Palestinians Call For International Probe Of Israeli Prisons After Inmate Dies In Custody

[Purveyor]

Palestinians on Sunday called for an international investigation of Israel's treatment of detained Palestinians after a 30-year-old Palestinian died in custody and a hunger strike by four other inmates sparked a week of West Bank protests.

The death of Arafat Jaradat set off more clashes between Israeli troops and Palestinian stone-throwers in several areas of the West Bank on Sunday. In one incident, two Palestinians were wounded by army fire, including a 15-year-old boy who was shot in the chest, a Palestinian health official said.

Jaradat's death in prison raised new questions about Israel's Shin Bet security service, which has been accused by rights groups of mistreating Palestinians during interrogation.

Palestinian officials and the detainee's family alleged Jaradat was mistreated by the Shin Bet, saying he was healthy at the time of his arrest last week.

MORE...

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/news/Medic+says+shot+stomach+Jewish+settlers+clash+with/8007271/story.html

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. Wow. Crickets.

Team apology is sure staying away from this topic in droves.

Perhaps then can make an comparison to Tibet in order to deflect from the crime committed.

[oberliner]

2. Health Ministry Statement on the Autopsy on Arafat Jaradat

This afternoon (Sunday, 24 February 2013), at the National Center for
Forensic Medicine, an autopsy was performed on the body of Arafat Jaradat by
Prof. Yehuda Hiss, in the presence of Prof. Arnon Afek, Director of the
Health Administration at the Ministry of Health, and Palestinian pathologist
Dr. Saber Aloul.

During the autopsy, no signs of external trauma were found apart from those
pertaining to resuscitation [attempts] and a small graze on the right side
of his chest.

No evidence of disease was found during the autopsy.

Two internal hemorrhages were detected, one on the shoulder and one on the
right side of the chest.

Two ribs were broken, which may indicate resuscitation attempts.

The initial findings cannot determine the cause of death.

At this stage, until microscopic and toxicology reports are in, the cause of
death cannot be tied to the autopsy findings.”

http://imra.org.il/story.php3?id=60182

[Purveyor]

3. Well THAT settles it then so saith the 'IMRA, Independent Media Review and Analysis...

IMRA, Independent Media Review and Analysis, was founded in 1992, by Drs. Aaron and Joseph Lerner, as an ongoing analysis of developments in Arab-Israeli relations. Awarded credentials by the Government of Israel as a news organization, IMRA provides an extensive digest of media, polls and significant interviews and events.


{{{chuckle}}}

[oberliner]

4. Hardly settles anything

And it's not IMRA making the statement - they just reprinted what the Israeli Health Minister put out. Other articles have excerpts from that statement but I thought it best to post the whole thing.

Clearly, nothing is settled - and anyone proclaiming otherwise is jumping the gun.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. I believe that you have it wrong.

Shouldn't this really be about China/Tibet?

[oberliner]

8. I don't see how that is related

Unless you are making a joke, I don't understand.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

10. I'm going to use that exact quote, attributed to you, every single time that the

dialog is shifted away from the topic at hand.

I hope you don't mind the credit, but that's the way it goes.

[azurnoir]

6. here

An autopsy has revealed that Arafat Jaradat died of extreme torture in Israeli custody and did not have a cardiac arrest, the PA Minister of Detainee Affairs said Sunday.

At a news conference in Ramallah, Issa Qaraqe said an autopsy conducted in Israel in the presence of Palestinian officials revealed that 30-year-old Jaradat had six broken bones in his neck, spine, arms and legs.

"The information we have received so far is shocking and painful. The evidence corroborates our suspicion that Mr. Jaradat died as a result of torture, especially since the autopsy clearly proved that the victim's heart was healthy, which disproves the initial alleged account presented by occupation authorities that he died of a heart attack," Qaraqe said.

......................................

The autopsy revealed evidence of severe torture and on the muscle of the upper left shoulder, parallel to the spine in the lower neck area, and evidence of severe torture under the skin and inside the muscle of the right side of the chest. His second and third ribs in the right side of the chest were broken, Qaraqe said, and he also had injuries in the middle of the muscle in the right hand.

http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=568699

ever done CPR? The breaking of the second and third ribs on the right side of the ribcage during resuscitation makes no sense at least not if chest compressions were being properly applied, what does happen on occasion during CPR is that there is a small cartiledge called the xiphoid process that is located at the bottom of the sternum at about the level of 5th-6th rib that is broken but causes no lasting injury to the patient

[oberliner]

9. CPR often leads to broken ribs

A significant portion of the people who receive cardiopulmonary resuscitation may end up with broken ribs or other bones as a result, according to Korean researchers, who also found that some types of patients could be at higher risk than others.

In a study of people admitted to Korean hospitals, close to one third of those resuscitated after having CPR ended up with at least one broken rib, while about four percent had a broken breast bone, or sternum.

Dr. Michael Sayre, a spokesperson for the American Heart Association and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, said broken ribs are to be expected when doing CPR and the worry of causing a break shouldn't deter people from helping someone in cardiac arrest.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/03/us-cpr-often-leads-to-broken-ribs-idUSBRE8721IF20120803

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

11. "CPR often leads to broken ribs"

So can torture.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/middleeast/la-fg-israel-palestinian-protests-20130225,0,6531298.story

After an autopsy Sunday conducted by Israel and observed by a Palestinian doctor, Palestinian Prisoner Affairs Minister Issa Qaraqi said Jaradat's body was bruised and showed signs of being beaten on the chest, back, arms and mouth.

Having gone through CPR training recently the instructor never taught me to beat the patient first.

[azurnoir]

14. well that's nice but.......

certain types of patients would very likely mean the elderly, especially post menopausal women who have osteoporosis, and children, the person in this case was none of those now I've been CPR certified for 20 years (renewed every 3 years) broken Xiphoid process along with possible broken sternum are what are most often mentioned , also the it is specifically the second and third rib which when preforming CPR shouldn't really come into play

[parkia00]

21. What type of CPR leaves bruises on the back?

The special type of CPR that is done with the patient lying face down?

[King_David]

23. I have done CPR .. Often

And I have fractured ribs ... Often.
In 2013 ... Deep compressions are the most important thing in the CPR regimen.
I have fractured ribs during CPR ... Often.

[azurnoir]

24. That's right your a Doctor how could I forget

and while doing this CPR you've broken the second and /or third ribs right?

[King_David]

25. Yep , the 1st rib is impossible to break nt

[azurnoir]

26. Yhat's nice but the second and third on the right side would be broken

in a healthy young male during CPR, thanks for informing us

[King_David]

28. Guess you never did CPR.

But I forgets your an expert huh ?

[azurnoir]

29. well I would guess I have done CPR more than once

but as a what was it Doctor, you say that the second and third ribs get broken when preforming CPR on a healthy young male, oh and on the right side too, interesting to say the least

eta to add diagram for reference

[King_David]

32. I don't get your point

Diagram and all .

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

33. I have read a few articles of the auptopsy

where this man had more than just a few broken ribs.

The USA had a brave soldier that tortured an Iraqi named Abed Hamed Mowhoush to death by covering his mouth and placing him head first into a sleeping bag and then sitting on his chest during an interrogation.

To get all those fractures and bruises the Israelis must have really worked this guy over. I wonder if he got some sort of same treatment: siting on chest, cracking bones. What a horrible way to go.

Three cheers for Israeli democracy torture.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

30. I had no idea you worked for the IDF.

[King_David]

31. What a funny joke. nt

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

34. Do you want to know what is really, really funny?

Arafat Jaradat, 30, apparently had a healthy heart. Imagine that?

The autopsy showed that there was no damage to his heart.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/25/world/middleeast/palestinians-demand-inquiry-into-detainees-death-in-israel.html?_r=0

"The pathologist reported no blood clotting or sign of heart damage, he added, but did see two broken ribs, an injury inside the lower lip and blood around the nostrils.

So why even comment on what you say CPR might do? There were other fractures and bruises to the late Mr. Jaradat's body. Are they consistent with CPR?

And now for the kicker. If the late Mr. Jaradat as you say did need CPR, with a healthy heart, then what did they do to him to cause his cardiac arrest?


Yeah, this is all really really funny, no?

[King_David]

35. Cardiac arrest requiring CPR

does not necessarily have to have any signs of heart damage on autopsy.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

36. No shit, really? Which leads right back to my overlooked questions.

So why even comment on what you say CPR might do? There were other fractures and bruises to the late Mr. Jaradat's body. Are they consistent with CPR?

And now for the kicker. If the late Mr. Jaradat as you say did need CPR, with a healthy heart, then what did they do to him to cause his cardiac arrest?

[Violet_Crumble]

7. Thousands attend funeral of Palestinian detainee who died in Israeli prison

Over 10,000 Palestinians attended the funeral procession on Monday for the detainee Arafat Jadarat, who died on Saturday in Meggido Prison at the age of 30. The IDF is on high alert in anticipation of riots in the area.

The funeral procession is making its way from Hebron to the nearby village of Sa'ir, where Jaradat lived. In order to enable the movement of the masses of participants attending the funeral, and in an attempt to prevent friction with the settlers and IDF soldiers, Highway 60 between Gush Etzion and Hebron has been closed.

A senior Fatah official, Azzam al-Ahmed, said Monday that the Palestinian Authority is supporting and encouraging the increase in confrontations on the West Bank. "Resistance is a natural right, and we are all in agreement about popular resistance," he said.

PA officials rejected on Sunday Israeli accusations that PA officials are exacerbating the situation in the region in an attempt to ignite a third intifada. At the same time, PA
officials are not concealing their fear of losing control over the Palestinian street, if the escalation continues.

"We are not planning an intifada, but Israeli policy is only fanning the flames at the moment," said a senior Fatah official, Dr. Nabil Sha'ath. "If Israel continues this way, the entire region is liable to become involved in a dangerous spiral."


http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/thousands-attend-funeral-of-palestinian-detainee-who-died-in-israeli-prison.premium-1.505692

[Scurrilous]

12. How Israel legitimises torturing Palestinians to death

Israel's policy of torture has left many dead and completely lacks accountability.

<snip>

"Six days after Arafat Jaradat was arrested by the Israeli army and the Shin Bet, he was dead. Between the date of his arrest - February 18 - and the day of his death - February 23 - his lawyer Kamil Sabbagh met with Arafat only once: in front of a military judge at the Shin Bet's Kishon interrogation facility.

Sabbagh reported that when he saw Jaradat, the man was terrified. Arafat told his lawyer that he was in acute pain from being beaten and forced to sit in stress positions with his hands bound behind his back.

When it announced his death, Israeli Prison Service claimed Arafat - who leaves a pregnant widow and two children - died from cardiac arrest. However, the subsequent autopsy found no blood clot in his heart. In fact, the autopsy concluded that Arafat, who turned 30 this year, was in fine cardiovascular health.

What the final autopsy did find, however, was that Jaradat had been pummelled by repeated blows to his chest and body and had sustained a total of six broken bones in his spine, arms and legs; his lips lacerated; his face badly bruised.

The ordeal that Arafat suffered before he died at the hands of Israel's Shin Bet is common to many Palestinians that pass through Israel's prisons. According to the prisoners' rights organisation Addameer, since 1967, a total of 72 Palestinians have been killed as a result of torture and 53 due to medical neglect. Less than a month before Jaradat was killed, Ashraf Abu Dhra died while in Israeli custody in a case that Addameer argues was a direct result of medical neglect."

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/02/201322511744515745.html

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

13. Yeah, this is done by CPR...

[oberliner]

15. Yellow Journalism?

"While the State of Israel continues to deploy its deadly arsenal of weapons to repress Palestinians, the banality of the evil of this regime is, as it will always be, eclipsed by the mighty Palestinian will for self-determination."

Evil Regime vs. Mighty Palestinian Will

[delrem]

19. Please, oberliner, don't make light of this.

Yes, "Evil Regime vs. Mighty Palestinian Will" as you put it, or "the banality of evil vs the mighty will for self-determination", is turgid (and unreal) prose. Few writers are of Solzhenitsyn's caliber and "the banality of evil" is an overused buzz-phrase deprived of meaning when applied like that. But this discussion isn't about lit-crit. It's ultimately about a reality.

There's a problem when a world power (or a significant part of the world) has total control of military force on the ground coupled with a totally embedded message for the home audience (note: journalism during the Vietnam war wasn't totally embedded, and the US military learned a lesson). This is an "existential" problem for democracy, for the fact that in a democracy the people as a general whole ought to have understanding and control of the situation.

The Iraq war, where embedding of official military messaging with MSM became a totally controlled official policy, shows the result w.r.t. the understanding of the US citizenry. Although the US citizenry was allegedly taken by surprise (according as the US MSM tells it - but then the US MSM claimed "surprise" at the non-existence of WMD, and on and on) the Abu Ghraib scandal was almost inevitable. There were no constraints! The buffer argument for the scandal was inevitable, the "few bad apples vs general institutional policy" argument was inevitable, and that the "few bad apples" argument won out officially and only a few low tier abusers had to pay a price while the higher tiers were all rewarded was also inevitable. I use the word 'inevitable' a lot because once a power goes down that road of total control of the message a lot becomes predictable. That the US economic/military power learned that it was less messy, PR wise, to systematically kill targets rather than capture them, was predictable. Laundering through ever more sophisticated outsourcing of kills/kidnapping is predictable in any such enterprise, whether state or outright criminal (the powerful criminal gangs, whatever the country of origin).

This isn't a problem confined to the "only world superpower, the USA", or to the asymmetrical I/P situation and similar asymmetrical conflicts, by a long shot. And the problem has to be reformulated when the subject is an authoritarian and explicitly non-democratic power. But it's the same problem and the problem is *universal*. Because it's an universal problem all 'sides' share in it, including the weaker sides - so it's the duty of people on all sides to promote transparency. But the stronger (physically, militarily) sides are the most likely to be the controlling sides in any outcome, so it is especially important that people of that side face the problem squarely.

[Jefferson23]

20. Well said. n/t

[Jefferson23]

16. Gaza lawyers to strike over prisoner death

GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Lawyers in Gaza will go on strike Tuesday to protest the death of Arafat Jaradat in Israeli custody, their union announced Monday.

Union official Salameh Bseiso told Ma'an that lawyers would hold a sit in at the union's office in Gaza City on Tuesday morning.

Bseiso said Israeli interrogators had killed 30-year-old Jaradat "in cold blood" and called on international organizations to intervene to protect Palestinian prisoners.

"We won't stay calm regarding this crime and we will make intensive calls with Arab lawyers to reveal Israeli crimes," Bseiso added.

The Palestinian Authority state pathologist was present at the autopsy on Jaradat's body, which was carried out in Israel.

"There were marks of torture on the back, marks of torture on the chest, a deep wound on the upper side of the shoulder, wounds alongside the spine and marks of torture underneath the skin," PA prisoners minister Issa Qaraqe said, based on the doctor's basic findings.

http://maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=568878

[Jefferson23]

17. Background:

Failure to investigate alleged cases of ill-treatment and torture


Published:
1 Jan 2011

From the beginning of 2001 to the end of March 2011, more than seven hundred complaints alleging ISA abuse of interrogees have been filed with the State Attorney's Office. The State Attorney's Office did not order a criminal investigation into any of the complaints.

The State Attorney's Office bases its decision on the findings made by the Inspector of Complaints by ISA Interrogees (the Complaints Inspector), who is an ISA agent and subordinate to the head of the ISA. With the Complaints Inspector lacking independence and objectivity, it is not surprising that, in most cases, the inspector determines that the complaint is not true.

In the few cases in which the Complaints Inspector found that ISA agents abused an interrogee, the State Attorney's Office decided to close the file without ordering a criminal investigation, this on the tendentious grounds that the High Court established, whereby in “ticking bomb” cases the ISA interrogator may escape criminal responsibility under the “necessity defense.” His interpretation ignores the High Court's holding that this defense applies only with respect to an act that is “the result of an improvisation given the unpredictable character of the events,” and not the product of a calculated decision approved beforehand, as is the case.

The flaws in the “interrogation” described leads to the conclusion that the State of Israel breaches its obligation under international law to investigate allegations of torture and, where the findings dictate, prosecute the perpetrators. Furthermore, this mechanism transmits a message to interrogees, the potential complainants, that the chance of measures being taken against the persons responsible is zero.

http://www.btselem.org/torture/impunity

[Jefferson23]

18. Adalah- The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel

Physicians for Human Rights – Israel
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights

June 2012
ISBN 978-965-90512-5-0



On Torture

Attorney Lea Tsemel
Dr. Ruchama Marton, M.D
Professor Manfred Nowak
Attorney Jamil Dakwar
Attorney Irit Ballas
Attorney Bana Shoughry-Badarne
Attorney Gerard Horton
Brigadier General (Ret.) Stephen N. Xenakis, M.D
Graciela Carmon, M.D
Professor Lisa Hajjar



This document has been produced with the financial assistance of the European Union.
The contents of this document are the sole responsibility of Adalah, PHR-Israel and Al Mezan
and under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the European Union.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
PART ONE
Notes on the History of Torture in Israel
Attorney Lea Tsemel

From the Personal to the Political: The involvement of Israeli Physicians
in the Torture and Ill-treatment of Detainees
Dr. Ruchama Marton
Keynote Speech:

http://adalah.org/Public/files/English/Publications/On%20Torture%20%28English%29.pdf

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

22. The Palestinians are right to ask for an international probe on this. Now for the flipside.

We should call for the Palestinians to let an international probe of their use of rockets as a form of warfare against Israel's population take place.

I'm not joining the apologists here, but we have to have a level playing field. If one probe was to be initiated then you could argue the same for Israel on this.

If the Palestinians want to move ahead with their plans to be recognized as a state before the UN/world then they are going to have to put aside these unproductive measures of warfare as well as take responsibility for rockets not being fired.

Otherwise what we have is another India/Pakistan situation with war and skirmish: one after another.


I'm all for Palestinian statehood, normalization of relations between them and Israel and the acknowledgment of Israel by Palestine (minus settlements), but not at the price of continued warfare by either side

[patrice]

27. KICK