[Other] London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians
inminds 26 January 2020 London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
On Friday 24th January 2020, Inminds Human Rights Group protested against Israel's continued use of torture against Palestinian detainees with total impunity, and demanded the immediate, unconditional release of tortured Palestinian journalism student Mays Abu Ghosh. It was Israel's Supreme Court that legalised torture of Palestinians in Israel, so the London protest was symbolically held outside the UK's Supreme Court, in Parliament Square.
#FreeMays
#StopTorturingPalestinians
Israel - The Only Country Where Torture Is Legal
The World Organisation Against Torture (Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture; OMCT) is the world’s largest coalition of non-governmental organisations fighting against torture. Their report dated 21 March 2019 states :
"Torture has been legally allowed in Israel since 1987, resulting in many thousands of Palestinians being tortured by [Israel's Security Agency] Shin-Bet interrogators with impunity.. Israel is “the only democracy in the Middle East” – in the whole world actually – where torture is not only practised systematically but is actually legal.
In the 20 years that have passed, the Supreme Court has upheld the legalised torture system it had created against all challenges by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. Not a single one of over 1,000 complaints has led to even one criminal investigation to be opened against a Shin-Bet interrogator, let alone a trial, conviction or punishment. Shin-Bet interrogators have continued to torture, safe in the knowledge that they enjoy total impunity, thanks in no small measure to the Supreme Court."
Torture Rampant In Israel
Under Israeli military law Palestinians can be tortured / interrogated for 75 days without receiving any charge. Detainees can be barred from seeing a lawyer for the first 60 days of interrogation. If after 75 days of torture, there is still no confession, and they still cannot decide on what trumped up charge to issue, then after this period the detainee is placed in administrative detention - held indefinitely with out charge or trial. Since 2000 Israel has issued over 26,000 administrative detention orders against Palestinians.
95% of detainees are subjected to some form of torture. 40% of 600 Palestinian child taken from Jerusalem were sexually abused by Israeli soldiers. Women prisoners have been electrocuted into submission, and men prisoners left bleeding from the genitals.
United Nations funded “Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture for Occupied Palestinian Territory”, in 2014, treated 845 Palestinian victims of torture including 317 women and 135 children.
72 Palestinian prisoners have been tortured to death since 1967. One such case was that of Palestinian father Arafat Jaradat, where even an Israeli doctor participated in the torture which led to his death. The torturer in his defence blamed the doctor for having OK'ed the final round of torture that Arafat's frail body after 5 days of intense torture could no longer take, resulting in his death. Prison doctors lied that Arafat has died of a heart attack but the autopsy, carried out outside the prison at the National Israeli Forensic Medicine Center, showed no sign of heart failure or any other illness, but revealed broken bones and found his whole body was covered in "strong and excessive bruising".. "under the skin inside the muscle and along the spine at the bottom of the neck deep inside the tissue". The autopsy determined the cause of death : "nervous shock as a result of extreme pain from the intensity of the injuries, which resulted from multiple direct and extensive acts of torture".
If a Palestinian prisoner survives the torture then they face the military court and its 'conveyor belt' trial system with its 'rubber stamp' 99.74% conviction rate. In no other country in the world is such injustice legalised into law.
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
Mays Abu Ghosh
Mays Abu Ghosh is a 21 years old Palestinian journalism student from Qalandiya refugee camp studying at at Bir Zeit University. She is also a student activist campaigning against the abuse of prisoners by the Israeli occupation. On 29th August 2019, armed Israeli soldiers violently raided her home with attack dogs, smashing the front door of its hinges, ransacking her home. They blindfolded and shackled her before abducting her to a military camp near Qalandiya checkpoint where they violently abused her.
Later, Mays was transferred to the infamous interrogation centre at the Russian compound of Jerusalem prison. She was strip naked, searched and threatened with rape before being transferred to the interrogation cells where she was subjected to severe physical and psychological torture, for around one month. She recalled that her interrogations lasted for many hours at a time while she was shackled to a small chair inside a very cold cell. After six days, the “military interrogation” began with her, which included the use of contorted stress positions like the “banana” and “squatting” or the “false chair” for long periods of time, in an attempt to coerce a false confession from her.
She was brutally beaten and deprived of sleep. This “military interrogation” continued for three days, during which all of these torture tactics were used relentlessly. Abu Ghosh said that at one time, she tried to shield herself from the interrogators by taking cover in one of the corners of the cell, but the interrogator began slamming her head against the wall, kicking her while yelling obscenities.
Mays was threatened and blackmailed with her personal relationships, and forced into taking a polygraph test several times.
After one month of torture when she still wouldn't confess, Mays was threatened with the arrest of her family members and the demolition of her house for the second time. They dragged her brother and parents in, in an attempt to coerce her into confessing by threatening to detain them. They let her parents go, but her 17-year-old brother was slapped with an administrative detention order - he is caged indefinitely, without charge or trial, despite being a minor.
Her mother said "I could not recognise my daughter due to severe torture inside Israeli jails.. Her face was full of bruises and her body is very pale. I could not hug her due to the pain hurting all of her body."
Mays said that the interrogation cells have extremely harsh conditions, lacking the basic elements for human life. The walls are concrete and rough, the mattress is thin, without a cover or a pillow, and the lights are kept on 24/7 even as loud sounds constantly disturb the prisoners. She also noted that the meals provided were very poor and that wastewater would enter her cell and flow onto the mattress, soaking it. The interrogators intentionally inserted a large rat into her cell to further torment her.
Mays was also deprived from her basic feminine needs. She was provided with one sanitary pad a day. Also, she was not allowed to use the toilet or to shower when she needed, she was only allowed to when the interrogators pleased to.
After 30 days of this treatment under interrogation, she was transferred to Damon prison, where she remains today, with her fellow Palestinian women prisoners.
On 10 September 2019, a gag order was issued on a number of torture cases at the Russian compound of Jerusalem prison including Mays, preventing her lawyers from disclosing the torture she had undergone.
She is charged in the Israeli military courts – which convict over 99% of Palestinian detainees – with involvement in student activities on the Bir Zeit University campus. Her brother’s administrative detention has been renewed again and he continues to be jailed without charge or trial.
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
London Protest Demands Freedom for Mays Abu Ghosh, Israel Stop Torturing Palestinians #FreeMays #StopTorturingPalestinians
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Source: www.inminds.com
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