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<h1><font size=3><b>Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners' affairs: Israeli
army kidnapped 6200 children since
2000</b></font></h1>
<img src="http://www.imemc.org/graphics/date.gif" width=12 height=10 alt="author">
</b></h1><font size=3> Friday November 20, 2009
14:36<img src="http://www.imemc.org/graphics/person.gif" width=14 height=12 alt="author">
by IMEMC Service<br><br>
<a href="http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57166" eudora="autourl">
http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=57166<br><br>
</a>An official report, received by Arab League from the minister of
prisoners' affairs in the Palestinian Authority (Ramallah), revealed that
the Israeli occupation forces have kidnapped about 6,200 Palestinian
children since the beginning of Al Aqsa Intifada (2000), including
approximately 337 children still detained in Israeli prisons and
interrogation centers. <br><br>
During last Saturday's meeting of the Arab League's permanent delegates
council, which was set to discuss the conditions of Palestinian prisoners
in Israeli jails, Minister Issa Qaraqe introduced the report, which
unveiled the "repressive, inhumane practices of the Israeli
occupation authorities against Palestinian children in Israeli prisons
and detention camps," stressing that this violates the rules of
international law, conventions on children's rights, and all
international norms.<br><br>
The report pointed out that "any person under the age of 18 is
considered a child, according to international law, the Convention on the
Rights of the Child and, recently, Israeli domestic law," and
according to the definition of juvenile by the United Nations' Basic
Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners, which were adopted in the
General Assembly Resolution 45/113, dated December 14, 1990.<br><br>
Qaraqe stated that the Israeli occupation authorities "deprive
detained children from the basic rights granted by international
conventions, such as the right to know the reason for their arrest, the
right to counsel, the right of families to know the reason and the place
of detention of their child, the right to appear before the judge, the
right to object to the charge and lodge an appeal against it, the right
to communicate with the outside world, and the right to a humane
treatment that preserves the dignity of the detained
child."<br><br>
The report warned that the occupation authorities, "blatantly
violated the rights of detained children"; dealt with them as
"potential subversives", "and subjected them to different
types of torture and cruel treatment, such as beating, sleep deprivation,
starvation, sexual harassment, and deprivation of visits. The occupation
forced applied the worst mental and physical means to extract confessions
from child prisoners and to pressure them to work for Israeli
intelligence."<br><br>
The report also mentioned that during the first Intifada, massive numbers
of children were arrested and detained on charges of throwing stones and
other forms of political resistance, whereas, during the second intifada,
Tel Aviv began adopting administrative detention against Palestinian
children and it started convicting and detaining children under the age
of 14 for periods of up to 6 months.<br><br>
The report further stated that, according to the 2002 annual report of
the Defense of Children International organization, those arrest patterns
did not exist during the years of the first intifada. <br><br>
<br><br>
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