Center for the Defence of the Individual - Withholding detainee information: the security forces continue to do what they will and violate the basic rights of OPT residents
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חזרה לעמוד הקודם
20.09.2011

Withholding detainee information: the security forces continue to do what they will and violate the basic rights of OPT residents

The right to receive notification of a person’s detention and whereabouts is a fundamental right of both the detainee and his family. Registration in the holding place is crucial for upholding the detainee's rights. Since its inception, HaMoked has been tracing the whereabouts of detainees and informing their families without delay. HaMoked submits its inquiries to the military Incarceration Control Center, whose role is to compile all detention data and whereabouts from the incarcerating authorities – the military, the Israel Prison Service, the Israel Security Service and the Israel Police.

On the night of July 11, 2011, at a checkpoint, the military detained a young man from Ramallah.  His family sought HaMoked's assistance in tracing him. The Incarceration Control Center, which HaMoked contacted, did not trace the detainee, whose whereabouts were not recorded in any military data system. On being contacted, the Humanitarian Affairs Coordination Center (HACC) of the civil administration informed HaMoked that "security reasons" prevent it from supplying information on the detainee's whereabouts. Only when HaMoked appealed to the military legal advisor for the West Bank, was it disclosed that the detainee had been transferred to the Ofer Prison for an interrogation by the Israel Security Service, and that it would be possible to meet with him on the following day, at "the Russian Compound" detention facility in Jerusalem.  

A similar event occurred that same month. A young man from Tulkarem was detained by the military and held without record, untraceable through the Incarceration Control Center, with all information about him withheld "for security reasons" by the HACC. Again, it was only after HaMoked sent another urgent appeal to the West Bank legal advisor, that his whereabouts were communicated, via HaMoked, to his family.  

HaMoked sent a complaint to the head of the civil administration an the West Bank legal advisor, recalling that the security forces' obligation to notify of a person's detention and whereabouts is well established in the military law of the OPT and in the rulings of the Supreme Court.  

In response, the civil administration stated the information had been withheld at the behest of officials (!), stating that "this procedure has been terminated" and information would be delivered in a regular manner as of that date. 

HaMokes seeks to recall that the military is strictly obligated to adhere to the military law of the OPT and the courts' decisions. The construction of regulations outside these bounds is both forbidden and harmful to human rights in the OPT.

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