When former Guantanamo detainee Asadullah Haroon looks at photos of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, memories of his own abuse and torture in American detention centers come flooding back.
“It’s the worst form of oppression,” he says. “When you are labeled a terrorist, there is no way you can defend yourself. Without a doubt, it is the same process; they torture people in the same way. I think the Americans have achieved this and the Israelis are implementing it. »
Haroon, who won his case against the US government for unlawful imprisonment in 2021, was held without charge in Cuba’s notorious Guantanamo Bay prison for 16 years after his arrest in 2007. There is no doubt, he says, that Palestinians held in Israeli prisons are now being held subject to similar treatment to that which he suffered.
“It’s like the first few days, when I was arrested, I was beaten so much that I was standing; I couldn’t sit down or if I was sitting and beaten I couldn’t get up. Same with insomnia and I was assaulted for several days. Many prisoners were bitten by dogs. We received very little medical care.
“The physical torture was really bad, but the worst was the mental torture in different forms. I think there is not much difference between the torture inflicted on prisoners in Palestine, Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib.
Attacked by dogs and deprived of water
Some 54 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since Israel launched its deadly war on Gaza in October last year, according to the Gaza Detainee and Ex-Detainee Affairs Commission. The United Nations Human Rights Office in Palestine says it has received multiple reports for months of mass detentions, prisoner abuse and enforced disappearances of Palestinians, while harrowing testimonies have been provided to agencies humanitarian or published on social networks by freed Palestinians. of detention.
In late April, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published details of the mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners imprisoned without trial.
His report describes regular beatings, prisoners attacked by dogs, forced to kiss the Israeli flag, forced to curse the Prophet Muhammad, deprived of water (including for the toilets of a cell shared by 10 prisoners), of electricity. being cut, having insufficient food and being stripped naked.
A prisoner’s account says: “A guard then began to shove carrots into the anus of AH and other prisoners. »
Much of the abuse in Israeli prisons was filmed by the soldiers who committed it. This strongly echoes the treatment of Iraqi and Afghan prisoners in US detention centers 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 organizations have called on the UN special rapporteur on torture to act urgently to end “abuses, torture and the systematic mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centers. facilities”.
This communication from Adalah, HaMoked, Physicians for Human Rights Israel and PCATI describes a “brutal escalation” characterized by what appears to be systemic violence, torture and mistreatment against Palestinians detained by Israel in seven prisons and different detention centers since the beginning. of the war in October.
Lawyers and activists say Israeli treatment of Palestinian prisoners bears all the hallmarks of “American-style” abuse and torture.
“Unfortunately, over the past 20 years, the United States has given the world a very poor example of how prisoners should be treated,” says human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who was one of the first lawyers to have access to Guantanamo Bay detainees. more than 20 years ago and has represented clients, including Haroon, who ultimately won their release from prison.
“Whether it’s ISIS copying the orange uniforms or other countries, including Israel according to the UN, using abusive interrogation methods, it all goes back to the sordid example of Guantanamo Bay and other secret American prisons. » Stafford Smith said. “It is high time that the United States acknowledges its terrible mistakes and once again insists that the United States and the rest of the world behave in a civilized manner. »
Detained without charge
Out of 9,500 political prisoners, more than 3,500 Palestinians are held without charge in Israeli prisons. While thousands of people were already in prison before the war on Gaza began in October last year, many more have been arrested or re-arrested since then.
People 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 allowed to see. Human rights activists and lawyers consider these people hostages without any legal recourse.
Others who suffered similar detentions, torture and abuse at the hands of U.S.-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan agree.
Moazzam Begg is a human rights defender who was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for three years without charge. It also draws parallels to what Israelis call administrative detention, under which Palestinians can be arrested and deprived of their legal rights.
“There is a clear parallel between Gaza and Guantanamo and the war on terror,” Begg says. “What you see of the treatment, from the stripping of prisoners to the mistreatment of them, to the abuse of religious and racial attributes. There is absolutely a parallel. It’s undeniable.
Begg says what happened to him twenty years ago, first in Afghanistan’s Bagram prison and then at Guantanamo, is still happening. “I have returned to Afghanistan several times. I returned to Bagram detention center where I was stripped naked and beaten. I was attached to other prisoners. I observed the abuse inflicted on other prisoners. I witnessed the killing of other prisoners by American soldiers.
“And these American soldiers continued to do what they did from here, almost like a textbook copy at Abu Ghraib (the notorious prison in Iraq where American soldiers mistreated detainees in 2003 and 2004), what was done to us at Guantanamo. Once again, the stripping, the cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
Rights groups are demanding an urgent international investigation to hold perpetrators of torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails accountable.
The human rights group Euro-Med Monitor, which has documented the testimonies of former Palestinian prisoners, said: “The information collected leads to the conclusion that the Israeli army regularly and widely commits crimes of arbitrary arrest, forced disappearance, intentional homicide, torture, inhumane acts. 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, spit on and urinated on, and subjected to other cruel and degrading acts and torture. psychological violence, including threats of rape and death, insults and other violence. forms of sexual violence. »
Despite these calls for justice from rights groups and lawyers, Begg says he is not optimistic about change in the near future. “There is no hope. I see no hope in relation to international law, in relation to United Nations resolutions – a multitude of them have been violated.
“And it’s the same with Israel committing genocide, ethnic cleansing and targeting of children at a time when we say human rights laws and international law are everywhere. »
