ADMINISTRATIVE DETENTIONJUSTIFYING HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS

FREEDOM | JUSTICE | HUMAN RIGHTS

Background

Israeli jails are considered to be the toughest, most cruel and unlivable facilities for prisoners and detainees in the world. Human rights violations take different forms, including the denial of medical care, physical and psychological torture, inhumane treatment and humiliation. Human rights organisations, like Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, condemned Israel for its practices breaching international law.

One of these practices is ‘administrative detention’, an integral feature of occupying powers and repressive regimes. The Israeli authorities use ‘administrative detention’ to suppress people seeking their freedom. Since the occupation of Palestine, thousands of Palestinians have been held in Israeli custody as administrative detainees for long periods of time.

What is administrative detention?

Administrative detention is the detention of an individual by the state and occupying power for a long period of time without trial. This law has also been titled ‘emergency law’. Different regimes, including democracies and occupying powers, use administrative detention and justify the use as a preventive action to assure security. In practice, the main motivating factor for Israel authorities to use administrative detention is to suppress opposition. Unlike criminals, who are charged and convicted, prisoners held under administrative detention are detained without accusations.

Scale

Israeli occupation authorities regularly use the administrative detention law. In November 1989 a mass arrest of 1749 Palestinians took place, all of them were placed under administrative detention. The number of prisoners held under administrative detention fluctuated over the years and reached over a thousand in the early years of the second Intifada in 2000.

In 2011, the number of Palestinian detainees held under administrative detention was 219 and increased to 309 detainees in 2012, however in 2013, the number decreased to 198 Prisoners.

Impact

The impact of administrative detention of prisoners is immense as they are deprived from family visits, placed in solitary confinement and in many ways discriminated. These conditions pushed more than 2000 prisoners on 17th April 2012 to start a mass hunger strike to end administrative detention policy, solitary confinement and improving the living conditions in prisons.

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مؤسسة حقوق إنسان أوروبية مستقلة تعنى بقضايا األسرى والمعتقلينالفلسطينيين والدفاع عن حقوقهم حتى نيل الحرية

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حرية | عدالة | حقوق إنسان

International law

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An independent European-wide human rights network, set up to defend the rights of Palestinian political prisoners and detainees

u f r e e - p . n e t

FREEDOM | JUSTICE | HUMAN RIGHTS

Although international law restricts the use of administrative detention, Israel is using it regularly. Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, state prisoners should have a fair trial. The arrest and deportation of prisoners and administrative detainees is a violation of Articles 49 and 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

2013 - 2014