JERUSALEM, 7 May 2007 — Israel’s Shin Bet security service tortures Palestinian prisoners during interrogations in defiance of a 1999 court ruling outlawing such practices, two Israeli human rights groups said in a report yesterday.
Interrogators beat suspects, shackle them in painful, contorted positions and deprive them of sleep for long periods, according to the 96-page report, titled “Absolutely Forbidden,” published by B’Tselem and The Center for the Defense of the Individual.
Israel’s Justice Ministry said interrogations were carried out within the law and described the report as badly flawed. Israel’s Supreme Court in 1999 outlawed what the Shin Bet called “moderate physical pressure,” such as sleep deprivation, exposure to extreme temperatures and tying up detainees in painful positions.
The new report was based on affidavits from 73 Palestinians taken between July 2005 and January 2006. Most of the testimony was taken by a lawyer acting for the rights groups, who visited detainees in their cells, the report said, adding that in five cases recently released prisoners were visited in their homes.
A complainant identified as A.Z., 29, said his captors made him arch his back over a bench with his hands and legs joined in what prisoners commonly call “the banana position.” “They brought a chain and used it to hook together the handcuffs and leg shackles. The way this made my body stretch was unbearable,” he testified.
Despite the judicial ban, prisoners said they were physically abused and subjected to humiliation, swearing and threats by the interrogators, and routinely held in appalling conditions, including isolation and sleep deprivation, the report said.
B’Tselem research director Yehezkel Lein, the report’s author, said it did not claim to provide a representative sample, but the testimonies provided a snapshot of the treatment regularly meted out to Palestinian detainees.
No criminal investigations have been opened against Shin Bet interrogators, even though 500 complaints have been filed since 2001, he added. Israel’s Justice Ministry, which received a copy of the report, said in response that Shin Bet interrogations are “performed in accordance with the law.” The report is “fraught with mistakes, groundless claims and inaccuracies,” the ministry said.
One Dies in Gaza School Shooting
Meanwhile, one Palestinian was killed and six others wounded yesterday when gunmen opened fire at a school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, medics and security sources said. Gunmen from an extremist group opened fire and threw grenades at the entrance of the school in the southern town of Rafah as students, parents and teachers were leaving after a party, they said.
The dead man was identified as, Suleiman Al-Shaer, a bodyguard of Majid Abu Shamallah, a lawmaker from President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah party who was at the event.
John Ging, the Gaza director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), was inside the school at the time of the shooting but “he is all right,” an official with the agency said on condition of anonymity. Three of the alleged gunmen have been detained by Palestinian security forces.
