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This News Service is posted by the
International Secretariat of Amnesty International,
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(Tel +44-71-413-5500, Fax +44-71-956-1157)
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                        MEDIA ADVISORY

News Service 59/96
INDEX NO: MDE 15/18/96
19 MARCH 1996

ISRAEL AND THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Oral Statement delivered by Amnesty International to the
United Nations Commission on Human Rights on the Israeli
Occupied Territories

                                    Delivered:  19 March 1996

In the past month Palestinian opposition groups have carried
out armed attacks by suicide bombers, killing 58 people
including civilians.  Amnesty International strongly and
unreservedly condemns such attacks and calls on Hamas and other
armed opposition groups to stop them. The right to life is a
fundamental right which must be respected by all.

      Since the suicide bombings hundreds of people have been
arrested by both the Israeli and Palestinian authorities. The
Israeli security services are using torture or ill-treatment on
many of those they arrest and access to lawyers is sometimes
still denied. Houses of those who have carried out the bombings
and those believed to have supported them have been sealed or
destroyed. Scores of people have been placed in administrative
detention. Speeches by the Prime Minister and other members of
the Israeli Government threaten deportations and appear to
sanction extrajudicial executions.

      Amnesty International takes no position on political
conflicts. Our only concern is that human rights should be
respected by all governments, political authorities and armed
opposition groups and should be enshrined in political
agreements. Legitimate security concerns should not be used as
a justification to commit human rights violations or to erode
basic international human rights law and standards.
Chairperson,
      Over the last year one of Amnesty International~s main
concerns in Israel has been the practice of systematic torture
and the danger that this practice might become sanctioned by
law.

      The practice of torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian
detainees, consistently reported to this Commission, includes
methods such as hooding, sleep deprivation, sometimes prolonged
for six or more days, prolonged standing or sitting in painful
positions, confinement in cupboard-sized rooms, exposure to
continuous raucous sound and violent shaking. Secret guidelines
permit the General Security Service (GSS) to use such
treatment.

      In April 1995 ~Abd al-Samed Harizat, suspected of
leadership in the Islamist movement Hamas, died as a result of
being violently shaken by his interrogators. Yet the Israeli
Government, in August 1995, ruled that violent shaking of
detainees could continue with special authorization.
       In the past months two draft bills increased concerns
that the Israeli Government proposed to effectively legalize
torture. After a campaign from national and international
public opinion, the definition of torture in one bill, the
Prohibition of Torture Law, is now in conformity with the
Convention against Torture. A second bill, the proposed Law of
the General Security Service (GSS), stated that the use of
pressure was allowed against detainees under certain conditions
and that a GSS officer would not bear criminal liability for
actions done ~in good faith~ while carrying out his duties. In
February, the Israeli Minister of Justice stated that this bill
would be delayed and that national and international human
rights organizations and university law departments would be
invited to make comments.

      Amnesty International welcomes this decision. This bill
must be redrafted in order to absolutely and unequivocally
prohibit the use of any form of torture or ill-treatment and
ensure that no GSS officer has impunity for such abuses. The
effective legalization of treatment which amounts to torture or
ill-treatment by a state which has ratified the Convention
against Torture would not be simply a matter for regret. It
would be a terrifying first step in undermining the system of
human rights safeguards built up under the aegis of the United
Nations over the last 50 years.
      No danger, no security threat, no bomb, however great the
loss of life, makes torture permissible. It must be prohibited
not only in law but also in practice.

Chairperson,
      Another human rights concern is Israel~s continuing use
of administrative detention without charge or trial. Today more
than 240 Palestinians remain in administrative detention
including political opponents of the peace process arrested
before  the Israeli withdrawal from West Bank towns and a large
number arrested since the recent bombings.

       Prolonged administrative detention denies detainees
their basic right to a fair trial and to know the evidence
against them.

      Last year Amnesty International raised before this
Commission the case of Ahmed Qatamesh who now remains in
detention for the fourth consecutive year. Sha~wan Jabarin, a
field worker with the human rights organization al-Haq, whose
administrative detention in 1994 was declared arbitrary by the
UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, was rearrested in
early February. Those recently placed in administrative
detention have included minors and some apparently arrested
solely because they were related to those implicated in the
bombings. If they, and all political detainees in
administrative detention, are not to be brought to trial on
recognizably criminal charges, they should be immediately
released.

      The continued detention of many Lebanese detainees in
Israel or in South Lebanon flouts international human rights
and humanitarian law standards. At least 18 Lebanese taken
prisoner in Lebanon have been held in administrative detention
without charge or trial or after expiry of their sentences.
Some have now been detained for nine years without trial. Two
of them, Shaykh ~Abd al-Karim ~Ubayd, who was abducted from
Lebanon in July 1989 and Mustafa al-Dirani, who was abducted in
May 1994, are held without access to the International
Committee of the Red Cross. The Israeli Deputy Minister of
Defence informed Amnesty International delegates in February
1996 that Israel would release the two ~when we have more
information about Ron Arad~ - the Israeli airman missing after
being captured in Lebanon in 1986. Mustafa al-Dirani and Shaykh
~Ubayd are thus held as hostages and should be released
immediately.


      Nearly 200 Lebanese and Palestinian detainees continue to
be held in the Khiam detention centre in an area of South
Lebanon controlled by Israel and the South Lebanon army (SLA).
Amnesty International welcomes the fact that, since concerns
about these detainees were raised in this Commission last year,
the ICRC and families now have access to them. But the status
in international law of the Khiam detainees has never been
clarified and they, too, may be held as hostages in order to
obtain information about missing Israeli and SLA soldiers. If
so, they should be released immediately.
      Over the past year possible extrajudicial executions by
the Israeli security services have continued, though fewer than
in previous years. In January Yahya ~Ayyash, the engineer said
to have made suicide bombs, was killed from a booby-trapped
mobile telephone. The killing was said to have been carried out
by the GSS. The Israeli government did not accept
responsibility nor deny involvement in the killing.
      Amnesty International is concerned that recent public
statements by members of the Israeli Government may be
considered to condone or even encourage the use of
extrajudicial executions. The organization calls on all
governments, including the Israeli Government, to respect their
international human rights obligations. First and foremost
among these are those relating to the non-derogable right to
life of anyone, including those suspected of violent crimes.
The Israeli Government must make absolutely clear its position
towards such killings.

      Human rights abuses have also taken place in the Israeli
Occupied Territories under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian
Authority. Supporters of Islamist or leftist groups opposed to
the peace agreement, journalists and human rights activists
have been detained; among them were prisoners of conscience,
arrested solely for exercising their right to freedom of
expression. At least nine security services are said to carry
out arrests and detainees have been held, sometimes
incommunicado, for months without charge or access to any
judicial process. The State Security Court, which has sentenced
over 40 suspected political offenders in grossly unfair night
trials, still operates. Torture and ill-treatment are
frequently reported and the use of torture appears to be
increasing.  At least five people died in custody, reportedly
after torture, during 1995.  There have been possible
extrajudicial executions. No satisfactory investigation is
known to have been carried out into any one of these abuses.

      Since 25 February hundreds of suspected supporters of
Islamist movements have been arrested; there are reports of
torture and access to lawyers has been frequently denied.

      During the past year human rights defenders have been
arrested and held for short periods solely for raising human
rights abuses committed by the Palestinian Authority. It is
crucially important that the rights of all those --
journalists, human rights defenders, lawyers or concerned
individuals -- who speak out against human rights violations or
abuses committed by any authority or individual are respected.
Chairperson,
       By ratifying the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and the Convention against Torture in 1991,
Israel committed itself  to respect the legally binding
guarantees in these treaties.  Among the rights which may not
be derogated from in any circumstances, even in a ~public
emergency which threatens the life of a nation~ are the right
not to be arbitrarily deprived of life and the right not to
suffer torture. Sustainable peace and security can only be
built on the basis of respect for fundamental human rights.
ENDS\

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