This briefing was published on 17 April 2015 to coincide with the annual day of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.
It collects the memories of the pain, suffering and resilience of Palestinians who have been imprisoned by Israel.
In 2013, Corporate Watch visited the West Bank and Gaza Strip and interviewed released prisoners about their experiences. The 11 accounts give a glimpse of the struggles of Palestinian prisoners.
They have been collected together here to inspire readers to take action in solidarity with them and against the companies profiting from their suffering.
The first part of this briefing compiles interviews with prisoners from the Gaza Strip. The second part focuses on the West Bank. The final part summarises the companies providing equipment and services that aid the arrest and imprisonment of Palestinians and gives detailed profiles of two of the biggest culprits: G4S and Hewlett Packard.
We dedicate this briefing to all those who remain imprisoned.
The briefing is currently published online and can be read here or downloaded here. It will be available to buy in the coming weeks from www.corporatewatch.org
11th April 2014 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
Akram Salameh holds up a picture of himself in prison uniform, taken inside Ramleh prison hospital – Photo taken by Corporate Watch, Gaza City, November 2013
Corporate Watch has been investigating the companies involved in the Israeli prison system and interviewing ex-prisoners. This interview is part of a series of articles to be released over the coming months that we hope will serve as a resource for action against companies providing equipment and services to the Israeli Prison ‘Service’ (IPS).
Palestinian organisations are calling for action on 17 April, the international day of solidarity for Palestinian political prisoners, against G4S, a British-Danish multinational company working with the IPS, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major investor in G4S. Click here to find out more.
The Israeli police arrest Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and then transfer them to prisons and interrogation centres inside Israel’s 1948 borders, against the stipulations of the Geneva Conventions. According to the Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organisation: “Palestinians from the OPT are currently held in a total of four interrogation centres, four military detention centres, and approximately 17 prisons. While the four military detention centres are located inside the OPT, all the interrogation centres and prisons—except for one prison, Ofer—are located within the 1948 borders of Israel, in violation of international humanitarian law. The location of prisons within Israel and the transfer of detainees to locations within the occupying power’s territory are illegal under international law and constitute a war crime. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly states that “Protected persons accused of offences shall be detained in the occupied country, and if convicted they shall serve their sentences therein” (Article 76).”
The Hussam Association, a Gaza based organisation of current and former Palestinian detainees states that there are currently 5,200 Palestinian prisoners in the 17 Israeli prisons. 200 of them are imprisoned in ‘administrative detention’ without charge. According to Addameer nine of them are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. 430 people from Gaza are currently in jail inside Israel’s 1948 borders. According to the Palestinian section of Defence for Children International there are currently 230 Palestinian children under the age of 18 in Israeli prisons. 36 of them are under the age of 16.
According to the Hussam Association there were nearly 1,200 sick detainees. 24 of them were suffering from cancer and 170 were in urgent need of surgery. Addameer estimates that since 2000, 17 Palestinians have died as a result of medical negligence and the organisation has documented 178 cases of medical neglect.
Corporate Watch interviewed Akram Salameh in November 2013 at the government’s Ministry of Detainees in Gaza City. He had been arrested in Gaza and imprisoned in Israel for over 20 years. He was released in October 2011 from Ketziot prison in the prisoner swap that exchanged 1,027 Palestinian prisoners for the release of the captured soldier, Gilad Shalit.
G4S has been providing services to the Ketziot prison since 2007.
Akram had been a student nurse before his arrest. During his imprisonment he worked for 13 years as a representative for sick inmates at Ramleh’s infamous prison hospital. He told Corporate Watch:
“Before I was arrested I was studying nursing in Khartoum in Sudan. I was arrested while returning from university, coming through the Rafah crossing [from Egypt into Gaza]. I was accused of being a fighter for the Hamas movement and a member of Hamas. They did not accuse me of involvement in any particular Hamas operation but my party membership was used against me. I was sentenced to 30 years. I spent 22 years in prison in total in Ramleh [Ramla], Nafha, Shikma [Ashkelon], and Ketziot [all prisons inside Israel’s 1948 borders, click here to see a map].”
According to Akram, far from providing care to people who need it, the hospital simply goes through the motions of looking after the prisoners: “Legally when you have a prison you should have a medical centre. So the hospital is a cover they use in the courts, a facade of legality. The IPS gives basic treatment but seeing a specialist or having an operation may take years.”
Akram gives the example of a prisoner named Moatassem Raddad who “has been waiting more than four years years for treatment for intestinal cancer.” According to Akram this is one of the ways that the IPS goes through the motions of providing care while withholding life saving treatment. Akram tells us that patients are put on the waiting lists for treatment but never receive it. Moatassem “was promised an operation five years ago” but was still waiting in November 2013.
“I was a prisoners’ representative in Ramleh from 1997–2011”, Akram said. “I lived in the prison hospital which is a part of Ramleh prison. I was a point of contact between the Israeli prison authorities and the prisoners and I helped with things like translation. There are over 1,000 sick Palestinian prisoners and the majority of them are imprisoned in Ramleh. There are many prisoners there who are completely paralysed. Ramleh prison hospital has a floor set aside for Palestinian political prisoners.
“Ramleh prison is reliant on cameras. Cameras are all over the place and they have replaced the soldiers who previously had a much bigger presence there. Since 1994 you hardly saw any soldiers at all. The modern technology makes it more difficult for prisoners: the cameras see everything and microphones record everything. To get back to my cell from where I worked as a representative I had to go through 22 automated doors. At each door you had to speak to a soldier through a speaker system. If a prisoner placed his hand over the camera lens to get some privacy he would be punished.
“The prison is supposed to be a hospital but if a prisoner needs medical help the cameras cannot help him. If someone needed help I had to get the soldier’s attention by waving at the camera but if he is not looking then what can I do? We had many martyrs because of this.
Doctors can ‘switch in a second’
“When the prison doctor takes a round of the building he is accompanied by soldiers. The doctors can switch in a second to become soldiers themselves. It is very easy for them to attack or oppress the sick prisoners. Some prisoners are paralysed and it is difficult for the soldiers to strip-search them so they are strip-searched by the doctors.”
Akram showed us pictures of several paralysed prisoners who were regularly strip-searched by the prison doctors.
‘Dual loyalty’
According to Addameer “primary obligation” of the prison doctors is “towards the State and the Israeli security apparatus, rather than the patient. Doctors working in detention and interrogation centres often fail to report incidents of torture and ill-treatment to the relevant legal authorities for fear of losing their jobs. Similarly, physical signs of torture and abuse are rarely reported in the detainees’ medical files, making it almost impossible for the victims to seek justice and compensation. Doctors also often advise Israeli Security Agency officers on the health condition of a detainee held under interrogation and as such, they become complicit in the practice of torture and physical and mental abuse.
There is no medical reason to conduct a strip search and in doing so doctors are doing the prison guards’ jobs for them. Conducting these strip searches of prisoners on behalf of the prison authorities makes doctors complicit in the imprisonment of Palestinian political prisoners in contravention of international law.
Prisoners released when close to death
According to Akram, “I think the IPS releases prisoners just before they die in order to avoid being held legally responsible for their deaths.” This was the case for Rabee Ali. Akram said: “I got to know Rabee because he was very ill and I used to support him by feeding him and taking him to the toilet.
Mukarram Abu Alouf from the government Ministry of Detainees holds up two pictures of Rabee Ali, one before he was arrested and one on the day he was released. Rabee died soon after his release – photo taken by Corporate Watch, Gaza City, November 2013
“He was shot in the back during his arrest and had developed blood poisoning.” The Independent Middle East Media Center reported in 2008 that Rabee was being denied medical attention. He was given early release due to his condition but died a week after.
Another prisoner, Ashraf abu Dhra had muscular dystrophy. He was arrested in 2006. His condition quickly deteriorated while he was in prison. Akram said: “Ashraf was brought to Ramleh after his interrogation. Before he was in prison he was having regular physiotherapy. The doctors in Ramleh refused to do anything for him apart from feed him, clothe him and take him to the toilet and his condition got worse and worse.”
Akram showed us a picture of Ashraf before he was imprisoned and an emaciated picture of him on the day of his release. Physicians for Human Rights filed a request to the Israeli District Court for Ashraf to receive physical therapy and this request was granted. However, the authorities at Ramleh refused to give Ashraf the therapy he needed, saying that it was unnecessary. According to Akram: “He was released three to four months ago after serving his sentence. After one week he fell into a coma. He died 40 days after his release.”
Take action
Palestinians hold a vigil to support prisoners in Israeli jails at the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza City – Photo taken by Corporate Watch in November 2013
In addition to the April 17 call for action action against G4S and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, action has also been called for against Hewlett Packard (HP), a US based company that provides IT services to the IPS. According to Who Profits? HP holds a contract worth tens of millions of shekels to provide printers and maintenance of HP systems and central servers until 2016.
There is also an international call for action in solidarity with the Hares boys – five Palestinian teenagers from the village of Hares in the West Bank. They are currently imprisoned and are facing life sentences for attempted murder for allegedly causing a car accident by throwing stones onto a settler road. The boys deny any such charge and are reporting torture during interrogation. Click here for more information.
Another way to act in solidarity with sick prisoners is to support calls for the Israeli Medical Association’s expulsion from the World Medical Association over its complicity in Israeli militarism and apartheid. For more details see www.boycottima.org.
Click here for a full list of companies that holds contracts with the IPS.
Click here for details of Palestinian Prisoner’s Day events in London and Manchester.
BDS: Bill Gates slammed over links to Israel prison torture
Palestinian human rights organisations have criticised Bill Gates after it emerged that his charitable foundation is heavily invested in G4S, a private security company that helps Israel run prisons at which Palestinian political prisoners are held without trial and subjected to torture.
In an open letter to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation published today, Palestinian human rights groups argued that the foundation was undermining international law and its stated commitment to human rights with its $170m investment in the company that makes it one of the company’s biggest shareholders.
British security company G4S has a contract with the Israeli Prison Service to run and install security and management systems at six prisons Palestinian political prisoners, including children, are routinely subjected to torture, according to human rights organisations.
“It is completely unacceptable for a charitable foundation to be investing in a company that participates in gross human rights violations against Palestinian political prisoners. The Gates Foundation talks about every life having equal value, but what about the political prisoners, are their lives not of equal value?” said Sahar Francis, director of Palestinian prisoner and advocacy organisation Addameer.
More than 500 children are ‘are arrested, detained and prosecuted in the Israeli military detention system each year’, according to Defence for Children International – Palestine. Three out of every four of child detainees face physical violence during detention and interrogation, much of which takes place in facilities G4S helps to operate.
Palestinian student and father-of-two Arafat Jaradat died in custody last year after being tortured in Megiddo Prison, a facility that G4S helps to operate.
“Bill Gates is the richest man in the world, why does his charity have to fund itself by profiting from the torture of children and the use of detention without trial?” Francis added.
Israel illegally transfers prisoners from the occupied Palestinian territories to inside Israel despite this being prohibited by Article 76 of the Geneva Convention. Campaigners argue that G4S is complicit in this violation of international law.
A petition that has been backed by 20 Palestinian organisations and more than 100 organisations from across the world has also been launched today.
G4S has already lost contracts worth millions of dollars as trade unions and universities and other public bodies in Europe and South Africa cancel their contracts over concerns about the firm’s role in Israel’s prison system.
Hollywood actor Scarlett Johansson was embroiled in controversy and was eventually forced into resigning her role as an Oxfam ambassador earlier this year after she endorsed SodaStream, an Israeli company that manufactures drinks machines in an illegal Israeli settlement. Celebrities including Pink Flyod’s Roger Waters, Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja and Maxi Jazz from Faithless have backed a cultural boycott of Israel.
In April 2012, more than 2,000 Palestinian political prisoners went on hunger strike to protest conditions in Israel’s jails and the use of administrative detention, a form of detention without trial. There are currently three prisoners who remain on hunger strike, two of whom have gone without food for almost 80 days.
Palestinian human rights groups say that Israel uses mass incarceration to dissuade Palestinians from protesting against Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies. Israeli military orders make a whole range of activities illegal, including joining a political party or organising a demonstration.
There are more than 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners currently held in Israeli jails, including 183 children and 175 held under administrative detention, a form of detention without trial that Israel uses to hold Palestinians on secret information indefinitely.
7th March 2014 | Corporate Watch, Tom Anderson and Therezia Cooper | Gaza, Occupied Palestine
International action has been called for in solidarity with prisoners held in Israeli jails. Corporate Watch has been investigating the companies involved in the Israeli prison system and interviewing ex-prisoners. This interview is part of a series of articles which will be released over the coming months focusing on companies providing equipment and services to the Israeli Prison ‘Service’ (IPS).
Israeli surveillance technology overlooks Palestinian farmland in Beit Hanoun- Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013
We met ‘Salah’* at his home in Beit Hanoun in the Northern Gaza Strip a few weeks after his release from seven years prison in Israel. A celebration tent had been set up in his house since his release. We wanted to speak to Salah about the conditions for sick patients in Israeli jails, the particular problems for prisoners from Gaza and the complicity of international companies like G4Sand Hewlett Packard in the Israeli prison system. The Ketziot prison where Salah spent some of his period of imprisonment has been receiving servicesfrom British/Danish company G4S since 2007.
The effects of Israeli air attacks are never far away in Beit Hanoun. As his sons and grandsons bring us tea to drink, Salah tells us that during the Israeli bombardment in November 2012 his grandson ‘Hisham’, who was three and a half years old, “was playing a little way away from a government building. The building was struck by an F16 and rubble hit him on the head. He was in intensive care for seven days.” We are invited to feel the soft patch in Hisham’s skull where he was injured. Salah goes on to tell us: “My son ‘Abed’, now 20 years old, was in the street when the group of boys he was with was targeted by an Apache [helicopter]. One of them was killed and 18 injured. Abed’s hand was amputated, he is seriously psychologically affected.”
When we defended our children, our homes and our homelands
Salah tells us that he wants to tell us the story of what happened when, as he puts it, “we defended our children, our homes and our homelands”. “I was arrested during the first intifada [uprising] and detained under administrative detention for four months. During my arrest I was hit on the head with a stone. While I was interrogated they tortured me by squeezing my testicles. I was released for ten days then detained without charge again for another two years. During that period I remember one of the soldiers pissed on the ground and then scooped up the urine and forced it to my mouth. During the interrogation they hit my legs and toes with sticks.” He rolls up his trouser leg and shows us his bent and scarred legs and feet.
He goes on to say that in November 2006 the “Israelis invaded [Beit Hanoun] and ordered all the men aged from 15 to 50 to gather in one place and asked for our IDs. When they came to me they looked at my ID, then they told me to take off all my clothes except my underwear. They made me walk around several times, it was embarrassing. Then they arrested me.”
At the time of his arrest Salah was being treated for a heart problem. He was taken to the Beit Hanoun (Erez) checkpoint where he was detained for three days, then they took him to Ashkelon prison where he was allowed to see a doctor. The doctor said ‘that he would not be responsible for what happened during interrogation’ as Salah ‘might die’ due to the weakness caused by his health problems. Despite this Salah was interrogated continuously for ten hours. During the interview he had a pain in his chest. They gave him painkillers but the interrogation continued.
Salah told us: “I spent 35 days inside the interrogation cells without any medical care. During my interrogation my health deteriorated. The last part of the interrogation was non-stop for 17 hours – I was exhausted. When it was over they forced me to sign documents in Hebrew which I didn’t understand.”
“They accused me of being a leading figure in Fatah and of membership of the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades [an armed resistance group aligned to Fatah] and of inciting the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades. I told them that I had nothing to do with these things.”
“In Bir al Saba [Beeersheva] prison in 2007 I had a heart attack. They put me in a prison vehicle similar to an ambulance but I was on a stretcher handcuffed and leg-cuffed and wearing an oxygen mask. When I got to Bir al Saba hospital I said ‘where am I, where am I?’ But they didn’t tell me anything.
I stayed there for a few hours. The doctors in the hospital didn’t communicate with me, they just spoke to the soldiers. Then I was driven back to the prison. I asked what the doctors had said about my condition when I returned to the prison. I was told by the officer that he could not tell me anything about my health, as it was a security matter.
I had to return to the hospital regularly. It took more than nine hours from the hospital to the prison. I asked to be transported in a proper ambulance but they refused.
“He is a dog”
In 2012 when I was being taken to hospital one of the guards slammed the door on my legs on purpose. The other guard said to him, ‘why did you do that?’ The first guard answered, ‘he is a dog, don’t worry about him.’
I was always protesting about inappropriate medical care and because of this they constantly transferred me from prison to prison. Painkillers and water drinking are the only solutions they give to medical problems when you bring them up. I met with the International Committee of the Red Cross inside the prisons. I explained to them about the conditions. They made promises but it seemed like it was only slogans, only words.
During the 2012 hunger strike I was in Nafha prison. I was too sick to participate in the strike. The guards tried to make people eat. I saw how they did this. Me and the other sick prisoners threatened that if the Israelis did not meet the demands of the other prisoners we would join the hunger strike and not take food or water.
When I was in the prison clinic getting oxygen I saw the Israeli units kicking and punching the hunger strikers. The guards had food with them and were telling them to eat.
I saw doctors telling the hunger strikers: ‘if you do not stop your hunger strike we will not give you your medicine.’ It was like a battle of defiance between the Palestinian prisoners and the IPS. If an inmate did break the hunger strike the guards tried to humiliate them. Sometimes our clothes were taken and we were left in our underwear. They invaded our cells all the time.
The lives of the people on hunger strike were worth nothing – but what can you expect from people who kill children?”
Denial of visits
After the election of Hamas in 2006 and the power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, which ended with Hamas remaining in control of the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military decided to end all visits to Israeli prisons by the families of Palestinian prisoners from Gaza. According to Salah, “From 2006-2012 I received no visits. Then, after 28 days of the hunger strike there was an agreement under the supervision of the Egyptians. The IPS agreed to allow some family visits. I received visits about every 2 months”. The number of visits received by prisoners from Gaza is still limited by the IPS.
Salah was imprisoned in Ketziot in the Naqab (Negev) for three years. G4S have a contract to supply equipment and services to Ketziot. Salah told us that the conditions in Ketziot were particularly bad: “We were kept in the caravans. There were three sections to Ketziot: tents, caravans and cement huts. One of the Israeli officers at Ketziot came to my cell and threatened to kill me, another of the guards there took a stapler and fired a staple into my head.
Ketziot Prison – picture from Alternative News
When they invaded our cells in Ketziot they shot tear gas grenades and used pepper spray. They sprayed canisters of gas into the cells. There was a bad smell – you would wash your clothes but the smell would still linger for days. It made you sneeze. Some people lost consciousness because of this. During that time in Ketziot they no longer distinguished between the healthy and the sick and the elderly. My friends used to put me under the bed to protect me because I was weak and they were afraid that I would be killed.
I was also imprisoned in Ramon and Ohalei Keidar prisons.”
‘From a small prison to a big prison’
“When I was released they said ‘let it be the last time for you Salah’. They claimed they could get me back easily if I caused trouble. Since my release I am very nervous, I cannot bear to hear any loud noise. I prefer to be alone.” As he describes this Salah begins to cry.
“I have gone from a small prison to a big prison, here there are drones in the sky and the crossings are closed.
The Israeli border fence in Beit Hanoun – Picture taken by Corporate Watch, November 2013
The British government should put pressure on Israel to release the prisoners – it is Britain’s responsibility. Administrative detention is their law and the Balfour Declaration started all the problems.
I would like the international community to continue their efforts to raise awareness of the conditions for people in Israeli jails. G4S and other companies should be prosecuted and pursued in the International Criminal Court, they are making money out of the crimes being committed against the Palestinian people.”
Physicians instrumental in the Israeli prison system
A group of doctors has called for a boycott of the Israeli Medical Association in line with the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions. The call is on the basis of the IMA’s complicity in torture and Israeli violations of the rights of the civilian population under the fourth Geneva Convention. Dr. Derek Summerfield, a British supporter of the boycott, said it was justified as many Israeli physicians were complicit in the occupation’s crimes. According to Summerfield, one Israeli physician had confessed that he had “removed the intravenous drip from the arm of a seriously ill Palestinian prisoner, and told the man that if he wanted to live, he should co-operate with his interrogators.”
Take action
One way to act in solidarity with sick prisoners is to support calls for the Israeli Medical Association’s expulsion from the World Medical Association over its complicity in Israeli militarism and apartheid. For more details see www.boycottima.org
Or you can join the campaign against G4S, click here to find out more.
Who Profits released the following report on the involvement of Israeli and multinational corporations in the Israeli prison system:
On December 2013, the Israel Prison Service (IPS) responded to a freedom of information request by Who Profits, which was submitted three months earlier, regarding twenty-two corporations that provide services to Israeli prisons.
These companies mainly provide security equipment and services to incarceration facilities that hold Palestinian prisoners and detainees inside Israel and in the occupied West Bank. These incarceration facilities hold Palestinian political prisoners in violation of international law, and torture and systematic violations of human rights take place within their walls. According to Addameer’s latest monthly detention report (December 2013), there are 5033 Palestinian political prisoners in the Israeli prisons, 173 of whom are minors and 145 are administrative detainees.
The following table is an English translation of information provided by the Israel Prison Service to Who Profits, regarding twenty-two corporations that provide services to Israeli prisons and detention facilities.
