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Marwan Barghouti was
arrested in Ramallah by the Israeli army on April 13, and taken to
the interrogation and detention center at the Russian Compound “Moscowbiya”.
Human Rights lawyers who visited Barghouti reported that he suffers
from pain in his back
and hands, caused by position abuse.
His hands and legs are shackled to a small chair, angled to slant
forward so that he can’t sit
in a stable position. This position abuse; also know, as ‘shabeh’ is
the most common
method of physical abuse applied by the Israeli General Security
Service (IGSS).
Barghouti is held in solitary confined and deprived of sleep for
twenty hours a day. Sleep
deprivation is a common tactic used by IGSS, it undermines a
detainee’s concentration
and self-control.
The dominant interrogation method is a coordinated, rigid and
increasingly painful regime
of physical constraints and psychological pressure applied over
several days, and often for
weeks at a time. The chief method included prolonged sleep
deprivation, the use of
blindfolds or tight-fitting hoods, shackling or otherwise forcing
detainees in body positions
that grow increasingly painful, prolonged toilet and hygiene
deprivation, and verbal threat
and insults. Adding that sometimes they can’t eat because the food
is denied as well as
water and permission to use the toilet. Despite the cold nights,
many detainees are
sleeping on cold slabs and most spent the first night without being
provided with a blanquet.
Many detainees are also beaten during rounds of questioning. These
abuses are practiced
systematically and with impunity.
Barghouti’s interrogaters have threatened him by saying that his son
is held in detention in
Ashkelon and that they are going to kill him They have also
threatened him with unspecified
abuses by saying that they will use a ‘ new strategy’ and that they
will kill him politically and
physically. They also told him that there was a decision from the
Prime Minister that he has
to confess. They also told him that they will put more pressure on
him and that they will
make him appear as a terrorist.
Barghouti for course is not the only Palestinian who is in prison
because he defends his
country and because he stands against Israel’s military occupation.
Of course he is not the
only Palestinian who is detained and ill treated by Israel.
In the past few months since the Intifada started thousands of
Palestinian men are boys
were detained by Israeli army. They have been taken to detention
centers both inside and
outside the occupied Palestinian territories. These detention
centers do not even meet the
minimum standards of treatment, presenting a real threat to the
lives of detainees.
At least five thousands Palestinians have been arrested since March
29.
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