L’indignité d’une armée de tortionnaires

================================================

Name: Yahia A.
Date of Arrest: 5 August 2010
Age at arrest: 15
Accusation: Throwing stones

On 5 August 2010, a 15-year-old boy from Azzun, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, is arrested with three other children outside his village near a road used by Israeli settlers. Yahia is subsequently accused of throwing stones and reports being given electric shocks during an interrogation in Ari’el settlement.

„It was around midday and I was hanging out with three friends from the village near the main road between Qalqiliya and Nablus,‟ recalls Yahia. „While we were standing there an Israeli military jeep drove by and I waved at it for fun.‟ Far from being amused, the soldiers started chasing the four boys who eventually stopped running when they saw two more jeeps approaching.

Once cornered, the boys were loaded into the jeeps and taken to the nearby settlement of Zufin, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

On arrival at the settlement the boys were pulled out of the jeeps and Yahia was kicked by one of the soldiers „for no reason,‟ he says. The boys’ hands were then tied behind their backs and they were blindfolded before being forced to sit on the ground for several hours.

„While we were sitting there,‟ recalls Yahia, „one of the soldiers started insulting me, saying: “Your mother‟s a c**t.” I asked him to stop insulting me but he started beating me instead.‟

Whilst at the settlement, Yahia was taken to a clinic to see a doctor. On entering the clinic, Yahia’s blindfold was removed but he remained tied. „The doctor didn‟t examine me at all,‟ recalls Yahia, „he just asked me general questions about my health and filled in a questionnaire.‟

Yahia remembers being slapped some more and struck in the stomach several times with what he believes was an assault rifle.

After about two-and-half hours at the settlement, the boys were loaded into a truck and transported to a police station inside another Israeli settlement. On arrival at the police station inside Ari’el settlement, the boys were interrogated, one-by-one.

„When it was my turn,‟ recalls Yahia, „they removed the blindfold but kept my hands tied.‟ The interrogator, who spoke Arabic, accused Yahia of throwing stones, something he denied.

A second interrogator then entered the room and said: „You have to confess or otherwise we will make you.‟ The second interrogator spoke to Yahia in Hebrew, which was then translated into Arabic by the first interrogator. Yahia again denied throwing stones at which point the second interrogator grabbed the boy’s head and slammed it against the wall, slapped him twice across the face and then left the room.

A short time later, the second interrogator returned „holding a small electric shock device. He placed the device on my body for like a second and I felt a great powerful shock and my body started shivering. “If you don‟t confess,”‟ said the interrogator, ‘“I‟ll keep shocking you.” I didn‟t confess,‟ says Yahia, „so he shocked me again for a longer time and I started shivering. I couldn‟t feel my arms or legs and I felt extreme pain in my head. I felt I was going to be paralysed, so I decided to confess.‟

After interrogation the four boys were held for seven days in the West Bank, before being transferred to Megiddo Prison, inside Israel, in contravention of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The four boys are still in detention and await military court trials on charges of stone throwing.

This is the first time DCI-Palestine has documented a case where children report being given electric shocks during interrogation.

The UN Convention Against Torture prohibits all forms of torture in all circumstances, without exception. The State of Israel ratified the Convention in 1991, and is bound by its terms.

26 October 2010