Prisons expert: Palestinian children in Israeli prison are deprived the most basic of human rights



There are 345 Palestinian children in Israeli prisons where physical and psychological torture are both practiced.

Since the beginning of the Al Aqsa Intifada in September 2000 some 7,800 boys and girls have been arrested. The number since the occupation of 1967 is in the tens of thousands.

The figures come as part of a report by prison expert Abdel Nasser Ferwana issued today that says children constitute 3.6 percent of the total number of Palestinian political prisoners. “The future of these children are at risk and face harsh torture and degrading treatment,” he said. “Children are subjected to systematic violations and the continual deprivation of their most basic rights, among them sickness without medical care.”

Children are treated similarly to adults: arrested at checkpoints or snatched from homes and are subjected to middle-of-the-night searches that use dogs. The difference is the destruction of the formative years and the denial of the right to education. Ferwana noted the targeting of the next generation to ensure that it comes into its own without proper education or socialization, and with deep-rooted psychological problems.

International law does not prohibit the imprisonment of children for short periods of time but does not condone the deprivation of liberty.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.dci-pal.org/english/Display.cfm?DocId=284&CategoryId=11

Anonymous said...

Operation “Cast Lead” started on the morning of 27 December 2008, when Israeli aircraft started bombing targets in the densely populated Gaza Strip. This was followed on 3 January 2009 by the commencement of a ground offensive by the Israeli army.
Hundreds of Palestinians, almost a quarter of whom are children, have already been killed in these attacks, and thousands more have been injured. Schools and hospitals have been targeted, and the injured are denied urgent medical treatment by the Israeli army.
Israel’s actions amount to an illegal act of aggression and the circumstances in which many of the civilians were killed may amount to war crimes.