Israel is imprisoning African Children who wound up illegally in Israel through no fault of their own

Unflipping believable, but thoroughly predictable.

African children, whose parents bring them to Israel illegally, will now be held in Givon Prison in Ramle, rather than a special facility for migrant youth, in violation of international law concerning the treatment of children and a 2011 Israeli High Court ruling. 

According to a report in Israeli daily Ha’aretz, the move to place the children in prison came after six boys escaped from the youth facility last week. The children will now be housed in an adult prison according to the Israeli prison service, in order to ensure that no more children escape. 

This decision contravenes a 2011 Israeli High Court ruling that children cannot be held in prisons or with adults. The court cited as justification the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to which Israel is a signatory. 

The CRC states that at all times, the most important principle regarding the treatment of children is what is in the best interests of the child. The director of the Hotline for Migrant Workers, Reut Michaeli commented, “Givon Prison is a prison in every sense of the word. Once again we're learning that the good of the child is not the main thing on the state's mind." 

Although children are being housed in a separate wing from adults, the facility is still a prison designed for adults. The Israeli prison service claims that the situation is temporary. 

However, Israel routinely detains Palestinian children in Israeli military prisons with adults. Numerous international organizations including Defence For Children International have documented this practice which Israel’s own courts have found to be illegal. 

Given the fact that this inhumane violation of the rights of Palestinian children continues with several hundred Palestinian children currently incarcerated in Israeli military prisons, as well as the increasing xenophobia of the Israeli population, it is unlikely that migrant children will escape this same fate unless the institutional structures within Israel begin to support human rights for all, not only Jewish Israelis. 

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The Children's Crusade: Obama's War on Children

By Chris Floyd

An Afghan girl injured during an air strike in Garni village in western Farah province, recovers in hospital, on May 9, 2009.

Day after day, week after week, Barack Obama's "Overseas Contingency Operations" keep churning through the bodies of children: sometimes with chemical weapons that sear their flesh and leave them maimed and disfigured for life; sometimes with carefully aimed bullets ripping through their organs and leaving them dead right on the spot.

And in every such case, our brave and noble Terror Warriors -- who, lest we forget, are upholding the highest values of world civilization, bringing hope and change to benighted lands and defending our sacred way of life -- run screaming like spinsters in a hissy fit from the slightest hint of responsibility for their actions. Their first response, always, is to blame someone else: either the designated enemy of the day -- or else the burned and shredded children themselves.

This tendency was on vivid display this week in two stories from separate fronts in the ever-spreading Terror War. (Both pieces, from McClatchy and Reuters, come via the Angry Arab, who rightly notes Obama's moral ownership of the bullets and bombs of the militarist campaigns).

The most garish example can be found in Iraq, where American soldiers shot a 12-year-old boy in the streets of Mosul, one of the most troubled cities in the conquered land. Mosul, you may recall, is where Generalissimo David Petraeus -- now in military command of the entire Terror War -- built his vaunted but vaporous reputation for "effective counterinsurgency techniques" early in the war. It was a miniature model of the later "surge": using a massive influx of American troops, along with payoffs to favored local forces, to suppress the endemic chaos and violence unleashed by the invasion just long enough to establish a PR narrative of "success." Once the media spotlight has moved on, the evil, inevitable fruits of the original crime -- the Hitlerian act of military aggression -- flourish once more.

As in Iraq at large, so it is in Mosul. Last Thursday, American occupation troops rolling through the city were attacked by a grenade. In response, they shot a killed a 12-year-old boy, Omar Musa Salih, who was standing on the roadside selling fruit juice. Although eyewitnesses on the scene said the boy had not thrown the grenade -- they had seen, with their own eyes, an older man lobbing it toward the Americans -- President Obama's Pentagon insisted that the dead boy was an "insurgent" who deserved to die. Their proof? He had a handful of Iraqi dinars -- less than $9 -- in his hand when they inspected his corpse. So that means he was in the pay of terrorists, you see.

"We have every reason to believe that insurgents are paying children to conduct these attacks or assist the attackers in some capacity, undoubtedly placing the children in harm's way," a faceless "U.S. military spokesman" told McClatchy, in an email. Smearing the victim: a dead child -- oh, how noble, how civilized, how redolent of honor! You can certainly understand why no one would want to attach their face or name -- or even their voice -- to such a depraved, shameless and cowardly apologia.

For as McClatchy notes, there is no evidence whatsoever that young Omar was involved in the attack; quite the contrary, in fact:

....eyewitnesses said the boy, identified as Omar Musa Salih, was standing by the side of the road selling fruit juice - a common practice in Iraq -- and had nothing to do with the attack.

A friend, Ahmed Jassim, 15, said he was selling cans of Pepsi nearby when he heard the grenade explode. He dove behind a parked car, then heard the roar of machine gun fire. "When the shooting was over and the patrol went away, I stood and I saw Omar on the ground covered with blood," Jassim said.

Another witness, Ahmed IzAldeen, 56, said he saw the person who threw the grenade. It wasn't the boy, but a man in his twenties, he said. IzAldeen said he saw the man standing behind a truck holding the grenade as the American patrol approached....

"When attacked, the Americans just open fire, whether on the gunman or just randomly," said Usama Al Nujaifi, a member of Parliament from Mosul. "The American presence in the cities is wrong, we urged them to stay outside from the beginning."

American combat forces are supposed to pull out of all cities by June 30 under an agreement signed last year that hands security over to Iraqi forces. But the two sides have discussed pushing back the deadline, especially in the most violent cities, such as Mosul.

Oh yes, these "deadlines" will doubtless prove to be infinitely flexible, easily extended; after all, President Obama has consistently reiterated his determination to be guided by the advice of his military officials and by "the facts on the ground" in implementing his scheme to remove some American troops from Iraq while leaving tens of thousands behind: a process of streamlined occupation that for some reason is called a "withdrawal."

But the lives of children are not so flexible, not so extendable. Omar Salih will not get up again. "Friends of the Salih family said he was the oldest of 6 children," McClatchy writes. "He quit school in the first grade, when he was six or seven years old. He was well-known in the Ras Al-Jadda neighborhood, where the attack took place."

He quit school at six or seven; that is, in 2003 or 2004, in the midst or in the aftermath of the American invasion. His life was spent on the street, trying to earn a pittance for his family. And now he is damned as a terrorist by the most powerful, most "advanced" nation in the world -- because he had a few strips of colored paper in his hand when he was gunned down at his fruit stand.

As we've noted several times in recent days, this is an inevitable result of military occupations in hostile lands: all of the natives come to be seen as the enemy -- children, women, the old and weak included. All are deemed imminent and/or potential threats by the conquerors, who live steeped in fear and incomprehension and anger at the "ingratitude" and hostility and recalcitrance of the locals. And so, ultimately, every civilian death can be "justified" -- because there are no civilians. There are just Them -- and Us. And whatever We do to protect ourselves from Them -- or to put Them in their place -- is rightful and just and should not be questioned.

This is the logic of the conqueror, the logic of domination. And it is the foundation and the philosophy of the War on Terror that America's bipartisan political class -- past and present, conservative and "progressive" -- has so enthusiastically embraced.

II.
This week reports emerged about the possible use of white phosphorus shells in the American bombing assault last week that killed more than 140 children, women and old men who were taking shelter from a battle several miles away. These chemical weapons are "legal" when used "to illuminate a target or create smoke," but are illegal under international law if used purposely as a weapon. Of course, in dealing with attacks on populated areas -- the very heart of Terror War "counterinsurgency" -- this is a distinction without a difference. The shells explode in the midst of homes and streets, throwing their searing, unquenchable chemical gel everywhere, causing unbearable agony and permanent damage to the afflicted. However, the inherent ambiguity of carrying out military operations in civilian areas provides convenient cover for the use of this chemical weapon to put the natives in their place. (As we saw in Fallujah, for example, and most recently in Gaza.)

As always, the illumination-bringers in the American war machine blame someone else for the strange, horrific burns that doctors have discovered among the survivors of the massacre. After denying the use of white phosphorus in the attack for any reason, they first suggested that it was the Taliban who lobbed the advanced chemical weapon into villages that Afghan officials and the International Red Cross say were devastated by American bombs. Then they said the burns might have been caused by propane tanks exploding during the bombardment. But doctors dealing directly with the victims scoffed at this, as AP reports:

Dr. Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of the burn unit at the Herat Regional Hospital in western Afghanistan who has treated five patients wounded in the battle, described the burns as "unusual."

"I think it's the result of a chemical used in a bomb, but I'm not sure what kind of chemical. But if it was a result of a burning house — from petrol or gas cylinders — that kind of burn would look different," he said.

Gul Ahmad Ayubi, the deputy head of Farah's health department, said the province's main hospital had received 14 patients after the battle, all with burn wounds. Five patients were sent to Herat. "There has been other airstrikes in Farah in the past. We had injuries from those battles, but this is the first time we have seen such burns on the bodies. I'm not sure what kind of bomb it was," he said.

U.N. human rights investigators have also seen "extensive" burn wounds on victims and have raised questions about how the injuries were caused, said a U.N. official who asked not to be identified talking about internal deliberations.

These new concerns come amidst new calls for an investigation of an earlier chemical weapon attack, which left an eight-year-old girl, Razia, with "her face an almost unrecognisable mess of burnt tissue and half her scalp a bald scar." She is the first known civilian victim of white phosphorus in Afghanistan. As Reuters reports:

"The kids called out to me that I was burning but the explosion was so strong that for a moment I was deaf and couldn't hear anything," her father, Aziz Rahman, told Reuters. "And then my wife screamed 'the kids are burning' and she was also burning," he added, his face clouding over at the memory.

The flames that consumed his family were fed by a chemical called white phosphorous, which U.S. medical staff at Bagram said they found on Razia's face and neck. It bursts into fierce fire on contact with the air and can stick to and even penetrate flesh as it burns....

Colonel Gregory Julian, a spokesman for the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, confirmed that Western forces in the country use the chemical.

"In the case of white phosphorus it is used on the battlefield in certain applications ... It is used as an incendiary to destroy bunkers and enemy equipment; it's used for illumination"...

Razia and her family are the first known civilian casualties of its use in Afghanistan.

As in the recent massacre, occupation officials point to the Taliban as the culprit in the chemical weapon attack -- a claim belied by experts on the region. But in the AP story on the massacre, Julian is suddenly asserting that "military officials believe that Taliban militants have used white phosphorus at least four times in Afghanistan in the past two years." We have heard nothing of this before, nor have any Afghan government official or acknowledged specialists. These charges of Taliban chemical weapons emerged only after Human Rights Watch began pushing the story of Razia's plight and the doctors in Herat found the strange burns in the massacre survivors. As Reuters reports:

U.S. Major Jennifer Willis suggested instead that the Taliban had fired the shot: "An enemy mortar team, known to have been operating in that area, may have been responsible."

The Afghan government, military specialists and experts on the Taliban told Reuters, however, that insurgents have never been observed using white phosphorus. The only forces on the battlefield known to use it are the United States and NATO. "I am not aware that the Taliban have used this in any of their attacks," said Zaher Murad, a Defence Ministry spokesman.

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan-based author of a widely acclaimed book on the hardline Islamists, said that he was also not aware of such reports.

"To think they (the Taliban) are employing white phosphorus as a weapon in their arsenal is very far-fetched," said Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch and a former senior intelligence analyst at the Pentagon. "The U.S. has optics that will allow them to see through the smoke, so it is useless for (the Taliban). They don't need to illuminate because that is telegraphing to the United States where they are going to go and fight. Plus they know the area. They want high explosive to shock and kill; flames raining down from the sky aren't going to frighten the U.S. forces."

NATO spokeswoman Willis said insurgents had been observed using white phosphorus weapons in the past. Asked to provide examples of the Taliban using the chemical, she wrote back to say that she was unable to do so.

Yet even here, as with the "child insurgents" of Mosul, the Pentagon can do no more than wanly assert its "belief" that such things could be going on. No proof is offered. There is only the bristling attempt to thrust away any responsibility, to deflect, distract, smear -- and obfuscate the inescapable realities of subjugating another nation by force.

Whatever the good intentions of this or that ordinary individual serving in the occupation forces -- such as the military doctors who saved what was left of Razia's life -- the underlying logic of domination will have its way, churning relentlessly through the bodies of innocent people caught up -- deliberately or "collaterally" -- in the brutal power of foreign forces which should not be in their land.

III.
I wrote a piece last year about the lasting effects of those insescapable realities of subjugation. Although it deals with a different area of the Terror War, I'd like to close with an excerpt from it -- for, unfortunately, it is just as relevant as ever, if not more so. From "Written on the Body: The Reality of War" (see original for links):

[In] these heated debates on policy, strategy, funding, etc. [of the Terror War], there is always a danger of losing sight of the most overwhelmingly important aspect of the conflict: its effects on actual human beings, the suffering it imposes on our fellow creatures. The reality of war is written on the bodies – and seared into the anguished psyches – of the individuals who experience it. That is what war is, that is where it actually exists – in blood, in bone, in the synapses that carry the electric fire of human consciousness.

A new report from Fallujah – the Guernica of the Iraq War – brings this home most forcefully. Two of the great witnesses of this war – Dahr Jamail and his collaborator, Ali al-Fadhily – present disturbing evidence of how the use of chemical weapons against the people of Fallujah during the brutal decimation the city in 2004 continues to bear horrific fruit today:

Babies born in Fallujah are showing illnesses and deformities on a scale never seen before, doctors and residents say. The new cases, and the number of deaths among children, have risen after "special weaponry" was used in the two massive bombing campaigns in Fallujah in 2004.

After denying it at first, the Pentagon admitted in November 2005 that white phosphorous, a restricted incendiary weapon, was used a year earlier in Fallujah. In addition, depleted uranium (DU) munitions, which contain low-level radioactive waste, were used heavily in Fallujah. The Pentagon admits to having used 1,200 tons of DU in Iraq thus far.

Many doctors believe DU to be the cause of a severe increase in the incidence of cancer in Iraq, as well as among US veterans who served in the 1991 Gulf War and through the current occupation.

"We saw all the colors of the rainbow coming out of the exploding American shells and missiles," Ali Sarhan, a 50-year-old teacher who lived through the two US sieges of 2004 told IPS. "I saw bodies that turned into bones and coal right after they were exposed to bombs that we learned later to be phosphorus. The most worrying is that many of our women have suffered loss of their babies, and some had babies born with deformations."

"I had two children who had brain damage from birth," 28-year-old Hayfa' Shukur told IPS. "My husband has been detained by the Americans since November 2004 and so I had to take the children around by myself to hospitals and private clinics. They died. I spent all our savings and borrowed a considerable amount of money...."

This is the fate of the actual human beings in Fallujah. Behind all the debates and commentary, the think-tank wonkery, the campaign rhetoric, the academic studies and the witlessrantings of TV talking heads, this is the war: a young woman wandering through a ruined city, carrying her broken, dying children to hospitals left without medicine or gear...

I ended the piece with a quote I've used before, from Italo Calvino, because it is, as I said then, "one of the very best encapsulations of the horror, and hope, of our human condition":

"The inferno…is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space."

Idiocracy
	1) A government that repeatedly makes bad decisions, resulting in worsening conditions for the country it runs. 2) A government run by an intellectually challenged leader. 3) A government full of cabinet members that couldn't find their asses with both hands and a flashlight. I can't believe the idiocracy we elected to run our country.

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How Many Kids Will Bush America Kill In 2008?

"Rosa Luxemburg posed the problem in terms of 'socialism or barbarism.' Slightly more than eight decades after Luxemburg's death, barbarism threatens humanity's very existence."

How Many Kids Will Bush America Kill In 2008?  

By Dr
Gideon Polya

 What can decent people do to counter this horrendous Bush American 

 barbarism in 2008? Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is 

 complicity. Decent folk must (a) inform others and (b) act ethically

by applying Sanctions and Boycotts in relation to all their avoidable

dealings with individuals, corporations and countries complicit in this 

continuing mass pedocide, this continuing, remorseless Bush-ite mass murder

of innocent children. 

 http://www.countercurrents.org/polya050108.htm  

Plenty of links there (Crikey, looks like my 'made popular' ratio on Digg could be going up with this one) to International Law, Geneva Convention & UN Charter etc, but there are plenty of ways around the law:

Written evidence submitted by Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement 26/02/07

RE: GLOBAL SECURITY, MENA—ISRAEL'S CLAIM THAT GAZA IS NO LONGER OCCUPIED

1. On the occasion of the Committee's inquiry into Global Security, Middle East, we wish to update you on a position by the Israeli government that it no longer occupies Gaza and no longer bears responsibility for the welfare of Gaza residents. As an NGO concerned with the human rights of Palestinian residents, we ask that you raise the issue of Israel's occupation of Gaza in your reports, with a recommendation to take measures to assure compliance with international humanitarian law, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which the UK is a party.

ISRAEL CLAIMS THAT IT DOES NOT OCCUPY GAZA AND OWES NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE WELFARE OF GAZANS

13. We respectfully request that you investigate this issue and take appropriate measures. In particular, we encourage you to request that Government representatives make inquiries among their Israeli interlocutors regarding the status of Gaza and call upon Israel to respect its obligations under international humanitarian law.

14. I respectfully refer you to Gisha's position paper, Disengaged Occupiers: The Legal Status of Gaza, available at our web site, http://www.gisha.org or at the link: http://www.gisha.org/english/reports/Report_for_the_website.pdf

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmfaff/363/363we13.htm or http://tinyurl.com/33snoz

PCAS UK Rapporteur

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"Will you listen?" - Young voices from conflict zones

The 1996 UN report “The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children”, widely known as the Machel study, for the first time brought the issues faced by children in armed conflict to international attention. Ten years later, a strategic review has now been convened to assess progress and look forward to identify key challenges and priorities for the future of the Children and Armed Conflict Agenda. The resulting report is to be presented to the General Assembly in October 2007, with the publication of more detailed analysis and findings to follow over the next year.

This Companion to the 10 year Machel Strategic Review compiles the views and recommendations of some 1,700 children and young people in 92 countries. Their thoughts and ideas were collected as a key contribution to the Review through a series of focus group discussions and an online questionnaire.

Focus group discussions were conducted by UNICEF, UNFPA and NGO partners in 18 countries, and involved approximately 1385 participants in 125 focus groups.The discussions were conducted in countries recently or currently affected by armed conflict. The online survey received 385 responses from a total of 92 different countries, a majority of which (78%) were from developing countries.

The focus group discussions included children and young people who have experienced conflict themselves, with many of the participants speaking about how their own lives have been affected. Facilitators tried to ensure a safe environment, to use the local language where appropriate and to create a certain ‘comfort participants despite the unique challenges in each country.

For example, participants in Rwanda requested to submit their answers in writing, as they felt talking about their experiences in a group setting would open up many wounds. A focus group discussion in Somalia was held through a radio show in which more than 140 children and young people called in to talk about their experiences.

The following pages present a wide range of voices, concerns and demands captured by these discussions and online surveys. For more details and background on the survey that lead to this companion report, please visit www.unicef.org/voy

This report was compiled and edited by Vidar Ekehaug from the Global Youth Action Network (GYAN) and Chernor Bah, Special Youth Fellow at UNFPA. Special thanks go to Mima Perisic, Naseem Awl and the Division of Communication from UNICEF, Cécile Mazzacurati and David Del Vecchio from UNFPA, Susan Nicolai from the

Machel Review Secretariat, Jenny Perlman Robinson from the Women’s Children, and all the GYAN team.

We are displaced children.

We are children who have been used by armed groups.

We are orphans.

We are street children.

We are girls who sell our bodies to survive.

We are children who have to work

We are children who can’t go to school.

We are children with disabilities.

We are children living with HIV.

We are detained children.

We are girls who have been raped.

We are children taking care of our brothers and sisters.

We are children without a childhood.

“We have all lost a part of our life, and it will never come back.” – Young man, 18, Burundi

We are from Afghanistan, Angola, Burundi, the Central African Republic, Colombia, Haiti, Iraq, Kosovo (Serbia), Liberia, Nepal, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the Philippines, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Uganda and many other countries.

We won’t tell you our names because it could be dangerous

We all have one thing in common: Our lives have been affected by armed conflict. That is why, even though we come from different places and our problems are not always the same, we speak with one voice.

We have not given up all hope yet. We still want to go to school and play with our friends. We want to help build peace in our societies and make this world a better place. We still have big dreams.

For some of us, getting together for the sake of this report gave us a rare opportunity to sit with our friends and share our stories. It has also been an opportunity to finally tell you what we feel and think.

But talking is not enough. Will we see any change after you meet to talk about us? Will you hear our voices and act on what we tell you?

We have tremendous energy and a strong will to fight for our futures. Many of us are already taking action. Will you join us?


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Children Behind Bars: Issue 31

	2007/07/18 Children Behind Bars: Issue 31 The Presumption of Innocence & The Burden of Proof A summary of the role of the detention and interrogation phase in the prosecution of Palestinian juveniles in the Israeli Military Courts During 2006 and the first half of 2007, almost all Palestinian children who were arrested by the Israeli occupying forces in the West Bank and then charged and prosecuted before the Israeli military courts, were sentenced to a term of imprisonment. Only 3 to 5% of these children were granted bail pending trial or sentence proceedings. In the same period, almost all Palestinian children pleaded guilty. A very small minority of approximately less than 1%, who pleaded not guilty, were all ultimately found guilty, convicted and sentenced. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 11(1) Everyone charged with a criminal offence shall have the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 14(2) Unconvicted prisoners are presumed to be innocent and shall be treated as such. UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, Rule 84(2) Almost all children who were prosecuted and sentenced in the Israeli Military Courts in 2006, confessed to the allegations against them during a lengthy period of interrogation, before their first Court appearance. I was arrested on the street near Rachel's Tomb by the Israeli Army. They claimed that I had been throwing stones and Molotov Cocktails. When they arrested me they severely beat me. They tried to pull down my pants. They sexually abused me. After that, they transferred me to Checkpoint 300 at the entrance to Bethlehem town. Then they transferred me in a private vehicle to the Russian Compound. They took photos of me and medically examined me because I suffered from an injury to the shoulder as a result of the beating. I was interrogated for stone throwing and Molotov cocktail. During the interrogation, they beat me and they hit my head against the wall. I asked the interrogator to call my family but he refused. The interrogation lasted continuously from my arrival at the Russian compound to midnight. Two interrogators interrogated me and they were speaking Arabic After the interrogation finished they asked me to sign papers. I did not understand what I was signing Name Withheld, Al Dheisha Refugee Camp, Bethlehem, Al Moscibiyya Interrogation Centre 14 March 2007. Israeli Military Courts, Laws and Procedure In the Israeli Military Courts, the main procedural rules and laws that apply to the prosecution of Palestinian children charged with alleged crimes against the security of the State of Israel, are contained in (1) Military Order 378, (2) Military Order 132 (3) the Israeli Criminal Procedure Law and (4) the Israeli Evidence Law (these latter two Laws also apply in the domestic Israeli criminal jurisdiction). Military Order 378 , the Order Concerning Security Directives and Military Order 132, the Order Pertaining to Juvenile Offenders are two of more than 2500 Military Orders issued since Israel's occupation of the Palestinian Territories in 1967, by the Israeli Army, to administer the occupation of the Palestinian territories. Together, these Military Orders form Israel's military system of governance over the Palestinian people in the occupied territories. Military Order 378 establishes the Israeli Military Court, defines the Court's jurisdiction and the offences that are to be prosecuted within it and outlines the procedure to be conducted when an accused is brought before the Court. Prosecutions in the Israeli Military Court, as in the regular Israeli criminal courts, are conducted within an adversarial system of justice. As such, the presumption of innocence of an accused and the prosecution's burden of proof should theoretically underlie the legal procedure. I was arrested at Huwwara checkpoint by the Israeli army. I was transferred to Ariel settlement where they beat me while I was blindfolded on my face. Afterwards I was transferred to Salem interrogation compound. I was beaten and position abused for 10 hours in the cold weather. During the interrogation, the interrogator asked me to sign papers in the Hebrew language. When I refused, he hit my head against the desk.Rashed Radwa , aged 16 years, Azoun Village near Qalqilya, Hasharon Prison April 2007 Under Military Order 378, when a Palestinian child or adult accused of an offence pleads not guilty in the military court, the following procedure is followed by the court in proceeding to and conducting a trial: Section 29: If the defendant pleads not guilty to the indictment, or the Court refuses to accept his confession to a charge, the Court will hear the military prosecutor and his witnesses, in addition to any other testimony it deems appropriate. Section 30: If the Court sees, at the conclusion of the prosecution's case, that the evidentiary material does not warrant the defendant responding to a certain charge, the court will acquit the defendant of the said charge. Section 31 (a) If the Court perceives at the conclusion of the prosecution case that the evidence presented against the defendant is prima facie sufficient to obligate him to respond to the charge, the Court will explain that he may testify as a witness for the defence…..and will ask him if he wishes to present testimony or call a witness in order to defend himself. The Court will hear the testimony of the defendant…and the testimonies of all the witnesses he will call. The Criminal Standard of Proof in the Israeli Military Courts According to section 30 and 31(a), the burden of proof in the Israeli Military Courts according to Military Order 378, is to establish a prima facie case. A prima facie case is a standard that falls short of the ordinary standard of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt, the standard of proof that applies to the prosecution of an accused in the regular Israeli criminal jurisdiction, as well as in other adversarial criminal justice systems around the word, including the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Australia. The criminal standard of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt is a much higher standard and a more difficult standard to establish. The reason that the standard of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt is applied in most adversarial criminal justice systems is because an accused faces harsh penalties and usually imprisonment. In these aforementioned criminal jurisdictions, the prima facie standard is usually only applied in bail determination hearings and preliminary procedural hearings prior to an accused being brought to trial. Where the prosecution must only present a prima facie case, the evidence presented to the Court need only be sufficient to prove the alleged facts against an accused. If the evidence is sufficient, then a jury or a judge would be entitled or justified to find either in favour or against the accused in a criminal trial. Before the verdict, the burden shifts to the accused who must, through evidence, rebut the prosecution's case. If the prosecution's case is not rebutted, a judge or a jury are entitled to find the accused guilty of the offence. Where a prosecutor must meet the standard of proof of beyond a reasonable doubt, the prosecutor must convince a judge or a jury of every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt, and the accused is not required to establish his or her innocence. In the Israeli Military Courts, lowering of the standard of evidentiary proof to prima facie case at the stage of the actual trial, undermines an accused's presumption of innocence and places a heavier burden on the accused and defence counsel. As part of a larger political policy on the part of the State of Israel, this is also enhanced by a lengthy and violent arrest and interrogation phase that a Palestinian child or adult accused has undergone prior to appearing in court. I was arrested on 24 May 2007 near Al Aroub College by Israeli soldiers. During the arrest, the soldiers beat me by boxing me with their hands. They beat me around my waist and shoulders and afterwards they put me in their jeep. During the transfer, they blindfolded and handcuffed me. They slapped me. The transfer lasted for half an hour until we reached Khirbit Sor and there I was beaten by their hands. One of the soldiers beat me in the middle of my back and he continuously asked me questions and when I didn't respond, he would beat me with his hands on my face. He continued to ask me questions for half an hour. I was then transferred to Atzion Detention Centre where I was interrogated for one hour and the interrogator showed me photographs of someone throwing stones and paint. At about sunset, they transferred me to a military place, I don't know where or the name of this place. I spent the whole night outside. Every soldier that passed by beat me and I did not sleep at all. I was interrogated in the Hebrew language and there was a soldier who translated for me. I signed papers but I don't know the content of the papers. They informed me that it contained my confession of stone throwing and the next day, they transferred me to Ofer Prison. We were 24 prisoners, children and adult in the tent. Muss'ab Abed Al Basset Abdullah Abu Rayah, 15 years of age, Al Aroub Camp, Ofer Prison 12 June 2007 Israeli Laws and Policy in the Interrogation Process Israeli Police, Israeli Army and Israeli Secret Service personnel conduct the arrest and interrogation of Palestinian children on a daily basis. The arrests and subsequent interrogations in detention centres operate in isolation of any transparent rules, procedure or laws giving Israeli military personnel wide powers during this phase. Certain provisions contained in Military Order 378 complement and legitimize these wide powers rather than provide checks and balances to the arrest and interrogation process. According to Section 78 of Military Order 378, a Palestinian child can be detained by an ordinary, low ranking Israeli soldier or police officer for 96 hours. Afterwards, a child can be held for interrogation for 8 days prior to be taken to Court through a formal detention order made by a higher ranking military official. A judge of the military court has the power to extend this period of detention for interrogation for a period of up to 90 days. A judge of the military court of appeals has the power to extend this 90 day period to a further period of up to 3 months. Military Order 378 also provides for the means to isolate an accused from the outside world, including from a lawyer, during the interrogation phase, by giving Israeli police officers, senior Israeli Army and Secret Service staff and Military Court Judges, broad and arbitrary discretion to limit an accused's right to communicate with a lawyer during the interrogation process:- Section 78 (a) A soldier may stop, with no detention order, any person violating the directives of the Order, or if there is room to suspect that he violated this order. Section78 (e1)(4) The detainee shall not meet with his attorney during the two days from the day of his detention. Section 78b (d) If a detainee is in interrogation proceedings or other actions related to the investigation, and a police inspector reasons that a break in the interrogation proceedings or actions is liable to thwart the investigation or disrupt the detention of additional suspects in the same manner,, it may order…that a meeting of the detainee with an attorney be delayed for a number of hours.." Section 78c ( c ) (1)The supervisor of interrogation may, in a written decision, order not to permit a meeting of the detainee with a lawyer for a period or periods which together will be no longer than 15 days from the date of detention, if he reasons this is necessary for reasons of security of the region or that the interrogation process necessitates it." Section 78c ( c ) (2) A permitting authority ( a chief superindent or higher of the Israeli police service, the Head of Interrogations Division of the General Security Services, or lieutenant colonel or higher in the IDF) may, in a written decision, order not to allow a meeting of the detainee with a lawyer for an additional period or additional periods together will be no longer than 15 days, if it is convinced that this is necessary for reasons of the security of the region or for the interrogation process." Section 78d(2) A jurist judge may authorise…..that a detainee will not meet with an attorney, if he is convinced that for reasons of security of the region or interrogation needs necessitates it…Section 78d(3)……….the authorization will be will for a period or periods which together will be no longer than 30 days……Section 78d(4) The president of the court or the duty president may extend the period for an additional period or periods which together will be no longer than 30 days, if the IDF commander of the region confirmed in writing that special reasons of the security of the region necessitate this. . A detained person shall be entitled to have the assistance of a legal counsel. He shall be informed of his right by the competent authority promptly after arrest and shall be provided with reasonable facilities for exercising it. UN Principles on Detention, Article 17 Governments shall further ensure that all persons arrested or detained, with or without criminal charge, shall have prompt access to a lawyer, and in any case not later than 48 hours from the time of arrest or detention. UN Principles on Lawyers, Article 7 A central aspect of the interrogation phase, is the use of particular forms of torture and ill treatment. Statements made by Palestinian children held in Israeli prisons, to Defence for Children International within this article, illustrate the varying types of methods used. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 7. Because the arrest and interrogation phase is conducted by Israeli military personnel, the actual methods of arrest and the interrogation process itself, cannot be challenged in the Military Court. Limitations on arrest and detention powers contained in the Israeli Arrest and Detention Law do not apply to the Israeli Military Courts, as it does for domestic Israeli Police and security officials in the regular Israeli criminal courts. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction. No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture. United Nations Convention Against Torture, Article 2 In this context, it is important to note that provisions in Military Order 378 that should mirror the Israeli Arrest and Detention Law do not exist. This serious and deliberate omission means that Judges in the Military Court do not ever have to consider whether or not the accused's rights at the time of arrest and interrogation were given effect and preserved. All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. Article 1, United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. I was arrested at home on 9/2/06 The Israeli army searched my home and beat me and humiliated me. They transferred me to Salem. During the trip I was handcuffed and my legs were tied. I was blindfolded as well. In the IC, I was beaten and position abused outdoors under the rain. I spent 40 days in the interrogation centre. Assem Lutfi Abdel Lattif Khalil, aged 16 years, Attil Village near Tulkarm, Hasharon Prison 7 March 2007 I was arrested by the Israeli Army and transferred to Huwwara where I stayed for two days and then to Petah Tikva Interrogation Centre. During interrogation they beat me, and the beating concentrated on my sexual parts. Sameh Said Moussa Safwan, Aged 15 years, Askar Camp in Nablus, Hasharon Prison 7 March 2007 The overall effect of this is the erosion and virtual depletion of a Palestinian accused's rights during the arrest and interrogation phase. A Palestinian child under arrest and during interrogation does not have the right to silence; the right to immediate and liberal access to a lawyer; the right to be advised of his or her rights while under arrest and interrogation; the right not to be assaulted, abused or tortured; the right to have contact with a family member or support person and; the right to be presumed innocent.  Confessions Ultimately, this makes it easier for an interrogator to illicit a confession from a child and also creates a judicial system that does not need to question the reliability and credibility of a confession and how it was obtained. While the right to object to a confession does exist in an Israeli Military Court under the Israeli Criminal Procedure and Evidence Laws, the burden of raising the objection and establishing grounds that a confession should not be read as evidence, rests with an accused and his counsel. The basis that must be established by the accused is that the confession is unreliable because the accused lost a level of consciousness or reached a certain irrational state of mind due to torture and ill treatment when the confession was made. For Palestinian children who naturally confess due to being threatened, beaten, and abused over a number of hours and days, this is impossible to establish. Furthermore, by virtue of the heavy reliance on confessional evidence, and the political context of the court, judges have a preference for the evidence of interrogators when challenges to a confession are made. I was arrested on 15 October 2006 by the Israeli ArmyThey searched me and threatened to beat me.After that I was transferred with security service car to Atzion Detention Centre and the trip took around half an hour. When I reached the Detention Centre, a doctor examined me and the interrogation started with me and lasted for 12 continuous hours.During the interrogation they threatened to beat me if I did not confess. They cursed me and my family members. They sexually abused me by touching certain parts of my body. The lawyer was prevented from visiting me during the interrogation period and I still suffered from psychological impact as a result of the interrogation and I was not transferred to the hospital to be treated. I was sentenced for 10 months.Name Withheld, aged 16 years, Surif Village near Hebron, Hasharon Prison 12 April 2007. Confessions comprise the bulk of evidence presented in cases in the Israeli military courts and are relied upon heavily by prosecutors and judges throughout the entire course of the prosecution of an accused, from the bail hearing, to the formal indictment to the trial and the sentence. In essence, by the time a Palestinian child is brought before the Israeli military court, the presumption of innocence, which did not apply during the interrogation phase, takes on a superficial meaning within the day to day sittings of the court. The confession, rather than any particular type of criminal justice, becomes the focus of the court proceedings and directs the outcome. Additionally, the confession, together with a lower criminal standard of proof, empowers the prosecution in the Israeli military court shifting the burden to the accused to choose between accepting the confession, or to contest it. For Palestinian children, the reality of choosing to contest a confession is to accept many more months in imprison awaiting for a trial that will in all probability result in a finding of guilt. Eventually, a Palestinian child who faces the Israeli military court surrenders to the prospect of a lengthy term of imprisonment, and agrees to accept the contents of the confession, innocent or not. I was arrested by Israeli soldiers at Kapsa Gate. They arrested two others with me. They handcuffed us and they asked us to sit on the floor. After a short period, the soldiers transferred us to the military checkpoint in Attour and during transferring us one of the soldiers hit me with his wireless CB radio on my head. I was interrogated and the interrogator hit my head against the desk. The interrogation lasted for two hours. After that I and the others were transferred to Maale Adumim Detention Centre and we stayed there until 5am. After that, we were transferred to Ofer Prison and now we are 21 prisoners, adults and children, in the tent. Ibrahim Mashhour Abdallah Far'oun, 16 years old., El Eziriyah Village near Jerusalem, Ofer Prison 12 June 2007.

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