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54790
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: UN: All weapons exports to Israel must immediately end
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States and companies must end arms transfers to Israel immediately or risk responsibility for human rights violations: UN experts 20 June 2024 Share RELATED NEWS Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Concludes that Israeli Authorities and Hamas Are Both Responsible for War Crimes PRESS RELEASES UN report: Israeli use of heavy bombs in Gaza raises serious concerns under the laws of war PRESS RELEASES UN experts condemn outrageous disregard for Palestinian civilians during Israel’s military operation in Nuseirat GENEVA (20 June 2024) – The transfer of weapons and ammunition to Israel may constitute serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian laws and risk State complicity in international crimes, possibly including genocide, UN experts said today, reiterating their demand to stop transfers immediately. In line with recent calls from the Human Rights Council and the independent UN experts to States to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel, arms manufacturers supplying Israel – including BAE Systems, Boeing, Caterpillar, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh, Rheinmetall AG, Rolls-Royce Power Systems, RTX, and ThyssenKrupp – should also end transfers, even if they are executed under existing export licenses. “These companies, by sending weapons, parts, components, and ammunition to Israeli forces, risk being complicit in serious violations of international human rights and international humanitarian laws,” the experts said. This risk is heightened by the recent decision from the International Court of Justice ordering Israel to immediately halt its military offensive in Rafah, having recognised genocide as a plausible risk, as well as the request filed by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court seeking arrest warrants for Israeli leaders on allegations of war crimes and crimes against humanity. “In this context, continuing arms transfers to Israel may be seen as knowingly providing assistance for operations that contravene international human rights and international humanitarian laws and may result in profit from such assistance.” An end to transfers must include indirect transfers through intermediary countries that could ultimately be used by Israeli forces, particularly in the ongoing attacks on Gaza. The UN experts said that arms companies must systematically and periodically conduct enhanced human rights due diligence to ensure that their products are not used in ways that violate international human rights and international humanitarian laws. Financial institutions investing in these arms companies are also called to account. Investors such as Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach-Stiftung, Amundi Asset Management, Bank of America, BlackRock, Capital Group, Causeway Capital Management, Citigroup, Fidelity Management & Research, INVESCO Ltd, JP Morgan Chase, Harris Associates, Morgan Stanley, Norges Bank Investment Management, Newport Group, Raven'swing Asset Management, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance, State Street Corporation, Union Investment Privatfonds, The Vanguard Group, Wellington and Wells Fargo & Company, are urged to take action. Failure to prevent or mitigate their business relationships with these arms manufacturers transferring arms to Israel could move from being directly linked to human rights abuses to contributing to them, with repercussions for complicity in potential atrocity crimes, the experts said. “Arms initiate, sustain, exacerbate, and prolong armed conflicts, as well as other forms of oppression, hence the availability of arms is an essential precondition for the commission of war crimes and violations of human rights, including by private armament companies,” said the experts. They said the ongoing Israeli military assault is characterised by indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on the civilian population and infrastructure, including through extensive use of explosive and incendiary weapons in densely populated areas, as well as in the destruction and damage of essential and life-sustaining essential civilian infrastructure, including housing and shelters, health, education, water and sanitation facilities. These attacks have resulted in more than 37,000 deaths in Gaza and 84,000 injured. Of these deaths and injuries, an estimated 70 per cent are women and children. Today, children in Gaza are the largest group of amputee children in the world due to grave injuries sustained in the war. These operations have also resulted in severe environmental and climate damages. “The imperative for an arms embargo on Israel and for investors to take decisive action is more urgent than ever, particularly in light of states' obligations and companies' responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, the international human rights treaties, and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” the UN experts said. The experts paid tribute to the sustained work of journalists who have been documenting and reporting on the devastating impact of these weapons systems on civilians in Gaza, and human rights defenders and lawyers, among other stakeholders, who are dedicated to holding States and companies accountable for the transfer of weapons to Israel. They have also engaged with States, as well as the involved businesses and investors on these issues. The experts: Robert McCorquodale (Chair), Fernanda Hopenhaym (Vice- Chair), Pichamon Yeophantong, Damilola Olawuyi, Elzbieta Karska, Working Group on business and human rights; George Katrougalos, Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order; Pedro Arrojo-Agudo, Special Rapporteur on the human rights to safe drinking water and sanitation; Reem Alsalem, Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences; Paula Gaviria Betancur, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons; Tlaleng Mofokeng, Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health; Michael Fakhri, Special Rapporteur on the right to food; Morris Tidball-Binz, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions; Mary Lawlor, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Cecilia M Bailliet, Independent Expert on human rights and international solidarity; Ms. Margaret Satterthwaite, Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers; Farida Shaheed, Special Rapporteur on the right to education; Carlos Salazar Couto (Chair-Rapporteur), Michelle Small, Ravindran Daniel, Jovana Jezdimirovic Ranito, Sorcha MacLeod, Working Group on the use of mercenaries; Francesca Albanese, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967; Ben Saul, Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism; Dorothy Estrada Tanck (Chair), Laura Nyirinkindi (Vice-Chair), Claudia Flores, Ivana Krstić, and Haina Lu, Working group on discrimination against women and girls; Astrid Puentes, Special Rapporteur on the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment; Attiya Waris, Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt; Marcos A. Orellana, Special Rapporteur on the implications for human rights of the environmentally sound management and disposal of hazardous substances and wastes; Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing The Special Rapporteurs, Independent Experts and Working Groups are part of what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures’ experts work on a voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their work. They are independent from any government or organisation and serve in their individual capacity. For inquiries and media requests, please contact Alexia Ghyoot (alexia.ghyoot@un.org). For media inquiries related to other UN independent experts please contact Dharisha Indraguptha (dharisha.indraguptha@un.org) or John Newland (john.newland@un.org) Follow news related to the UN’s independent human rights experts on X: @UN_SPExperts. |
54794
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Happening again’: Gitmo victims say Israel using ‘US-style’ torture
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Happening again’: Guantanamo victims say Israel using ‘US-style’ torture "Former prisoners who suffered mistreatment in US detention facilities say Israeli abuse of Palestinian detainees follows the same patterns. A Palestinian woman holds a poster depicting some of the Palestinian detainees rounded up by Israeli forces since October 7, during a protest in support of those held in Israeli prisons on May 30, 2024 in Nablus, the West Bank [Sergey Ponomarev/Getty Images] By Osama Bin Javaid 22 Jun 2024 Save articles to read later and create your own reading list. When former Guantanamo detainee Asadullah Haroon looks at pictures of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, the memories of his own abuse and torture in United States detention centres come flooding back. “This is the worst form of oppression,” he says. “When you are labelled as a terrorist you cannot defend yourself in any way. Without a doubt it’s the same process; they are torturing the people in the same way. I think the Americans have made this and the Israelis are implementing it.” KEEP READING list of 4 items list 1 of 4 Israeli forces pound Gaza after al-Mawasi tent camp attack kills 25 list 2 of 4 Top US State Department official for Israel-Palestine affairs resigns list 3 of 4 Twin attacks by Israeli forces kill at least 42 Palestinians in Gaza list 4 of 4 Israel will be the ‘ultimate loser’ in war with Hezbollah, Iran says end of list Haroon, who won his case against the US government for illegal imprisonment in 2021, was held without charge in the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba for 16 years following his arrest in 2007. Without a doubt, he says, Palestinians held in Israeli prisons now are enduring similar treatment to that he experienced. “It’s like in the first days when I was arrested, I was beaten to an extent that I was standing; I couldn’t sit down or if I was sitting down and beaten up, I couldn’t get up. Same with insomnia and I was assaulted for several days. A lot of the prisoners were bitten by dogs. We were provided very little medical care. “Physical torture was really bad but the worst was mental torture in different forms. I believe there isn’t much of a difference in the torture of prisoners of Palestine, Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib.” Attacked by dogs and deprived of water Some 54 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli jails since Israel launched its deadly war on Gaza in October last year, according to the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs in Gaza. The United Nations Human Rights Office in Palestine says it has been receiving multiple reports of mass detentions, abuse of prisoners and forced disappearances of Palestinians for months, while harrowing testimonies have been provided to aid agencies or posted to social media by Palestinians who have been released from detention. In late April, the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, published details of the abuse of Palestinian prisoners who had been jailed without trial. Its report included descriptions of regular beatings, prisoners being attacked by dogs, being forced to kiss the Israeli flag, being forced to curse the Prophet Muhammad, being deprived of water (including for a toilet in a cell shared by 10 inmates), the electricity being cut, insufficient food and being stripped naked. One prisoner’s account reads: “A guard then started to stuff carrots into the anus of AH and other prisoners.” Palestinian prisoner A Palestinian detainee shows injuries to his hands after being released by the Israeli army into Gaza on June 20, 2024. The man had been detained during an Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip. The Palestinians who were released east of the city in the central Gaza Strip were seen to be weakened and had scars on their bodies [Ashraf Amra/Anadolu via Getty Images] Much of the abuse carried out in Israeli prisons has been filmed by the soldiers carrying it out. It has strong echoes of the treatment of Iraqi and Afghan prisoners in US detention centres such as the notorious Abu Ghraib prison – where US soldiers photographed themselves alongside prisoners in humiliating positions in 2003. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and other human rights organisations have called on the United Nations special rapporteur on torture for urgent action to end “the systematic abuse, torture and ill- treatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and detention facilities”. That submission by Adalah, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and PCATI describes a “brutal escalation”, characterised by what appears to be systemic violence, torture and ill-treatment against Palestinians in Israeli custody in seven different prisons and detention facilities since the start of the war in October. Lawyers and activists say the Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners bears all the hallmarks of “US-style” abuse and torture. “Unfortunately over the past 20 years the US has given the world a very bad example of how prisoners should be treated,” says human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who was one of the first lawyers to be granted access to detainees in Guantanamo Bay more than 20 years ago and has represented clients, including Haroon, who have eventually won their freedom from the prison. “Whether it is ISIS (ISIL) copying the orange uniforms, or other countries, including Israel according to the UN, using abusive interrogation methods, all this can be traced back to the sordid example of Guantanamo Bay and the other secret US prisons,” Stafford Smith says. “It is well past time that the US admitted our dreadful mistakes, and insisted once more that both the US and the rest of the world behave in a civilised manner.” Held without charge Of 9,500 political prisoners, more than 3,500 Palestinians are being held without charge in Israeli prisons. While thousands were already in prison before the war on Gaza began in October last year, many more have been arrested or rearrested since then. Those detained without charge can be held indefinitely by the Israeli military for renewable periods, based on “secret evidence” that neither the detainees nor their lawyers are permitted to see. Activists and human rights lawyers consider these people to be hostages with no legal recourse. Others who have experienced similar detentions, torture and abuse at the hands of US-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan agree with them. Begg Moazzam Begg, a former Guantanamo Bay inmate, was also held at the notorious Bagram prison in Afghanistan. He believes Israeli forces are using similar methods of abuse and torture against Palestinian prisoners to what he experienced in US detention centres [Michelle Shephard/Toronto Star via Getty Images] Moazzam Begg is a human rights advocate who was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for three years without charge. He also draws parallels with what Israelis call administrative detention under which Palestinians can be rounded up and denied legal rights. “There’s an evident parallel between Gaza and Guantanamo and the war on terror,” Begg says. “What you see from the treatment, from the stripping naked of the prisoners to the mistreatment of them, to the abuse of the religious and racial attributes. There’s absolutely a parallel. It’s undeniable.” Begg says what happened to him two decades ago, first in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison and then in Guantanamo, is still happening. “I’ve returned to Afghanistan several times. I’ve been back into the Bagram detention facility where I was stripped naked, where I was beaten. I was tied to other prisoners. I watched the abuse of other prisoners. I watched the murder of other prisoners by American soldiers. “And those American soldiers went on to do what they did from here, almost as a textbook copy in Abu Ghraib [the notorious prison in Iraq where US soldiers abused detainees in 2003 and 2004], what was done to us in Guantanamo. Again, the stripping, the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Rights groups are demanding an urgent international investigation to hold the perpetrators of torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons accountable. Human rights group Euro-Med Monitor, which has documented the testimonies of former Palestinian prisoners, said: “The information gathered leads to the conclusion that the Israeli army routinely and widely commits crimes of arbitrary arrest, enforced disappearance, willful killing, torture, inhumane treatment, sexual violence, and denial of a fair trial. “Detainees were also denied access to food and medical care, including critical and life-saving care, were spat and urinated upon, and were subjected to other cruel and degrading acts and psychological abuse, including threats of rape and death, insults, and other forms of sexual violence.” Despite such calls for justice from rights groups and lawyers, however, Begg says he is not optimistic that things will change in the near future. “There’s no hope. I don’t see any hope in relation to international law, in relation to the United Nations resolutions – multitudes of them have been violated. “And the same with Israel committing genocide, ethnic cleansing, the targeting of children happening at a time when we claim that human rights laws and international law is across the board.”" |
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[54797]
54797
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Israel likely tortured Palestinian to record rape confession, say righ
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War on Gaza: Israel likely tortured Palestinian to record rape confession, say rights groups An Israeli forces video of an alleged Islamic Jihad member admitting to raping an Israeli woman cannot be used as evidence, HRW and Amnesty say ] Manar Mahmoud Muhammad Qasem filmed under interrogation by Israeli security forces (X) By Katherine Hearst Published date: 29 March 2024 Human rights groups have questioned the credibility of an Israeli forces interrogation video, in which an alleged member of Islamic Jihad confesses to raping an Israeli woman during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October. The video, posted online by the Israeli forces on Thursday, shows the man, named as Manar Mahmoud Muhammad Qasem, allegedly a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s naval force, appearing to admit to the rape during an interrogation by the Israei Intelligence Division. But human rights groups and commentators have questioned the credibility of the confession, saying it was likely produced under torture. They cited the surge in arbitary arrests and "inhuman and degrading treatment" of Palestinian detainees by Israeli forces since 7 October. "In light of Israel's decades-long track record of mistreating and torturing Palestinian detainees and resulting well-founded concerns that the interrogations could have involved the use of torture or other forms of ill- treatment, Human Rights Watch does not rely on, nor consider credible, accounts recorded in videos of interrogations of detained Palestinians they say participated in the 7 October assault," Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, Omar Shakir, told Middle East Eye. Meanwhile, Amnesty International's researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian territories, Budour Hassan, said that "any public 'confession' made by the defendants should be excluded from the evidence considered by court". "Amnesty International reiterates its call on the Israeli authorities to end the practice of filming alleged confessions by detained individuals and broadcasting them on social media in advance of their trial," she told MEE. The video was deleted and reposted several times after commentators noted inconsistencies in the testimony and subtitle mistranslations. The alleged confession was first reported in December. Since then, despite Qasem providing a detailed description of the victim's physical appearance, the Israeli forces have failed to identify the woman. The alleged testimony comes after the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (Unrwa) accused Israel of extracting false confessions from the agency's staff under torture about their ties to Hamas. Surge in arbitrary detention and torture Israeli authorities have long arbitrarily detained and tortured Palestinian detainees, with over 1400 complaints of torture, including painful shackling, sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme temperatures, by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, filed with Israel’s Justice Ministry since 2001. Iron bars, electric shocks, dogs and cigarette burns: How Palestinians are tortured in Israeli detention Read More » The 2002 Unlawful Combatants Law permits Israeli forces to detain Palestinians from the Gaza Strip with minimal judicial oversight. Since 7 October, extended emergency measures have facilitated a surge in arbitrary arrests and a rapid deterioration in detention conditions, with many Palestinians reporting physical and psychological trauma at the hands of Israeli forces. Since the current Israeli onslaught on Gaza began, Israeli forces have arrested over 7,350 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank alone. At least 250 of the detainees are children, and over half are in administrative detention, which means they can be held indefinitely without due process. In March, Haaretz reported that 27 Gaza detainees had died in Israeli military facilities since the start of the war. While some have been released, 9,100 remain in detention, compared to the 5,200 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons before 7 October. These figures exclude the hundreds of Palestinians reportedly arbitrarily detained, tortured, and interrogated in Gaza. This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition. Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here. |
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