LAWE SUPPORTS PALESTINIAN DETAINEES' BOYCOTT OF ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTION APPEALS
For immediate release: August 7, 1996
LAWE-The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment
PO Box 20873 Jerusalem
Tel: 972-2-812364/824559 Fax: 972-2-811072 email:lawe@netvision.net.il
LAWE stands in solidarity with the 320 Palestinian administrative detainees who have called for a boycott of the military appeals committees. As such, LAWE will honor the request of the administrative detainees and will not represent the detainees nor attend the appeals hearings until the detainees request otherwise.
Today, there are approximately 320 Palestinian administrative detainees located in Israeli prisons. The detainees are arrested but never charged or tried. Every Palestinian who has been detained for security reasons in the past, is susceptible to being detained again even those from the Palestinian autonomous areas. In the last month alone, the Israelis have arrested over 150 Palestinians and placed 50 in administrative detention. Most of the detainees are detained at the Megiddo prison inside Israel and are being housed in tents under terrible conditions: exposed to extreme heat and humidity, torn tents that allow the heat and cold to enter, rotten bed covers and little food of no nutritional value.
After being arrested and sent to Megiddo prison, the detainee is provided with an opportunity to appeal the military detention order in front of an appeals committee, composed today of one Israeli military judge. The detainee is brought in front of the military judge who bases his decision on secret evidence prepared by the Shabak (domestic Israeli intelligence). This information is withheld from the detainee and his defense attorney and this prevents the defense lawyer from effectively challenging the reliability of the secret evidence; the defense lawyer cannot even cross-examine the Shabak to determine whether the sources the Shabak quotes actually exist. As a result, the Shabak is given a free hand to conjure up any and all facts and create a case to support its request for administrative detention. The judge in his capacity as an agent of the Israeli security forces gives total deference to the Shabak and this "evidence" closing all opportunity for the detainee to have the detention order repealed. The appeals hearings effectively become rubber stamps legalizing the Shabak's and the IDF's illegal arrest and continued detention of Palestinians from the Occupied Territories.
In an act of unity, strength and defiance, on July 29, 1996 the Palestinian administrative detainees announced that they will boycott the appeals committee hearings because they fail to provide an impartial hearing and any semblance of due process. In a statement issued by the detainees to the legal community, the detainees stated:
From the darkness of our suffering, from behind the cruel fences, we call you and ask to listen to our clamor. Since we have faith in your courageous positions, your blessed efforts, your supportive actions and your belief in the justice of our case, we hereby summarize our tragedy...the 320 administrative detention prisoners of Megiddo prison have decided to boycott the Appeal Court. We openly call you to look at the Appeal court and to see its vain role in merely attempting to legalize the administrative detention. The court lacks all authority to release the prisoners and bases its conclusions on "secret" files that are all a lie and pure invention of the Shabak. The [Shabak] are the ones who have the upper hand over the Appeal court.
LAWE along with the administrative detainees demands the abolition of the use of administrative detention and calls for the implementation of Amnesty International's recommendations to the Israeli government to bring to trial or release immediately all the Palestinian administrative detainees. LAWE also demands that the Israelis cease renewing the administrative detention orders - over 80 detainees are serving their second or third orders, and calls for the release of all prisoners from the areas that are now under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. The continued administrative detention of the Palestinian detainees is violation of international law and human rights principles prohibiting prolonged arbitrary detention.
LAWE currently represents seven Palestinian administrative detainees.
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LAWE-The Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment is a non-governmental organization, dedicated to preserving human rights through legal advocacy. LAWE is also an affiliate member of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights