Rights group urges UN Special Rapporteur to pressure ‘Israel’ to release Palestinian administrative detainees

London (QNN)- The London-based human rights organisation, Law for Palestine, urged UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in OPT since 1967, Michael Lynk, to pressure ‘Israel’ to “immediately” release Palestinian administrative detainees who “are illegally detained.”

In a letter sent to the UN Special Rapporteur last week, the organisation called on the Special Rapporteur to urgently seek to stop administrative detention policies and immediately intervene; to exert pressure on ‘Israel’ to release Palestinian administrative detainees who are illegally detained.

Besides calling on the United Nations and its agencies to intensify their work to take note of this issue, and draw international attention to bring real and effective changes to Israel’s administrative detention policy.

“An intensive work with the other UN instruments to bring up the topic to the attention of HRC member states is needed, in order to put pressure on Israel, leading to a real change in the whole policy of administrative detention,” the letter read.

This came in light of the fact that nearly 500 Palestinian administrative detainees in all Israeli prisons have been boycotting all levels of Israeli military courts since the beginning of this year in protest against their administrative detention without charges or trials by the Israeli occupation authorities.

Under the banner, “Our decision is freedom … no to administrative detention,” administrative detainees said in a statement their move comes as a continuation of longstanding Palestinian efforts “to put an end to the unjust administrative detention practiced against our people by the occupation forces”.

They also noted that Israel’s use of the policy has expanded in recent years to include women, children and elderly people.

“Israeli military courts are an important aspect for the occupation in its system of oppression,” the detainees said, describing the courts as a “barbaric, racist tool that has consumed hundreds of years from the lives of our people under the banner of administrative detention, through nominal and fictitious courts – the results of which are predetermined by the military commander of the region”.

The boycott includes boycotting the first instance courts, the courts of appeal, and the Supreme Court of Israel, including refusing to appear in courts, not to mention appointing lawyers or legal representatives to plead for them; in protest against the Israeli judicial system, which the detainees considered to be “nothing but a facade to cover up the Israeli crimes against them.”

Among the 500 administrative detainees are 3 minors and a female.

Since March 2002, the number of Palestinians in administrative detention has never fallen below 100.

According to the Palestinian prisoner advocacy groups, there are now 4,600 Palestinians held in Israeli occupation jails, including 34 women, 160 minors, and 500 administrative detainees held without charge or trial.

The groups said in a recently-issued report that during the year of 2021, ‘Israel’ issued 1,595 administrative detention orders against the Palestinians while 1,114 administrative detention orders were issued in 2020.

The director of the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, attorney Sahar Francis, said that “the authorities of the occupation are not honoring the limitations that international law has set on imposing administrative detentions and they are being done arbitrarily, something that is a war crime according to the occupation laws.”

According to Francis, the decision to boycott the legal system was made after many efforts were made to battle the administrative detention policy, including hunger strikes led by a few prisoners in recent months.

The Head of the Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, Qadri Abu Baker, also confirmed the importance of supporting the administrative detainees in their struggle, represented in boycotting the military courts of the occupation.

He also stated that the policy of administrative detention has been practiced increasingly against Palestinians, where it depends on Mock trials and based on “confidential files” without taking into consideration the standards of fair trials, and the detainee and his lawyer are prevented from knowing the cause of detention.

This escalation by the Palestinian administrative detainees came after dozens of individual hunger strikes over the past years; in protest against their administrative detention, Law for Palestine noted, adding that many detainees reached critical stages and were transferred to hospitals for long periods.

The results of these strikes often led to individual solutions rather than collective changes, and are not impacting the policy as a policy.