-
Date: 19/10/2023
The Palestinian Coalition Against Torture expresses
its grave concern and condemns the escalation of arrests in the West Bank and
Jerusalem, which took more arbitrary forms on the 7th of October. To
date, the occupation forces have arrested more than 850 Palestinians, including
liberated prisoners, women, children, journalists, and members of the
legislative council. From the first moments of the arrest, prisoners and their
relatives suffer from ill-treatment, systematic torture, and retaliatory
violence that touches the prisoner’s dignity and integrity. Most of them have
an unknown future, especially workers from Gaza in the West Bank or occupied
territories from 1948, which contradicts the Geneva Convention, international
humanitarian law, human rights law and other international norms that prohibit
attack on one’s life or dignity, cruel treatment, and torture. The disclosure
of their names, places of detention, charges against them, as well as properly
treating them and adhering to human rights standards are among principles of
human rights and other international norms.
The Palestinian Coalition against Torture holds the
occupation and its supporters and those silent on its practices full
responsibility for the lives of these prisoners, and calls upon international
institutions advocating for their just cause and defending human rights to
conduct their duties to stop these human rights violations and to use all legal
means to defend them, and expose the violations of the occupation concerning
the Palestinian people in occupied territories, the West Bank, East Jerusalem,
and the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Coalition against Torture calls on the
International Committee of the Red Cross to assume their responsibility, and to
work on visiting different detention centers to identify the number and names
of detainees, as well as learn about the conditions of their detention and to
inform their families of their situation, and to ask for a committee to visit
Israeli prisons to assess the situation of prisoners in light of the recent
attack against them from occupation forces.
Al-Haq Organization Addameer
Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association
Treatment and Rehabilitation Center (TRC) Center for Defence of Liberties and
Civil Rights
Istiqlal
Center Gaza Community
Mental Health Programme
Human
Rights and Democracy Media Center Jerusalem Legal Aid and Human Rights Center
Independent Commission for Human Rights (observing
member)
