Israeli committee approves law which violates detainees’ rights

The Israeli ministerial committee in charge of issuing new laws, approved on Sunday evening, a new law which directly violates the rights of Palestinian detainees; the law will be submitted to the Knesset soon.

The committee, headed by Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, submitted the law which demands legalizing discrimination between the rights Israeli prisons, and “foreign” prisoners, especially Palestinian detainees.

This law allows Israeli interrogators to detain the detainee for 48 to 96 hours before obtaining an order from the judge to remand his interrogation period, while Israeli prisoners are detained for a maximum period of 24 hours before they receive extended remand orders, or sent to court.

The ministerial committee claims that this law aims to enable the interrogators to interrogate the detainees “without interruptions”, especially detainees who are facing charges which “endangers the Israeli security”.  

Also, the suggested law allows the Israeli security devices to extend the remand of non-Israeli detainees to 20 days, which could be extended to 40 days after the government’s legal advisor approves the procedure, while interrogators cannot extend the remand of Israeli prisoners for a period which exceeds 15 days. 

Israeli security devices, according to the suggested law, can ask the court to extend the remand of the detainees without sending them to court, which bars the detainees from meeting their lawyers, or receive legal representation.

Israeli laws bar the lawyers from meeting Palestinian detainees during the interrogation period which could extend to 50 days after receiving approval from the government’s legal councilor.