Human Rights Organizations to Israeli Parliament: Bill Banning Family Visits to Palestinian Political Prisoners Amounts to Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Punishment
On 30 March 2008, Adalah sent a letter to members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, on behalf of the Association for Palestinian Prisoners, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), and Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement and in its own name, demanding that a bill banning family visits to Palestinian political prisoners incarcerated in Israeli prisons be rescinded. The bill passed preliminary reading in the Knesset on 23 January 2008.
The bill’s initiators have not denied that it was put forward as a reaction to the fact that Israeli soldiers being held by “hostile” organizations are not allowed to receive visits. According to them, preventing Palestinian political prisoners from receiving visits will ultimately lead to the release of Israeli soldiers being held captive.
In the letter, Adalah Attorney Abeer Baker emphasized that, “The illegality of the bill lies in the fact that it is not only restricted to violating of the fundamental and constitutional rights of prisoners, such as the right to equality and the right to receive visits and to a family life, but also because the motivation behind the bill is to take revenge, nothing less, for Israeli soldiers, and to turn Palestinian prisoners into hostages in order to gain the release of the Israeli soldiers. Thus this bill transforms Palestinian political prisoners into a means to an end, which is completely different from the declared reason for their detention.”
The human rights organizations further argued that the transferal of thousands of Palestinian prisoners from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) to Israeli territory is in itself illegal, and compounds Israel’s duty to allow family visits in reasonable conditions and in a reasonable manner.
Palestinian political prisoners already exercise their right to family visits in an extremely limited way. The visits are restricted to first-degree relatives and glass walls separate the prisoner from his family. They are also banned from using telephones and Israel’s policy of closure of the OPT prevents prisoners from seeing their families for long periods of time, lasting in some cases for many years. In addition, most of the prisoners’ relatives are classified as “banned” based on undisclosed security reasons from entering Israel, making visits impossible. The human rights organizations argued that denying the right of prisoners to family visits in these circumstances is tantamount to completely isolating them from their families.
The right of prisoners to family visits in a part of the constitutional right to a family life protected by the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty and various international conventions, as it allows the realization of individual freedom and autonomy, which are a part of human dignity.
It is view of Adalah and the other human rights NGO signatories that the aforementioned bill constitutes collective punishment of Palestinians and amounts to cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Turning prisoners into hostages by depriving them of their fundamental rights is nothing other than prohibited collective punishment.
The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee held a meeting on 2 April 2008, and decided to postpone the vote on the bill to a later date.
