[Pnews] Administrative Torture: Free Heba al-Labadi, a Jordanian Citizen in Israeli Prison

[Prisoner News]

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191009-administrative-torture-free-heba-al-labadi-a-jordanian-citizen-in-israeli-prison/ 



  Administrative Torture: Free Heba al-Labadi, a Jordanian Citizen in
  Israeli Prison

Ramzy Baroud - October 9, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

On August 20, Heba Ahmed al-Labadi fell into the dark hole of the 
Israeli legal system, joining 
<https://en.royanews.tv/news/18450/Israeli-troops-arrest-Palestinian-woman-returning-from-Jordan> 
413 Palestinian prisoners who are currently held in so-called 
administrative detention.

On September 26, Heba and seven other prisoners declared a hunger strike 
<https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Imprisoned-Palestinian-Woman-Begins-8th-Day-of-Hunger-Strike--20191001-0001.html> 
to protest their unlawful detention and horrific conditions in Israeli 
prisons. Among the prisoners is Ahmed Ghannam 
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2019/08/09/40-more-palestinian-prisoners-join-hunger-strike-in-solidarity-with-administrative-detainees/>, 
42, from the village of Dura, near Hebron, who launched his hunger 
strike on July 14.

Administrative detention is Israel’s go-to legal proceeding when it 
simply wants to mute the voices of Palestinian political activists, but 
lacks any concrete evidence that can be presented in an open, military 
court.

Not that Israel’s military courts are an example of fairness and 
transparency. Indeed, when it comes to Palestinians, the entire Israeli 
judicial system is skewed. But administrative detention is a whole new 
level of injustice.

The current practice of administrative detention dates back to the 1945 
Defense (Emergency) Regulations issued by the British colonial 
authorities in Palestine to quell Palestinian political dissent. Israel 
amended the regulations in 1979, renaming them to the Israeli Law on 
Authority in the States of Emergency. The revised law was used to 
indefinitely incarcerate 
<http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/briefing_note/join/2012/491444/EXPO-AFET_SP(2012)491444_EN.pdf> 
thousands of Palestinian political activists during the Palestinian 
Uprising of 1987. On any given day, there are hundreds of Palestinians 
who are held under the unlawful practice.

The procedure denies the detainees any due process and fails to produce 
an iota of evidence to as why the prisoner – who is often subjected to 
severe and relentless torture – is being held in the first place.

Heba, a Jordanian citizen, was detained 
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20191001-female-palestine-prisoner-held-in-stress-positions-in-israel-jails/> 
at the al-Karameh crossing (Allenby Bridge) on her way from Jordan to 
the West Bank to attend a wedding in the Palestinian city of Nablus.

According to the Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network Samidoun, Heba 
was first held at the Israeli intelligence detention centre in Petah 
Tikva, where she was physically abused and tortured 
<https://samidoun.net/2019/10/stopisraelitorture-demand-world-governments-act-to-free-tortured-palestinian-prisoners-and-hunger-strikers/>.

Torture in Israel was permissible for many years. In 1999, the Israeli 
Supreme Court banned 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/07/israel> torture. However, 
in 2019, the court explicitly clarified 
<http://blog.omct.org/its-now-even-more-official-torture-is-legal-in-israel/> 
that “interrogational torture is lawful in certain circumstances in 
Israel’s legal system”. Either way, little has changed in practice 
before or after the Israeli court’s “clarification”.

Of the dozens of Palestinian and Arab prisoners, I interviewed in recent 
months for a soon-to-be published 
<https://www.amazon.com/These-Chains-Will-Broken-Palestinian/dp/1949762092> 
volume on the history of the Palestinian prison experience, every single 
one of them underwent a prolonged process of torture during the initial 
interrogation, that often extended for months. If their experiences 
differed, it was only in the extent and duration of the torture. This 
applies to administrative detainees as much as it applies to so-called 
“security prisoners”.

Wafa Samir Ibrahim al-Bis, a Palestinian woman from Jablaiya refugee 
camp in Gaza, told me about the years she was held in Israeli jails. “I 
was tortured for years inside the Ramleh prison’s infamous ‘cell nine’, 
a torture chamber they designated for people like me,” she said.

“I was hanged from the ceiling and beaten. They put a black bag on my 
head as they beat and interrogated me for many hours and days. They 
released dogs and mice in my cell. I couldn’t sleep for days at a time. 
They stripped me naked and left me like that for days on end. They 
didn’t allow me to meet with a lawyer or even receive visits from the 
Red Cross.”

Heba is now lost in that very system, one that has no remorse and faces 
no accountability, neither in Israel itself nor to international 
institutions whose duty is to challenge this kind of flagrant violation 
of humanitarian laws.

While Israel’s mistreatment of all Palestinian prisoners applies equally 
regardless of faction, ideology or age, the gender of the prisoner 
matters insofar as the type of torture or humiliation used, many of the 
female prisoners I spoke with explained how the type of mistreatment 
they experienced in Israeli prisons often seemed to involve sexual 
degradation and abuse. One consists in having female prisoners strip 
naked before Israeli male interrogators and remaining in that position 
during the entire duration of the torturous interrogation, that may last 
hours.

Khadija Khweis, from the town of Al-Tour, adjacent to the Old City of 
Occupied East Jerusalem, was imprisoned by Israel 18 times, for a period 
ranging from several days to several weeks. She told me that “on the 
first day of my arrival at the prison, the guards stripped me completely 
naked”.

“They searched me in ways so degrading; I cannot even write them down. 
All I can say is that they intentionally tried to deprive me of the 
slightest degree of human dignity. This practice, of stripping and of 
degrading body searches, would be repeated every time I was taken out of 
my cell and brought back.”

Heba and all Palestinian prisoners experience humiliation and abuse 
daily. Their stories should not be reduced to an occasional news item or 
a social media post but should become the raison d’être of all 
solidarity efforts aimed at exposing Israel, its fraudulent judicial 
system and Kangaroo courts.

The struggle of Palestinian prisoners epitomises the effort of all 
Palestinians. Their imprisonment is a stark representation of the 
collective imprisonment of the Palestinian people – those living under 
occupation and apartheid in the West Bank and those under occupation and 
siege in Gaza.

Israel should be held accountable for all of this. Rights groups and the 
international community should pressure Israel to release Heba al-Labadi 
and all of her comrades, unlawfully held in Israeli prisons.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not 
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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