401 Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons are boycotting military courts in protest of the inhumane Israeli policy of administrative detention, which violates international humanitarian law and enables the Israeli government to detain Palestinians indefinitely without trial.On July 1st, more than 60 Palestinian administrative detainees held in Israeli prisons started boycotting Israel’s military courts in a protest of this administrative detention policy as well as the fake trials they go through, writes the Alternative Information Centre (AIC), via PNN.
At the moment, 401 administrative detainees are held in Israeli prisons, six of whom are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The Middle East monitor reports that Israel has issued 571 administrative detention orders against Palestinians so far this year, out of which 126 orders were issued against prisoners detained for the first time, while the 445 orders that remained were renewals for detention of prisoners already in custody.
According to the AIC, administrative detentions violate Article (66) of Geneva Convention IV, which demands that trials should be held in the occupied territory, as well as Article (71) which states that the use of private courts of the occupying power should only take place after a legal trial. In addition to this, it violates a number of other articles of Geneva Convention IV, which state that administrative detention should only be applied in the case of imperative security reasons, they should be based on the Geneva Convention and it also states that trials must be fair. The AIC reports that the International Committee on Arbitrary Detention considered administrative detention as a form of psychological torture.
Every day, the Israeli army launches arrest campaigns in Palestinian cities and villages under the alleged administrative detention policy. Briefly explained, this policy allows the Israeli government to detain Palestinians in Israeli jails with no trial or charge for up to six months, and this detention may be renewed an indefinite amount of times.
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