RAMALLAH, November 3 (JMCC) - Israeli doctors that treat Palestinian prisoners often fail to document or report practices amounting to torture, report two human rights organizations,
says the Guardian.
Torture was outlawed in Israel in 1999, but the illegal ill-treatment of detainees in interrogation has continued, according to the Public Committee Against Torture and Physicians for Human Rights.
The groups documented cases where prisoners said they had been beaten, made to forgo sleep or left in an uncomfortable position for hours. When the prisoners were taken to see a doctor, the medical professionals' reports were incomplete and allowed their return to interrogation, the report states.
The report, Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim, to be published later this month, is based on 100 cases of Palestinian detainees brought to PCAT since 2007. It says: This report reveals significant evidence arousing the suspicion that many doctors ignore the complaints of their patients; that they allow Israeli Security Agency interrogators to use torture; approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total immunity for the torturers.
Alleged ill-treatment of detainees, some of whose cases are detailed in the 61-page report, includes beatings, being held for long periods in stress positions, hands being tightly tied with plastic cuffs, sleep deprivation and threats. Israel denies torturing or ill-treating prisoners.
Doctors are failing to keep proper medical records of injuries caused during interrogations. The report cites countless cases wherein individuals testified to injuries inflicted upon them during detention or in interrogation, and yet the medical record from the hospital or the prison service makes no mention of it.