If you wish to help, please use the information at the bottom of the article.
Brigitte
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"Zahi Damuni"
Subject: Over 200 Palestinian children arrested in two months

From: DCI/PS@...
Sent: Thursday, March 02, 2006 7:39 AM

Israeli occupation forces are arresting scores of Palestinian children each
week, bringing the number of juveniles currently held in appalling conditions in
Israeli detention centres and prisons to new record levels.

Information gathered by the DCI/PS Research & Information and Legal Units shows
that since the start of 2006 over 230 Palestinian children have been arrested,
with the Israeli army appearing to target in particular youths from the
Bethlehem Nablus and Jenin areas of the West Bank. The scale of arrests over the
past two months brings the number of Palestinian children in Israeli custody to
almost 400. This represents a significant increase on the already-inexcusably
high numbers of recent years and marks a further indication of the scant regard
Israeli pays to Palestinian children's rights and to international legal
instruments.

In interviews with DCI/PS lawyers, children have told how upon their arrest they
are handcuffed and blindfolded before being bundled into a military jeep and
taken to interrogation centres in nearby settlements or military camps. Still
dazed and confused from the arrest, and often having been beaten by soldiers
inside the jeep, the children are taken immediately for interrogation in which
police and soldiers hurl abuse, threats and sometimes kicks and punches to
extract some form of admission from the terrified child. Confessions obtained
from this brutalising procedure, which contravenes every legal and moral
guideline regarding the questioning of suspects, are deemed sufficient evidence
by the Israeli military authorities not only to charge the child, but to charge
others implicated in the confession.

Following interrogation, child detainees are incarcerated in cramped and squalid
conditions in detention centres across the West Bank to await trial - only a
handful of cases are granted bail despite clear and universally-accepted
international laws stating that the detention of juveniles should "be used only
as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time".
Although such centres are classified as temporary holding facilities, DCI/PS
lawyers note that increasingly children sentenced for six months are serving the
entire prison term in these detention centres, lacking even the most basic needs
such as access to adequate food and washing facilities, and deprived of contact
with family and healthcare professionals.

DCI/PS deplores the systematic abuse of the basic human rights of these
detainees, first as children and secondly as prisoners. We call on Israel to
cease at once its policy of targeting, arresting, abusing and imprisoning
Palestinian children and to release immediately all Palestinian children held
illegally in Israeli prisons and detention centres.

We urge you, members of the international community, to take a stand on this
urgent humanitarian issue. We call on you and your governments to intervene
immediately and demand Israel's compliance with international human rights and
humanitarian law and to ensure these violations of Palestinian children's rights
cease at once.

Please address letters of protest to the following individuals:

UN Human Rights Committee
Fax : + 41 22 917 9022
E-mail: tb-petitions@...

UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Fax : + 41 22 917 9022
E-mail: mandrijasevic-boko@...

_____________

Acting Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert
Office of the Prime Minister
Fax: ++972 2 670 5475
Email: pm@...; pm_eng@...

Israeli Minister of Justice (Ms) Tzipi Livni
Fax: + 972 2 646 6357
E-mail: sar@...

Menahem Mazuz,
Attorney-General/Legal Advisor to the Israeli Government
Fax: + 972 2 628 5438

Avichi Mendelblit
Military Attorney General
Israel Defence Forces
Fax: + 972 3 5694370
info@...

COPIES TO: Diplomatic representatives of Israel/Occupied Territories accredited
to your country



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