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MIDEAST: More Palestinian Children Getting Jailed
By Mel Frykberg
BI'ILIN, West Bank, Sep 24, 2009 (IPS) - Eight children between the ages of 10 and 17 were arrested and detained by
Israeli soldiers during military raids Monday night and Tuesday morning in the
northern West Bank cities Nablus and Qalqilia.
Defence for Children International (DCI) Palestine has released a statement
that the number of children detained in Israeli jails and temporary Israeli
army detention centres this year has risen by 17.5 percent compared with
2008.
"The average number of Palestinian children held in Israeli detention in 2009
remains high, at 375 per month compared with an average of 319 in 2008,"
says DCI.
"Disturbingly, 39 young children between the ages of 12 and 15 were
detained in August 2009. This is up 85 percent compared to the
corresponding period in 2008 of 21 children."
Israel is a signatory to the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
which states that "the arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be
used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period
of time."
Nashmi Muhammad Abu Rahme, 14, from the West Bank village of Bi'ilin near
Ramallah was arrested and dragged from his bed at 3 am Aug. 15 after Israeli
soldiers raided his home.
The village of Bi'ilin has been involved in a protracted campaign of non-
violent civil disobedience against Israel's building of a wall which cuts through
village land, separating villagers and farmers from their agricultural fields.
The villagers successfully petitioned an Israeli court to have the wall re-
routed several years ago, but the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have failed to
comply with the court's orders.
"My family was awoken by the sounds of Israeli soldiers yelling and starting to
smash down the door. I was blindfolded and tightly handcuffed by the
soldiers and then thrown into the back of a jeep," recalls Abu Rahme.
"During the journey to the military base I was repeatedly slapped, beaten and
kicked until I was bleeding. I was very scared," Abu Rahme told IPS.
Israeli medics treated Abu Rahme for bleeding and contusions before he was
brought before an interrogator, again blindfolded and handcuffed. His
interrogation lasted three hours, during which he was accused of throwing
stones at soldiers near the wall on Bi'ilin's agricultural land.
Abu Rahme was kept in jail for a week before he was brought before a
military prosecutor. He was fined 5,000 shekels (1,340 dollars) and released.
"We have had about 12 children from our village arrested and detained by the
Israelis," Hassan Moussa, a schoolteacher from the neighbouring village of
Ni'ilin told IPS.
Under Israeli administrative detention, Palestinians can be held for three
months without trial, and this can be renewed at the end of that period for
another three months.
"It interrupts their education when they are detained for weeks and months
without being brought to trial," says Moussa.
Most Palestinian children are held for stone-throwing. Israeli Military Order
378 carries a maximum penalty of 20 years imprisonment for this, five years
less than the average murder sentence in Israel.
"During interrogation, children as young as 12 years are denied access to a
lawyer and visits from their families," says DCI.
"Whilst under interrogation children are subjected to a number of prohibited
techniques. These include the excessive use of blindfolds and handcuffs,
slapping and kicking, painful position abuse for long periods of time, solitary
confinement, sleep deprivation, and a combination of physical and
psychological threats," says DCI.
Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem describes the tiny cells where
Palestinian children are often held in solitary confinement.
These include the 'lock-up', a dark cell of 1.5 by 1.5 metres. The 'closet' is a
narrow cell the height of a person that one can stand in but not sit or move.
The 'grave' is a box closed by a door from the top and measuring
approximately one metre by 60 cm with a depth of about 80 cm.
DCI has documented at least seven cases during Israel's war on Gaza at the
beginning of the year where Gazan children were used as human shields by
Israeli soldiers.
"There is a big difference in the way Palestinian and Israeli minors are treated
by Israeli law," Khaled Quzmar from DCI Palestine told IPS.
Palestinian children as young as 12 years are prosecuted in the Israeli military
courts and are treated as adults as soon as they turn 16, in contrast to the
situation under Israeli domestic law, whereby majority is attained at 18.
The IDF announced in July that it would be setting up a separate military
court for juveniles. Hitherto both Palestinian adults and children had been
tried together.
"The good news is that after 42 years of occupation the Israelis have
recognised that their legal treatment of Palestinian children has been morally
indefensible," says Quzmar.
"The bad news is that the changes are merely semantic. Children will
continue to be tried by the same judges in the same jails. The only difference
is juveniles will be tried at separate times," Quzmar told IPS.
Previously, according to military law, there was no statute of limitations on
offences by Palestinians, even if the suspect committed the offence when he
or she was a minor.
"While the new order ostensibly sets a two-year statute of limitations for
offences committed by minors, it also allows the military prosecutor to
overrule this. The prosecution will generally be given the benefit of the
doubt," added Quzmar. (END)
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