Axis of Logic, July 5, 2008 |
Human Rights organizations around the world marked today (Thursday) the ‘International Day of Identification with victims of torture’, which was created by the UN ten years ago. In Israel, the Israeli Committee against torture held a conference in Tel Aviv, attended by writers, academics and also soldiers who had witnessed the torture of prisoners, in which it presented a new report about torture in Israel.
The report presented at the conference painted a particularly grim picture of the situation in Israel. It reveals that IDF soldiers of varying ranks routinely abuse Palestinians from the moment of their detention until the time of their interrogation by the security forces. The abuse takes the form of beating prisoners, minors too, humiliating and cursing them. Furthermore, the writers of the report determined that the higher ranks of the IDF, the Ministry of Defense and the Law Enforcement system almost entirely disregard this phenomenon.
Among the participants of the conference held this evening by the Israeli committee against torture was Itzhak Ben Mocha, a former fighter with the paratroopers, who participated in arrests made in the Territories and observed abuse and torture of Palestinian prisoners. “I participated in many arrests during the course of my service” told Ben Mocha, “and there were always little abuses in the background: hits on the head, pushes. Abuses are not unusual”, he added. “They are always committed when the prisoners are tied and their eyes covered, although they present no danger to anyone.”
Ben Mocha said that on every trip he always had to sit between the prisoner and the soldiers to protect him with his body. “One time we were sent to perform an arrest in Nablus”, he stated. “After the arrest, before the trip, we got into the vehicle and took a nap. Suddenly we were awoken by a loud noise and when we got out we saw the prisoner lying on the ground and bleeding from the head. It turns out that two of the soldiers tied him up, covered his eyes, took a picture with him and then kicked him hard in the head. That was the noise that woke us up. These things occurred in the paratroopers, an elite troop. If it occurs there, it clearly occurs everywhere”, he concluded.
“They treated me like an animal”
Raami Mofid Jumaa, a Palestinian from the West Bank who was arrested in the past by the IDF and experienced a range of abuses could not participate in the conference, as the army did not allow him to get there. However his filmed testimony was shown.
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