On 1st March 2016 activists from Inminds highlighted the British security company G4S's complicity in the torture of children in Palestine by a projection on the walls of the Palace of Westminister, the seat of the British Parliament.
The British security firm G4S is the worlds largest private security contractor. It has been contracted by the Israeli prison service to secure many of its prisons and interrogation centres where Palestinian political prisoners including women and children and caged and tortured. Figures for August 2015 show that 61% of all Palestinian political prisoners are caged in G4S secured prisons, this includes 100% of all the children Israel is caging and torturing.
The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child’s damming report on Israel from 4 July 2013 states that "an average of two [Palestinian] children per day" are "arrested, interrogated and detained" by the Israeli army, that the children are "systematically subject to degrading treatment, and often to acts of torture.. physical and verbal violence, humiliation, painful restraints, hooding of the head and face in a sack, threatened with death, physical violence, and sexual assault against themselves or members of their family, restricted access to toilet, food and water. These crimes are perpetrated from the time of arrest, during transfer and interrogation, to obtain a confession but also on an arbitrary basis as testified by several Israeli soldiers as well as during pretrial detention.. Many Palestinian child detainees are transferred out of the OPT and serve their detention and sentences inside Israel in breach of article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention".
A legal study conducted by the Diakonia International Humanitarian Law Resource Centre found that G4S has “failed to demonstrate a genuine commitment to comply with international law in good faith” and is complicit in several of Israel’s violations of international law. Similarly a 2012 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 criticises G4S for its complicity with Israeli violations of international law.
40% of the 600 children that were taken from Jerusalem alone, were sexually abused by Israeli soldiers during arrest or interrogation. During interrogation 75% of Palestinian children detained by Israel are physically tortured.
G4S provides the security systems which keep these torture dens operational. Prisoners who have survived these hell holes recall seeing G4S logos on the cameras that witnessed their abuse.
Al-Jalame: Israel's G4S Secured Childrens Dungeon
One of the facilities G4S secures for Israel is the notorious Al Jalame interrogation centre in northern Israel where Palestinian children as young as 12 years old are caged three floors below the surface in tiny children's cells - filthy dark holes in the ground where a child is locked up without charge or trial in solitary confinement for up to 65 days in order to break them. Their only escape is the interrogation room where the children, shackled by hands and feet, are abused and tortured by the Israeli secret police for over 6 hours at a time, until they confess to trumped up charges, usually of throwing a stone which carries a penalty of up to 20 years! Details of Al Jalame prison emerged from the testimonies of the children as reported by the Guardian newspaper in January 2012 and documented by Defence for children International and the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem:
The cell is 2m long by 1 m wide, it's as big as a mattress without the toilet - you put down the mattress and in front is a hole in the ground toilet - the stench from which has no escape.. there is no window, the air chokes you.
The light is kept on 24 hours a day to inhibit sleep. The walls have sharp protrusions to prevent you from leaning against them for support.
The delivery of food is through a locked flap in the door. It's the only way to mark time - dividing day from night by the arrival of food. The breakfast tray is dropped through the flap at 4am - if you dont catch the tray the food will spill on the floor and you will be punished.
The room is barely wider than the filthy 5cm thin mattress that covers the floor, many cells have no mattress.
For interrogation you are dragged upstairs. On the ground is an iron ring, the interrogator puts your cuffs through it with your hands locked on either side. he cuffs your ankles to the chair legs.. you cannot move.. like a statue. The sessions can last more than 6 hours. At some facilities children have been sexually assaulted by interrogators and threatened with sodomy with an object if they didnt confess. Sisters and mothers have been threatened with rape in order to coerce confessions from boys.
G4S provides the entire security systems for Al Jalame, without G4S Al Jalame couldn't operate.
Messages from parents of children who are caged in G4S secured Israeli prisons
"I am the father of the child prisoner Muhammed Mehdi Suleiman..
They stole from my son, Mohammed - 16 years old - his childhood and innocence, and they put him in their prisons, where they use all of the methods of humiliation and insult..
These prisons, which contains the most sophisticated systems, violate the dignity of our heroic prisoners, they interrogate them and torture them..
Their security systems and equipments are provided by 'G4S' organisation.. So G4S is a partner in all inhuman practices and violations of international laws. We ask all free people to disrupt this organisation and stop it from supplying the occupation with what it needs to torture our children."
"I am the mother of Ali Shamlawi who was abducted by the Israeli army about 27 months ago. He did not exceed 16 years of age when they took him, falsely accusing him of throwing stones. He was taken to Al Jalame interrogation centre, there he was subjected to the ugliest forms of torture and humiliation during the long hours of interrogation without a lawyer. He was deprived of food and drink and they did not let him to use the bathroom. For 21 days they tortured and threatened him, and caged him in a narrow and dirty cell in Al Jalame..
Israel commits the most heinous crimes against our children in prisons, assisted by the company G4S. I call upon G4S, in the name of humanity to stop helping Israel committing crimes against our children. They must know that our children are human beings and deserve to live in dignity and freedom, like all the other children in the world..."
Source: www.inminds.com
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen