軍事大国イスラエルが「子供を虐待（または拷問）」など背負い切れない国際民衆情報

送信日時 :2001年 8月 13日 月曜日 8:12 AM

件名 :[pmn 15877] 背負い切れない国際民衆情報「子供虐待」軍事大国

　民衆のメディア連絡会の新体制移行に関しては、様々な思惑が乱れ飛ぶ状況と見受けます。市民運動にすらよくある組織権力闘争に堕落しないこいことを祈ります。

　私は、今から9年前の発足にも関わりましたが、気の若さでは誰にも引けを取らないと自負しており、冗談でも「老害」などと言われるのは嫌なので、事務局会議には参加しないことにしました。最近は一部有志の要望も受けて、当面、電子手紙広場でのメディアとは直接関係のない動員合戦や不毛な論争には介入せず、情報提供に徹することにしました。

　湾岸戦争の報道批判に始まる民衆のメディア連絡会の発足の経過から言うと、国際情報の裏側の探究は最も重要なことだと思うのですが、なかなか訳出の時間すら取れない状況が続いています。

　民衆のメディアの運動の湾岸戦争報道との関わりでは欠くことのできないアメリカの元司法長官、ラムゼイ・クラークが代表の国際行動センターの関係者が、「イスラエルが子供を虐待（または拷問）している」という主旨のエジプト週刊新聞の記事を転送してきました。胸が塞がる想いです。このような、とても一人では背負い切れない国際民衆情報が溢れているので、以下、英文のまま送ります。なお、差出人の個人情報だけは削除します。

宛先 : iacenter
送信日時 : 2001年 8月 9日 木曜日 4:28 AM
件名 : Fwd: Israel tortures Palestinian children

In a message dated 8/8/01 3:48:08 AM !!!First Boot!!!, :
Israel tortures Palestinian children
Date: 8/8/01 3:48:08 AM !!!First Boot!!!

~~~ forwarded message ~~~

Source: http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/544/re3.htm

Al-Ahram Weekly Online 26 July - 1 August 2001 Issue No.544

Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875

Israel tortures Palestinian children

Two human rights reports reveal horrifying details about Israel's practice of torturing Palestinian children, Rasha Saad reports Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups are alarmed by the horrifying experience of more than 140 Palestinian children who have been detained and tortured by Israeli security bodies since the beginning of the Intifada.

Fourteen-year-old Palestinian girl Sanaa' Amer saw the many faces of injustice when she was detained, tortured and sentenced to 12 month's imprisonment for a crime she did not commit. Amer, along with her sister Abir, were accused of carrying a knife with the intent to stab an Israeli settler at the West Bank town of Hebron. However, as Amer recalls the events of her arrest:

"I was standing away from my sister at the end of the street. Suddenly she went towards a settler and the soldiers arrested her. I was talking to a journalist about what happened and a soldier came and grabbed my arm and took me to a military jeep. He hit me on my cheek with a strong blow, so strong that my ear hurt for a week."

And this was just the beginning of Amer's suffering. An international, Geneva-based human rights group, Defence For Children International/Palestine section (DCI/PS), expressed grave concern about Amer's case in a statement issued last week. DCI/PS said the sentence passed against her on 12 July by an Israeli military court was "shocking as it did not take into account her age or the fact that she did not carry out any violent act whatsoever."

The group noted the sharp contrast between the sentence meted out to Amer and that passed on 37-year-old Nahum Korman, an Israeli settler, who received six months of community service last year for the brutal slaying of 11-year-old Palestinian boy Hilmi Shawasheh in 1996. Korman was originally acquitted by an Israeli court, but prosecutors sought a retrial because the sentence was "mild." DCI/PS also expressed grave concern over Amer's detention conditions following her arrest on 20 February 2001.

According to the statement, Amer was detained in Ramle prison, where she has been subjected to severe human rights abuses including beating and harassment by prison staff. Amer was detained along with nine other female Palestinian political detainees, seven adults and two children, who suffered the same maltreatment.

During a riot by prisoners in early June to protest the inhumane detention conditions, Amer was beaten with sticks on her arms and legs. Her arms were tied behind her back and she was kicked by Israeli soldiers in her stomach, inducing her to cough up blood. As of 12 July, Amer had received no medical treatment and suffered pain whenever she ate or drank.

Amer's case, although shocking, is only one of many cases which have brought to light the plight of Palestinian minors in Israeli jails, and Israeli violations of international law concerning the treatment of juvenile Palestinian detainees.

According to Palestinian sources, more than 140 Palestinian minors have been detained and tortured in Israeli prisons on suspicion of throwing stones since the Intifada began. An Israeli human rights group, B'Tselem, issued a statement on 15 July exposing the systematic torture and abuse of Palestinian minors detained at the police station in Gush Etzion, near the West Bank town of Bethlehem.

The report stated that these practices were commonly carried out there by police officers. In most cases, police arrested Palestinian children in their homes in the middle of the night and took them to the police station in Gush Etzion, where police interrogators tortured them until the morning to obtain confessions and information about other minors.

Methods of torture described in the report included forcing the juvenile detainees to stand in painful positions for prolonged periods; beating them severely for hours at a time with various objects; splashing cold water on the detainees in the facility's courtyard in wintry conditions; pushing their heads into the toilet bowl and flushing the toilet; making death threats and cursing and degrading them. The report also included first-hand testimonies of 10 boys, aged 14 to 17, who have experienced these horrors. More than one policeman was involved in the torture of 14-year-old minor Mohamed Sabatin.

As Sabatin recalls, "A strong, dark-skinned man of average height ... beat me with great force, kicked me for about five minutes, and put me in a room where four policemen were seated. Two of the policemen bound my hands and feet, blindfolded me, and took me into a room which I couldn't see. The four of them took turns beating me for about four hours. They struck me with a mop stick, kicked me all over my body, and swore at me in filthy language."

The fortune of 15-year-old Sultan Mahdi was no better. His hands and feet were tied to a chair. When Mahdi denied throwing stones at army vehicles on the main road, he was taken to the bathroom near the interrogation room. "One of the interrogators grabbed me by the hair and put my head in the toilet. I was frightened. When they took me back to the interrogation room, I decided to confess.

I told them that I threw five stones at a settler's vehicle. They wrote up a detailed testimony and forced me to sign it," he said. Another victim, 17-year-old Isma'il Sabatin, was left hanging in the air with his legs up and his head down.

"They removed the chair from under me and left me hanging in the air, with my handcuffed hands holding onto the pipe and the weight of my body hanging in the air, drawing my hands downwards," he said. Sixteen-year-old Ibrahim Za'ul was ready to make a false confession to save a friend from torture.

"They brought me to a room," he said. "Inside was an officer who identified himself as 'Ayub'. He said he was a merciless person and was ready to kill me if I didn't tell him the name of the youths who threw stones. Another guy opened the door and said in Arabic that Ahmed A'ref Sabatin had died during interrogation.

The officer turned to me and said, 'What are we going to do with the body of Ahmed? Do you want to change places with Ahmed?' I was blindfolded. The interrogator said he was going to electrocute me and that I would die like Ahmed. I felt the sensation of two iron wires being stuck on me, but nothing happened. I was taken to the room where Ahmed Sabatin was. The interrogators began to beat him right in front of me. Ahmed began to cry and scream at the top of his voice. I asked them to stop because Ahmed did not throw stones, and I told them that I was ready to confess that I threw stones."

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