Days of Palestine – Ramallah
Israeli occupation forces issued 195 administrative detention orders against Palestinian citizens during last March.
According to the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs, 107 of those administrative detention orders were issued for the first time against prisoners and the rest were extensions to previous orders against 88 prisoners, who have spent months or years in jail with no guilt.
In early January, the administrative detainees announced a complete boycott of all judicial procedures related to their detention in protest at the Israeli policy of administrative detention.
Those detainees, including lawmakers, received different administrative prison terms, ranging from three to six months.
Administrative detention is incarceration without trial or charge and is widely used by Israel against the Palestinians solely under the pretext that a person plans to commit a future offense.
It has no time limit and is based on alleged secret files.
The first order of administrative detention made since its use was phase-out was issued on 31 July 1985 and confirmed on 2 August, even before the Israeli cabinet’s announcement of its decision to reintroduce the measure.
The order was made against Ziad Abu ‘Ein , a former political prisoner released only three months earlier in the prisoner exchange of May 1985 «Four further orders were made on 5 and 6 August against students of al-Najah University who allegedly headed student factions aligned to different Palestinian political groupings.
Between 29 August and 4 September, 57 more administrative detention orders were made, bringing the total number to 62.
Imprisonment without charge or trial constitutes a serious infringement on the individual’s rights to protection from arbitrary arrest and to due process. Not only does it infringe these basic legal principles but it also contravenes international law.
Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) and Article 9 (of the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) both state that “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention» while the right to due process is protected in Article 10 of the UDHR which states that “Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
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