Psychological torture: Israel's most common interrogation tactic - Zionists inhumane
Posted By Ahmed Abdullah
April 19, 2008
Israel is using a new interrogation technique against Palestinian detainees, which mainly aims at breaking them psycologically.
One victim is 18-year-old Gheith Nasr, who has been arrested four times by the Israeli services over accusations of stone throwing and sabotaging video cameras. Few weeks away from high school exams, the main concern of a teenager is studying, but Gheith is far behind because of the unjustified arrest.
Even though Gheith was able to endure tough interrogation tactics by Israeli officers, he was forced to plead guilty when the Israelis captured his mother.
"When I saw my mother being brought into the cell with handcuffs, I tell you, I would have told them anything just to save her, anything," he told the BBC.
The mother was caught one day after Gheith was taken to the Qishlik police station. Israeli officers and troops returned to his house and searched through the family's belongings. The officers then told the parents that if they want to see their son, they must go to the Qishlik station.
But once the parents reached the station, each one of them was taken to a different room.
Gheith's mother said there were three men in the room she was locked up in. "I sat down and one stood behind me while the other started shouting in my face in a most aggressive and intimidating way... I was shocked, it was the first time I had even set foot in a police station and this man was saying horrible things about what they were going to do to Gheith,
"Then the one behind said: 'Cuff her hands for the night' and they put handcuffs on me and then took me along to another room, where I was surprised to see Gheith sitting. I was only in the room for a few seconds; we looked at each other but we were both too shocked to say anything. Then they took me out and took off the handcuffs", the mother said, according to the BBC.
An hour later, the mother was taken back to a cell, where she and her husband were given back their IDs and released.
Another "softer" tactic was used with Gheith's father, Nasr. With no handcuffs, the father was taken to see his son but was told by an Israeli officer to encourage Gheith to confess.
But Nasr decided not to follow the officer's orders.
"I sat together with my son for about 10 minutes, asking him how he was and how they were treating him, and saying a few things to keep his morale up.
"Then the officer came back and Gheith was then taken away. The officer asked whether my son was going to own up. I said: 'He has done nothing' and the officer replied: 'You are a liar!'
"Psycological torture"
Israel's domestic security agency, the GSS or Shin Bet, claims that it doesn't use relatives to break Palestinian detainees.
"Terrorist investigations are conducted by the Shin Bet according to the [1999] Supreme Court ruling [limiting interrogation methods], under the restrictions of the law and the tight supervision of the Justice Ministry and the courts," the Shin Bet said in a statement, according to the BBC.
But human rights group, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), insists that Israeli security officers continue to use "psycological torture".
The group published detailed evidence of six cases similar to Gheith's.
Israel's parliamentary constitutional and legal committee has taken the unusual step of scheduling a hearing hours after the publication.
The cases published by PCATI show that Israel's harsh interrogation tactics pushed some Palestinian detainees to commit suicide.
One prisoner, Mahmoud Sweiti, who is accused of belonging to Hamas' military wing, attempted suicide twice after seeing his wife and father dressed in prison coats.
In another case, the mother and brother of another detainee, Said Diab, were arrested and forced to watch him being violently interrogated by Israeli officers.
"Presenting close family members as suspects or under interrogation puts the real suspect under incredible psychological pressure, which can be as bad - if not worse - than physical torture," says PCATI legal consultant Eliahu Abram.
"The General Security Service may think that between beating a prisoner and showing him his mother crying in detention, the latter is the more non-abusive way, but it is not," he told the BBC.
Even though Abram thinks that intelligence services might be forced to use all possible ways to fight crime, using innocent people to extract confessions from suspects is not acceptable.
"The prisoner feels a sense of powerlessness and responsibility for what is happening to their loved-one - there is no telling whether information obtained in this way is reliable," Mr Abram said.
Violent interrogation tactics are prohibited not only by international law but also by Israeli law. Therefore, whatever information the Israelis obtain through such techniques should be deemed illegal and unreliable.