Israel Prison Service Commits to Teaching Arabic to Adult Arab Prisoners Following Adalah's Petition

(Haifa, Israel) On 12 October 2010, the Supreme Court confirmed an agreement reached between Adalah and the Israel Prison Service (IPS) that the IPS should provide Arabic language education and informal educational activities to Arab prisoners in Arabic, as part of the educational curriculum used in prisons. The IPS currently provides education only in Hebrew.

The ruling was the culmination of a year-long negotiation process between Adalah and the IPS following a petition submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court by Adalah in April 2008. The petition demanded that the court compel the IPS and the Ministry of Education (MOE) to end discrimination against Arab prisoners incarcerated in Israeli prisons by allowing them to receive education in Arabic. The petition was filed by Adalah Attorney Abeer Baker in Adalah's own name and on behalf of the Legal Clinic for Prisoners' Rights and Rehabilitation at Haifa University's Faculty of Law. In the petition, Attorney Baker argued that preventing adult Arab prisoners from receiving a basic education in their own language constitutes a blatant violation of their rights to education, equality, dignity, personal autonomy, language, and freedom of expression and occupation (employment). She also emphasized that this illegal policy contradicts prior decisions of the Supreme Court as well as international human rights conventions and standards relating to prisoners' rights, according to which prisoners do not lose their human rights when in prison.

Background

The IPS runs a number of educational programs inside its prisons. It has developed programs designed to enable adult prisoners to complete their basic education to the equivalent of 12th grade and to receive a final certificate. An Arab prisoner who does not know how to read or write is therefore unable to learn in Arabic, and as a result an illiterate prisoner will remain illiterate, whereas Jewish prisoners can study in their mother tongue, Hebrew, both inside or outside prison.

A special department in the MOE that deals with adult education throughout the state, including in prisons, drafts the basic education curriculum. The IPS also holds enrichment workshops for prisoners in a range of subjects including the family, sport, physical and psychological health, addiction, culture and art. However, education is offered in prisons only in Hebrew, including education provided to political prisoners classified by the IPS as “security prisoners.”

For more information please see:
http://www.adalah.org/eng/pressreleases/pr.php?file=09_10_18_9