Sun Mar 08, 2015 6:1
TEHRAN (FNA)- New reports out of the so-called “only democracy in the Middle East” show the number of cases of torture of Palestinian prisoners has soared in recent years.
Rights groups such as The Committee on the Rights of Children, UNICEF, Amnesty International, and United Nations Human Rights Council are expressing concern that the “special means” interrogations are no longer the rarity they used to be. Over the past two years, there have been numerous reports of torture and violent interrogation by Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the military court system.
What’s horrifying is that the torture breakdown doesn’t just refer to sleep deprivation cases and beatings – practices similar to the CIA Torture Program. Scratch the surface and it gets worse. This is because Israeli interrogators are not as patient as their CIA counterparts, and they are going to the torture well early on.
The systematic crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by Israeli soldiers and media, international lawyers, detainees, as well as during pretrial detention.
Israel vehemently denies that it uses torture. But the reality is this: Since every Palestinian prisoner may be viewed as possessing information valuable, virtually all have been tortured. Rights groups say Palestinian prisoners are:
Struck in the genitals; testicles twisted and crushed
Sexually abused, anal assaults, including homosexual rape
Attacked and bitten by dogs
Penetrated in the penis with a pen; metal rods up urethra
Exposed, blindfolded and pelted with rocks by settlers at football games
Forced to drink urine and allow soldiers to urinate in their mouth
Forced to grasp barbed wire and endure electric shock
Forced to stand in electrically charged water
Forced to "run the gauntlet" of beatings by soldiers
Dragged by rope around neck
Tortured in front of family members
Crushed under bulldozer
Blindfolded and hung from helicopter
In addition, they have had:
Their teeth torn out with pliers
Shards of glass pushed into nostrils
Tube pushed up nose with salt water forced into stomach
Batons jammed in mouth, rupturing throat
Ribs, bones, and teeth broken…
There are now some 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and counting. For the majority, their crime is resisting a criminal regime that violently stole their lands and possessions, and expelled them to wretched detention camps in Gaza, the West Bank, or refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
As prisoners, they have virtually no rights and many are held without charge or trial. They can be legally tortured without restraint. There are many thousands of Palestinians who are now disabled as a result of long years of imprisonment and torture.
Worse yet, all civil liberties and humanitarian groups that monitor the Israeli torture program indicate that the US-backed regime at every level, from the premier and the security agency down to the military police, colludes with torture – with great impunity and no accountability. It is no surprise that no Israeli interrogators and war criminals have ever been found guilty and held to account at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
What’s horrifying is that the torture breakdown doesn’t just refer to sleep deprivation cases and beatings – practices similar to the CIA Torture Program. Scratch the surface and it gets worse. This is because Israeli interrogators are not as patient as their CIA counterparts, and they are going to the torture well early on.
The systematic crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by Israeli soldiers and media, international lawyers, detainees, as well as during pretrial detention.
Israel vehemently denies that it uses torture. But the reality is this: Since every Palestinian prisoner may be viewed as possessing information valuable, virtually all have been tortured. Rights groups say Palestinian prisoners are:
Struck in the genitals; testicles twisted and crushed
Sexually abused, anal assaults, including homosexual rape
Attacked and bitten by dogs
Penetrated in the penis with a pen; metal rods up urethra
Exposed, blindfolded and pelted with rocks by settlers at football games
Forced to drink urine and allow soldiers to urinate in their mouth
Forced to grasp barbed wire and endure electric shock
Forced to stand in electrically charged water
Forced to "run the gauntlet" of beatings by soldiers
Dragged by rope around neck
Tortured in front of family members
Crushed under bulldozer
Blindfolded and hung from helicopter
In addition, they have had:
Their teeth torn out with pliers
Shards of glass pushed into nostrils
Tube pushed up nose with salt water forced into stomach
Batons jammed in mouth, rupturing throat
Ribs, bones, and teeth broken…
There are now some 7,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons and counting. For the majority, their crime is resisting a criminal regime that violently stole their lands and possessions, and expelled them to wretched detention camps in Gaza, the West Bank, or refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
As prisoners, they have virtually no rights and many are held without charge or trial. They can be legally tortured without restraint. There are many thousands of Palestinians who are now disabled as a result of long years of imprisonment and torture.
Worse yet, all civil liberties and humanitarian groups that monitor the Israeli torture program indicate that the US-backed regime at every level, from the premier and the security agency down to the military police, colludes with torture – with great impunity and no accountability. It is no surprise that no Israeli interrogators and war criminals have ever been found guilty and held to account at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
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