 1999 decision of the Israeli High Court which bans torture and considered the torture methods used against the Palestinian detainees illegal.

Despite the criticism voiced by human rights organizations against the Palestinian Authority's practice of political detention against dissidents, particularly the Islamic opposition, and despite the innumerable calls to put an end to the issue of political detention including decisions taken by the Legislative Council, marches and demonstrations by the relatives of political detainees, open hunger strikes by the political detainees, and high court decisions requesting the release of the political detainees, the PNA continued to hold an estimated 250 political detainees in its prisons. The High Court has ordered the release of 50. Many have already spent more than two years in custody after the release order had been issued in their favor such as Mahmoud Musleh whose release was ordered by the High Court on 30 November 1997 and Ghassan Al Adassi who release was ordered by the High Court on 6 October 1998. Only nine of the total number of political detainees, who have already spent 5 years in prison, have been tried Trial conditions that do not meet the minimum standards of a fair trial. Among the detainees are 26 university students and 2 secondary school pupils.

Despite the harsh criticism voiced by human rights organizations against the use of torture by the security services during the interrogation period of suspects in the past five years, the security services continue to use torture and maltreatment as a means to extract confessions.