there is considerable use of means of torture and ill treatment in GSS interroga by Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (P 1:34pm Wed Sep 3 '03 address: * phone: * * * print article The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI): Four years after the High Court of Justice ruling prohibiting torture in interrogation there is considerable use of means of torture and ill treatment in GSS interrogation The Attorney General grants - wholesale, and with no exception – the ‘necessity defense’ approval for every single case of torture. Hannah Friedman, Executive Director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) states that as of the beginning of 2003 there has been a sharp rise in the torture, ill treatment, humiliation and incarceration in inhuman conditions of Palestinian detainees undergoing interrogation by the GSS. According to Friedman, during first half of 2003, hundreds of Palestinians were subjected to one degree or another of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment at the hands of the GSS. By way of comparison – in September 2001 PCATI estimated that the total number of detainees being subjected to torture and other forms of ill treatment reached ‘only’ dozens. PCATI’s findings reveal that 58% of the interogees were exposed to direct violence, including beatings, slapping, kicking, bending and placing in other painful positions, intentional tightening of shackles, and shaking, that 52% of interrogees were deprived of sleep and that 79% were subject to cursing, threats and humiliation. PCATI estimates that a considerable portion of all interrogees, if not most, were exposed to interrogation methods which included “severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental.” In other words methods that constitute torture as defined in international law and violate the High Court of Justice ruling prohibiting the use of torture in interrogation. According to Attorney Gaby Lasky, PCATI’s legal advisor, the bodies which are supposed to keep the GSS under scrutiny and ensure that interrogations are conducted lawfully, act, instead, as rubberstamps for decisions by the GSS and gatekeepers to the GSS interrogation chambers. The High Court of Justice has not accepted even one of the 124 petitions submitted during the present Intifada by PCATI against prohibiting detainees under interrogation from meeting their attorneys. The State Attorney’s Office transfers the interrogees’ complaints to a GSS agent for investigation, and it is little wonder that it has not found in even a single case that GSS agents tortured a Palestinian ‘unnecessarily.’ And the Attorney General grants –wholesale, and with no exception – the ‘necessity defense’ approval for every single case of torture. The result is a total, hermetic, impenetrable and unconditional protection that envelops the GSS system of torture, and enables it to continue undisturbed, with no supervision or scrutiny to speak of. According to Hannah Friedman, the accomplishments of the HCJ ruling of 1999, which was to have put an end to large-scale torture and ill treatment, limiting it to lone cases of ‘ticking bombs,’ have worn thin, among other reasons, as a result of the HCJ’s reluctance to enforce international standards which prohibit torture and ill treatment under any circumstances. * add your comments