Human Rights in Israel - Treatment of Prisoners

Treatment of Prisoners

In 1978, two cable messages, Jerusalem 1500 and Jerusalem 3239, sent from the United States Consulate General in Jerusalem to the United States Department of State in Washington, D.C., described abusive methods allegedly used by Israeli authorities to interrogate Palestinian detainees in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Alexandra U. Johnson, the consular officer who wrote the cables, was terminated from the United States Foreign Service later that year; and the cables became the focus of controversy when their contents became public in 1979. A third report, Jerusalem A-19, sent as an airgram message from the Consulate General in Jerusalem to the Department of State in October 1978, described the military trial of two young American citizens who reported that Israeli authorities used physical coercion to obtain confessions from them. The report concluded that Israeli authorities were aware that "physical coercion and mistreatment" probably had been used to obtain the confessions.

The 1987 Landau Commission, headed by then-Supreme Court Justice Moshe Landau, was appointed to examine the interrogation methods of the General Security Service and said that "the exertion of a moderate degree of physical pressure cannot be avoided". Nevertheless, the commission condemned a 1982 internal memo that instructed interrogators on the kind of lies they should tell in court when denying they'd used physical force to obtain confessions. It condemned the perjury involved but advised against prosecution of those who'd carried it out. The second part of the Landau report remains secret, it is believed to contain guidelines for permissible interrogation methods.

The Landau Commission resulted in hundreds of petitions of detained Palestinians complaining that force had been used against them during GSS interrogations. In isolated cases, interim orders were issued temporarily prohibiting the GSS from using all or some of the methods, but in September 1999 the High Court refused to rule whether they are legal under Israeli and international law.

In 1991, Israel ratified the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights of 1966, a measure which states (Article 7) "no one shall be subjected to torture, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". Critics say Israel is also in breach of section 2(2) of the Convention against torture which stipulates that, "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."

In 1994 a State Comptroller’s Report (partly released in summary form in February 2000) found that GSS interrogation methods contravened the law, the Landau Commission guidelines and the internal guidelines formulated by the service itself.

In July 2002, Ha’aretz quoted a senior GSS official saying that, since the High Court’s decision, ninety Palestinians had been defined as "ticking bombs" and "extraordinary interrogation methods," i.e. torture, was used against them". Other Israeli interrogators have admitted that the GSS "uses every manipulation possible, up to shaking and beating." Dozens of affidavits from Palestinians also confirm that torture is still part of Israeli interrogations.

Torture is reported by B'Tselem as having been carried out against individuals not suspected of crime, including religious sages, sheiks and religious leaders, persons active in charitable organizations and Islamic students. Others to be tortured include brothers and other relatives of persons listed as "wanted" and any Palestinians in engineering profession. In some cases, wives of the detained have been arrested and mistreated to further pressure their husbands. GSS agents have sometimes tortured Palestinians in order to recruit them as collaborators.

B'Tselem estimates that the GSS annually interrogates between 1,000 and 1,500 Palestinians and uses methods constituting torture against some 85 percent of them, at least 850 persons a year.

According to a 2011 report by two Israeli human rights organisations, the Public Committee Against Torture (PCAT) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Israeli doctors fail to report suspected torture and conceal related information, allowing Israeli Security Agency interrogators to use torture against Palestinian detainees.