Palestinian Minors Facing Torture in Israeli Jails: Lawyer
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - A Palestinian lawyer slammed Israel for violating international conventions on children’s rights, saying the minors are being beaten and tortured in a “heinous” way by Israeli soldiers during interrogation.
Hiba Masal-ha, a lawyer for the Palestinian Committee of Prisoners Affairs, said Sunday that Israeli soldiers “violently” beat and torture teenage detainees during questioning.
According to Masal-ha, who visited 68 teenagers in Israeli’s Megiddo prison, minors were “terrified, threatened and blackmailed”.
Most of the abuses took place during questioning in al-Jalama interrogation center.
At least 182 Palestinian minors are reportedly locked up in Israeli jails, including 26 below the age of 16.
In 2014, the International rights group Defense for Children said Israeli authorities have denied legal counsel to 93 percent of the kids.
Masal-ha's remarks came a week after Issa Qarage, the head of the Palestinian Authority’s committee for prisoners, said that Israeli interrogators are using oppressive and brutal methods to force Palestinians into confession, Press TV reported.
Israeli forces routinely abduct Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and put them behind bars based on the so-called administrative detention policy, which is a sort of imprisonment without trial or charge, that allows the regime to imprison Palestinians for up to six months. The detention order can be renewed for indefinite periods of time.
Over 7,000 Palestinians are reportedly incarcerated in 17 Israeli jails and detention camps, many of them without charge or trial.
