News briefing
Translated and edited by: Committee for Justice
Geneva: 17 July 2022
UN human rights experts urged the government of Israel to immediately release Ahmad Manasra, a 20-year-old Palestinian who has been held in Israeli prisons since he was 14, while suffering serious mental health conditions.
A disgrace to the international community:
“Ahmad’s imprisonment for almost six years has deprived him of childhood, family environment, protection, and all the rights he should have been guaranteed as a child,” the experts said in a statement published on Thursday.
“This case is haunting in many respects and his continuous detention, despite his deteriorating mental conditions, is a stain on all of us as part of the international human rights community,” they added.
“Ahmad’s case provides clear evidence of Israel’s deliberate practices of subjecting Palestinians, including children, to arbitrary detention, torture and inhumane treatment, often disguised as a ‘legitimate’ counter-terrorism response,” the experts stressed.
Fair trial violations:
The experts also noted that the case raises serious concerns about potential violations of international fair trial standards applicable to children, including the prohibition of inciting a child through coercion to confess or testify incriminating himself, adding: “These inhumane practices must end: far too many have already borne the brunt of an unacceptable instrumentalisation of legal tools as means to subjugate the protected local population and force them to accept an occupation that remains illegitimate and illegal”.
The experts criticized the detention of Manasra in the prisons of the Israeli occupation, in violation of international humanitarian law, saying: ” Israel, as the occupying power, is prohibited from detaining protected persons accused of offences in its own territory.”
The experts continued: “This practice violates article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and may also amount to forcible transfer, which constitutes a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and is also recognised as a war crime under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
International attention to the Israeli detention system:
The experts appealed to Israel to release Manasra urgently and allow him to return to his family and seek psychological counseling and support.
“It is also about time that the pervasive system of arrest and detention put in place by Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory, which currently holds 4,700 Palestinians including 170 children and 640 in administrative detention, receives international attention as part and parcel of the systemic and widespread oppressive regime Israel has imposed over the Palestinians during 55 years of military occupation,” they stressed.
