Public Committee Against Torture In Israel

The Public Committee against Torture in Israel ( English : Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, PCATI) is a nongovernmental organization Israeli founded in 1990 in response to government policy which allowed then the systematic use of torture and ill-treatment during of interrogation by the General Security Service (GSS) .

She became famous for being one of the plaintiffs, along with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel , and Hamoked , the Centre for the Defence of individuals during the 1999 trial held before the High Court of Justice , where it prohibits the use of torture in General Security Service (GSS, better known as the Shin Bet ) .

The decision of 1999

The decision of the High Court of Justice in 1999 stated, in substance, that the existing law regarding interrogation was the same for the police and ordinary intelligence , and that it prohibited the use of torture. Taking into account both the security needs of the country that the democratic imperative of judicial review of government actions, the Court stated, however, that if no administrative action ex ante could legalize torture, only a law can do, it remained willing to accept ex post the excuse of " necessary defense "(Necessity defense) in cases where the urgency of the situation would have pushed the government officer to use such methods ( Ticking time bomb scenario (in) ) , within the framework of a trial in criminal (the excuse could not serve the civilian ).

However, a 2001 report of PCATI and other organizations (the World Organization against Torture , based in Switzerland) said they knew of twenty cases of torture between 1999 decision and 2001 (dates between which the Second Intifada began), in flagrant contradiction with the Supreme Court ruling .

The 2005 ruling

PCATI submitted another question to the High Court of Justice , reviewed in December 2005 on " targeted killings "performed by the Israeli army in the Second Intifada (HCJ 769/02, Public Committee against Torture Israel against Israel). Reiterating the ruling of the Supreme Court president Aharon Barak during shutdown on torture, the Court stated first that "a democracy must fight with one hand tied behind his back, respecting the law , including international law in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Whereas the people engaging in acts of terrorism are civilians who, by their acts of hostility, abandon their rights to protection to civilians in time of war , but can not necessarily rely on the rights granted to combatants , she finally concludes that the practice of targeted killings must be evaluated on a legal case by case: it is possible or declare them in advance and generally legal, or consider them in general and ex ante as illegal . A. Barak did, however, a clear hint at that case to the case Salah Shehadeh was suspended in March 2004 due consideration of the policy of targeted killings, saying that if we could predict that a large number of civilians would be killed because of the operation, it would be illegal .

The situation today

In its report of September-October 2008 to the attention of the UN Committee against Torture , the PCATI perdurance emphasizes the facts of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by the GSS and other forces of order ^, . Those detained by the Israeli authorities sometimes call at the time of their detention, PCATI , in its ruling of 1999, the Supreme Court emphasized as it was sometimes called upon to exercise its power of judicial review when of the exercise of the facts.

Called "special measures" by the GSS, they are most often retrospectively legitimized in the name of necessity , the Office of the Attorney General refusing to initiate proceedings against the interrogator and his superiors .

PCATI rises especially against the 2002 law on " illegal combatants "( Unlawful Combatants Law ), which allows them to administrative detention for renewable periods of six months. According to the association, such detention is a long-term cases of inhuman and degrading treatment .

PCATI also said, in April 2008 that the Shin Bet arrested members of the family of a detainee interviewed in order to exert psychological pressure against him .

Administration PCATI

The Secretary General of PCATI is Professor Gideon Freudenthal. The executive committee (board of directors) includes Avigdor Feldman , who was the lawyer of Mordechai Vanunu , the lawyer Shlomo Lecker, Professor Emmanuel Farjun; Prof. Avishai Ehrlich; lawyer Leah Tsemel, Tal Zilberstein, Hannah Friedman Yaffa and Wagner.

PCATI funds are diverse, from both the State of Israel itself (Ministries of Education and Justice), of NGOs and other institutions, including the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Norway , the Middle East Peace Foundation , the United Nations Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture , the EIDHR ( European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights , a program of the European Commission in partnership with the Council of Europe ), etc. .

References

See also

• Palestinian prisoners in Israel

External Links

• Official site (English, Hebrew and Arabic)
• Decision of the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 in the case PCATI, etc.., on torture and interrogation by GSS

• Portal Human Rights
• Israel portal

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