Adalah Demands that Israel Prison Service Stop Violent, Invasive Searches of Palestinian Prisoners and their Family Visitors

(Haifa, Israel) Adalah recently received several complaints about violent and humiliating strip searches from security guards and members of the special guard unit of the Israel Prison Service (IPS) against Palestinian prisoners. Family members visiting Nafha Prison were subjected to humiliating inspections, held in small rooms, and forced to wait seven hours before being allowed to see their relatives. 

Based on these complaints, Adalah sent a letter on 4 June 2012 to the head of the Israel Prison Service, Ilan Franco, demanding that he appoint a commission of inquiry and try wardens and members of the Prison Authority’s special guard unit to criminal court following the humiliating and violent strip searches of Palestinian prisoners in various prisons. Adalah also demanded that he stop illegal strip searches of prisoners’ families who are visiting them in Nafha Prison. Adalah Attorney Rima Ayoub sent the letter.

On 30 May 2012, at 8 a.m., about 40 family members arrived at Nafha Prison in the Naqab/Negev desert to visit prisoners. They had left their homes in the north and center of the country at 3 a.m. to arrive on time. They were forced to wait nearly three hours outside the prison, before undergoing severe security checks before entering the prison.

According to Mrs. Haluwa Murawi, a 60-year-old mother of a prisoner, the wardens ordered all the women visitors into public toilets, the doors of which did not close. Mrs. Murawi was instructed to remove her bra. The women were then ordered to another room, where they were subjected to a humiliating strip search. Women who wore hijab were commanded to remove it during the inspection, and also to lift their clothing so that the guards could swab their bodies.

After undergoing inspection, about 30 men and women were sent to wait in a small unventilated room, where they had to remain for about two hours. Among the visitors were the elderly, patients with diabetes, pregnant women, and asthmatics who struggled to breathe because of the lack of air. Later they were moved to an adjacent room.

At 3 p.m., after waiting nearly seven hours, and following negotiations between representatives of the visiting families and the IPS, the visitors were allowed to see their relatives. Several women who refused to be strip searched were also permitted visits, raising doubt that the strip searches were necessary for security. The harsh strip searches of family members constitutes a grave breach of their constitutional rights to dignity, and is cruel and degrading treatment prohibited under Israeli law and international human rights law, including the Convention Against Torture (CAT).

In the letter, Attorney Ayoub also emphasized that Palestinian prisoners in Damon, Gilboa, and Shikma Prisons were subjected to even worse treatment. Guards regularly used violence against the prisoners and tried to humiliate them, late at night while they are sleeping. Night inspections included strip searches of prisoners and their belongings. Guards often damaged the prisoners’ possessions because the inspection is so harsh.

Between October 2011 and January 2012, the prison wardens and members of the special unit of Gilboa Prison violently searched three rooms, each containing eight prisoners, once a week on average.  They would enter late at night, suddenly and brutally without warning, and terrify the sleeping prisoners.

Violent humiliation of prisoners in Shikma Prison:

Adalah’s letter continues: “One of the prisoners, Fares Khalifa, was ordered to remove his clothing, but he refused. In response, members of the prison’s special guard unit caught him and dragged him by his arms and neck to the bottom of Section 3, beat his entire body and put him in a small room, called “Waiting Room 3,” where they continued to beat him and then removed his clothing by force. The prisoner was wounded and in severe pain. He had three bleeding wounds on his head, and scratches and cuts on his hands and the rest of his body, and difficulty breathing as the result of kicks and blows to his back. He was then sent, while bleeding, to the Visitors’ Waiting Room, where he waited for almost 40 minutes without any medical treatment, despite the prison staff’s awareness that he suffered from epilepsy. All the prisoners are treated similarly by the prison guards.”

Attorney Ayoub emphasized that conducting strip searches is the job of the prison officials alone only in cases where there is a strong suspicion that the prisoner is storing something forbidden in his clothing or belongings, and that the search requires the consent of the prisoner. If the prisoner objects, the law provides the prisoner with the right to speak before the director of the prison. If the director decides that it is necessary to conduct the search without the prisoner’s consent, he is required to inform the prisoner that force may be used against him in order to conduct the strip search. Strip searches in any case violate the prisoner’s right to dignity, privacy, and bodily integrity, rights protected under Israel’s Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty - 1992.

The letter demanded two steps to prevent the reoccurrence of these events. Firstly, the letter requested that the director of the IPS issue clear orders prohibiting the illegal strip searching of prisoners and a thorough investigation into the complaints listed in the letter, as well as the initiation of charges against those responsible. Secondly, the letter demanded that clear instructions be issued to prevent strip searches and prolonged unnecessary waits for family members who are visiting prisoners.