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<font size=3>Israeli forces have arrested a quarter of the population
since the 1967 occupation began<br><br>
<a href="http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=592&Itemid=1" eudora="autourl">
http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=592&Itemid=1<br>
</a>Palestine News Network <br>
Tuesday, 19 September 2006 <br><br>
<img src="cid:6.2.5.6.2.20060919085619.04488c10@freedomarchives.org.0" width=85 height=102 alt="Image">
<br><br>
The Palestinian Ministry Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Statistics
Department issued a report Tuesday on political prisoners in Israeli
jails. <br><br>
The photo shown appeared for a brief period on the Ha'aretz Daily website
with the caption, "Israeli court" a few years ago. <br><br>
Since 1967 Israeli forces arrested 700,000 citizens, or roughly 25
percent of the Palestinian population of the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. <br><br>
Fifty-thousand of them were arrested during the Al Aqsa Intifada, which
began in September 2000. The number of current prisoners is approximately
10,300. Those who have been imprisoned since before Oslo, and therefore
required to be released numerous times, number 367. <br><br>
Israeli forces arrested over 5,000 Palestinian children since September
2000. Three hundred and ninety of them are still in Israeli prisons,
comprising 3.8 percent of the current total number. <br><br>
Eight of the children are being held under Administrative Detention,
which means without charge or trial. Two-hundred fifty-five children are
awaiting trial, 105 children are ill and in need of medical care, and 99
percent of the children were subjected to torture. There are 667 teenaged
Palestinians at 18 and 19 years old, therefore not included in the
children’s statistics. <br><br>
As documented by the Statistics Department, 183 political prisoners were
killed by torture in interrogation cells, willful killing after arrest,
and medical neglect. <br><br>
Four hundred twenty-four political prisoners have been in Israeli jails
for more than 10 years, and 64 more than 20 years. <br><br>
Regarding the general health, it can be said without exaggeration that
all prisoners suffer from various illnesses due to the harsh conditions
in the prisons. Serious diseases number 1,000 with 200 chronic cases.
<br><br>
Israel made torture, and internationally banned forms of physical and
psychological abuse, legal. The Israelis use physical and psychological
abuse, including beatings, refrigeration, fear, violent shaking, standing
for long periods of time, sleep deprivation, food deprivation, relatives
tortured, spitting in the face, being shackled while bent, beatings in
the stomach, back and head, etcetera, to destroy a person’s will and
obtain false or coerced ‘confessions.’ <br><br>
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522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
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