Tel Aviv will not allow examination of situation in Israeli jails: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Saeed Nimer, professor of political science at Birzeit University in Ramallah, to discuss administrative detention orders by Israeli authorities against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: As far as the policy of administrative detention goes, Israel has used this time and again against Palestinians. Why is it that it uses this practice?

Nimer: As a matter of fact the Israelis have started to use this policy of administrative detention and arrest since 1967 onward. Usually at the very beginning it was when they have no proof against any Palestinian but at the same time they have their doubts about him so they can arrest him without pressing charges, without interrogation.

Later on it became also anyone who they are annoyed from and he is like active or doing something against the Israelis but they cannot prove anything against him, then they can put him in administrative arrest. Over the years since 1967 more than 100,000 Palestinians went through this administrative arrest. As today more than 700 Palestinians in the Israeli prisons are under administrative arrest and their claim usually will be either charge us or release us, otherwise many of them went into hunger strikes and we know very well-known incidents of Khader Adnan and Samer Issawi and also Mohammed al-Qeeq and now we have Janazrah who have been on hunger strike for the same reason.

There is no reason at all for the Israelis to arrest these Palestinians. It is their suspicions in their heads ... and they put them in prison indefinitely because they can renew the administrative arrest every six months and usually in front of the judge the Israeli security would say we have a secret file, which neither the lawyer nor the judge have an access to this secret file. It is only enough to say I have a secret file and then they have a renewal of another six months and onward. And we have Palestinians who have spent more than eight years and nine years in a row in this administrative arrest.

Press TV: Now it is also when we talk about administrative detention one has to look at the bigger picture as far as the detention of Palestinians by Israel in the Israeli prisons. Now we just recently saw Israel arrest a 12-year-old minor girl as well who is also released and now the conditions also in which Palestinian prisoners are kept in are extremely bad, all these human rights violations taking place in Israeli prisons.

Nimer: Yes, we know that and the conditions either for the arresting and the trials which is charades most of the time or the capture of the Palestinians in the Israeli prisons are absolutely, all of it in these three stages, are violating the international law and violating the international human laws.

So far many committees tried to come and to examine the situation in the Israeli prisons but the Israelis would deny them to come. European parliamentary groups came and tried to visit the Israeli prisons and they refused, from the international community also some organizations, they tried to send some committees to examine the situation upon the request from the Palestinian Prisoners Ministry, also they were denied entry to the country.

So Israel is keeping everything under their control. They won’t allow any international committee to examine the situation, yet at the same time they continue to violate the international law and the international community [is] not talking about it or just ignoring the fact that Israel is violating these international laws and international human laws against the Palestinian prisoners whether in their capture and we have so many cases of Palestinian prisoners who died because of the ill-treatment and especially regarding the health treatment we have so many of them also died while interrogated by the violence of the Israeli interrogators during their arrest and their interrogation and we have also lots of problems that the Palestinian prisoners are suffering from while they are in capture.

Yet at the same time Israel won’t allow anyone to come and visit or to see what is going on and at the same time they maintain to claim that they are the only democracy in the Middle East, which in this case I think it is a hypocrisy by the international community to continue to listen to the Israeli nonsense and at the same time not doing anything at all.

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