Palestinians tortured and raped by their Israeli jailers

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report Friday November 14, 2003 18:49 by kokomero

The truth has begun to emerge about Israels systematic abuse of Palestinian and Lebanese detainees held in a secret prison called facility 1391 out of reach of international instectors. Yet again Israel is shown to be on a par with the worst third world dictatorships!

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel yesterday called on Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz and Attorney General Elyakim Rubenstein
to revoke the classification of Facility 1391 as a closed military prison, and to
refrain from imprisoning there suspects, defendants and convicted detainees.

"The disappearance of people, as if the earth has swallowed them up, is a
characteristic of a state that has lost its democratic values, where government and
security forces have forgotten the legitimate bounds of legal authority,".

The prison has held Lebanese abducted by the Israeli army as hostages, Iraqi
defectors and a Syrian intelligence officer who tried to defect but was accused of
spying and chose to remain in another prison rather than return home and face a
firing squad. More recently, scores of Palestinians were incarcerated in 1391 for
interrogation, which finally led to the almost accidental disclosure of a prison
the state decreed did not exist.

One former inmate has filed a lawsuit alleging that he was raped twice - once by a
man and once with a stick - during questioning. But most of those who emerge say the
real torture is the psychological impact of solitary confinement in filthy,
blackened cells so poorly lit that inmates can barely see their own hands, and with
no idea where they are or, in many cases, why they are there.

Unlike any other Israeli prison, the International Red Cross, lawyers and members of
the Israeli parliament have been refused access. One leftwing MP, Zahava Gal-On,
describes Facility 1391 as "one of the signs of totalitarian regimes and of the
third world".

But it is not just human rights lawyers and leftwing MPs who have a problem. Ami
Ayalon is a former head of Israel's intelligence service, the Shin Bet. He was
told about 1391 but says he refused to have anything to do with it. "I knew there
was a facility not under the responsibility of the Shin Bet, but under the
responsibility of the military. I didn't think then, and I don't think today, that
such an institution should exist in a democracy," he says.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,1084796,00.html
http://www.bambili.com/bambili_news_en/katava_main.asp?news_id=1237&sivug_id=1
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1885.shtml
http://www.palestinemonitor.org/Special%20Section/prisoners%20and%20detension/Israel_Admits_Holding_Palestinian_Detainees.htm