US State Department Human Rights Report (2015)
[15 April 2016] – On 14 April the US State Department released its annual global report
on human rights for 2015. The report includes sections on
Israel/Palestine and as in previous years, the State Department has
considered the treatment of minors detained by the Israeli military and
prosecuted in military courts.
After referring to UNICEF's 2013 report - Children in Israeli Military Detention
- and the UN agency's finding that the "mistreatment of Palestinian
children in the Israeli military detention system appears to be
widespread, systematic, and institutionalized,” the State Department
noted that reports of mistreatment continued in 2015. These reports
included:
· 90 per cent of minors reported being hand-tied;
· 81 per cent of minors reported being blindfolded;
· 61 per cent of minors reported being subjected to physical abuse; and
· 96 per cent of minors reported being denied access to a lawyer prior to questioning.
For the first time the State
Department also referred to reports that Israeli forces were conducting
night raids in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in a "widespread and
systematic manner" and noted that they almost universally led to "a
sense of fear and terror" among residents, especially children.
As in previous years, the State
Department noted that Israeli authorities continue to apply two distinct
legal systems in the West Bank, one military and one civilian,
depending on whether the individual is Palestinian or an Israeli
settler. For Palestinians prosecuted in the military court system, the
State Department noted that the conviction rate remains above 99 per
cent.
The State Department noted that the
military authorities continued to use confessions signed by Palestinian
minors, written in Hebrew, a language most could not read, as evidence
against them in military courts and that these confessions were
reportedly frequently coerced.
Finally, the State Department noted
that Israeli authorities "frequently transferred detainees from the West
Bank to Israel for detention and interrogation." It should be noted
that the transfer and detention of Palestinian detainees from the West
Bank is classified as a war crime under Articles 76 and 147
of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which both Israel and the US are
State parties. These transfers currently affect more than 7,000 men,
women and children each year under an Israeli government policy
established in 1967.
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