'Israelis routinely abuse, torture Palestinian minors'

Palestinian minors arrested by Israeli forces are routinely mistreated and at times tortured, and are denied a fair trial, an international children's-rights group said on Thursday. "From the moment of arrest, Palestinian children encounter ill-treatment and in some cases torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers, policemen and interrogators," Defense for Children International said in an annual report. "The child is painfully bound, blindfolded and bundled into the back of a military vehicle without indication as to why or where the child is being taken," it added. During interrogation, they are "subjected to a number of prohibited techniques, including the excessive use of blindfolds and handcuffs, slapping and kicking, painful position abuse for long periods of time, solitary confinement and sleep deprivation, and a combination of physical and psychological threats to the child and the child's family." While being interrogated, the minors, some as young as 12, are denied access to lawyers and visits from their families, the report said. It said that between January 2001 and December 2008, more than 600 complaints were filed against interrogators for alleged ill-treatment and torture. The Justice ministry's department that deals with such complaints "did not conduct a single criminal investigation," the report said. Under the military law Israel imposes on the Palestinian territories, Palestinians are tried in military courts, which the rights group claimed "disregard many basic fair trial rights and general principles of juvenile justice." "In almost all cases, the primary evidence against the children is the confession extracted during a coercive interrogation. "With no faith in the system and the potential for harsh sentences, approximately 95 percent of cases end in the child pleading guilty, whether the offense was committed or not," said the rights group, which in many cases provides lawyers for the minors. The trials generally last just a few minutes. Lawyers are at times denied access to documents, when military officials classify the evidence as secret. An estimated 700 Palestinians aged 12 to 18 were arrested and prosecuted in Israeli military courts in 2008. Of the 265 minors represented by the group last year, 10 were held without trial and 24 were released on bail or had their charges dismissed for lack of evidence. Almost 27 percent of the Palestinian minors were held for stone-throwing, the most common offense.