Der Spiegel, which has historically, like most German publications, been soft on Israel, reports on the 355 Palestinian prisoners being held in "administrative detention" in Israeli prisons, with new information on the case of Mohammed Othman. What is almost never mentioned is that all the prisoners from the West Bank and Gaza in Israeli prisons are being held illegally, since the 4th Geneva Convention prohibits removing people from occupied lands to the prisons of the occupying country. Excerpt:
According to a report from the human rights organization B’Tselem, more than a third of such administrative detainees remain behind bars for longer than six months, a further third longer than a year. Eight percent stay locked up for at least two years….
The organization Addameer arranged for Othman to have a lawyer represent him. The 33-year-old complained to his attorney about the terrible conditions in prison, and said he was interrogated for hours at a time. On one occasion, Oct. 15, he was grilled from 1:45 p.m. until 1:20 a.m. When Othman fell asleep on his chair out of exhaustion, his interrogators poured water over his head, he says.
Othman still doesn’t know what he is being accused of. He told his lawyer that he has not been confronted with any concrete dates, names or events. What do they have on him? SPIEGEL ONLINE tried to find out from the domestic intelligence agency. "We cannot fulfil your request," came the written reply. A telephone enquiry to ask how this lack of transparency could be compatible with the rule of law met with the reply by a spokeswoman: "It is all going according to law and order. Trust us!"
A number of Western embassies have had similar experiences. Sweden, which currently holds the six-month rotating president of the European Union, wasn’t even able to obtain a reason for the arrest. Sweden and other countries filed a protest.
The Israeli army stated that administrative arrests target terror suspects. But in the Othman case, that is highly doubtful.
