|
Israel says the practice is necessary in cases of dangerous militants because airing the evidence would risk exposing its network of Palestinian informants. But critics say the system is open to abuse because it is not transparent. Peleg-Sryck, the attorney, said there are currently 309 administrative detainees in Israeli jails. A prison spokeswoman was unable to immediately verify that number. Israel's military justice system in the West Bank, set up after Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war, has come under scrutiny in unexpected quarters in recent weeks. A film examining the system, "The Law in These Parts," by Raanan Alexandrowicz was awarded the best international documentary by the Sundance Film Festival jury in Utah this year. Based on interviews with former military judges, it portrays the system as a tool to justify Israel's treatment of Palestinians. It showed how military judges, while supposed to be independent adjudicators, are faced with the problem of trying suspects considered their enemies. About 95 percent of Palestinian suspects in 2010 were convicted of at least one charge against them, according to a military court report. Administrative detention prisoners represent a tiny fraction of the estimated 4,200 Palestinians held by Israel. At any given moment, there are thousands of Palestinians in Israeli jails, doing time for charges ranging from throwing stones at Israeli soldiers to killing Israeli civilians. Palestinian society venerates the prisoners, overlooking their crimes and viewing them as freedom fighters. The second-longest hunger strike in Palestinian history was by a woman who refused food for 43 days before she was released in 1997. The late Mohandas K. Gandhi popularized the hunger strike as a protest tool during the Indian independence movement in the 1940s. Another famous case was that of Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army activist who along with nine other inmates starved to death in a 1981 hunger strike in a British prison. In recent years, dissidents in Venezuela and Cuba have died of hunger strikes.
[Associated
Press;
Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah contributed to this report.
Follow Hadid at http://twitter.com/diaahadid.
Follow Estrin at http://twitter.com/danielestrin.
Copyright 2012 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
News | Sports | Business | Rural Review | Teaching & Learning | Home and Family | Tourism | Obituaries
Community |
Perspectives
|
Law & Courts |
Leisure Time
|
Spiritual Life |
Health & Fitness |
Teen Scene
Calendar
|
Letters to the Editor