From: Hank Roth <odin@world.std.com>
Subject: Intifada & Torture
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Sun, 20 Dec 1992 06:07:58 GMT

<<< via P_news/p.news >>>
{From PEOPLE'S WEEKLY WORLD, December 12, 1992}
ON 5TH ANNIVERSARY OF PALESTINIAN INTIFADA: 
MEASURE OUTLAWING TORTURE WILL BE INTRODUCED
by Hans Lebrecht
 
TEL AVIV--At a press conference Monday in Jerusalem, sponsored 
by the Democratic HADASH front, Tamar Gozansky, Communist member 
of the Knesset announced that on Dec. 9 she would introduce a 
bill on behalf of HADASH to turn the U.N Human Rights Charter 
into law and to outlaw the use of torture during interrogations. 
Dec 9 is the fifth anniversary of the popular uprising 
(intifada) of the Palestinians against Israeli occupation.
 
Although Israel has signed the Charter, she said, it never was 
ratified by the Knesset and therefore, the use of torture by the 
Security Services and police interrogators never has been a 
criminal offense. According to recommendations of a special 
commission headed by Supreme Court Judge Landau, interrogators 
are free to use so-called "moderate physical and psychological 
pressure" to extract information.
 
MK Hashem Mahameed told the press conference that contrary to 
official government figures, more than 1,500 Palestinians were 
killed by Israeli army personnel and colonialists during the five 
years of the intifada; over 100,000 were wounded and 100,000 
detained or imprisoned. Among the slain Palestinians, 186 were 
children, 51 of them below the age of 12.
 
Mahameed said an increasing number of Israelis now know there is 
no military solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, that 
peace cannot be achieved without full withdrawal from all Arab 
territories occupied since 1967 and without negotiating with the 
PLO, the sole recognized representative of the Palestinian 
people.  He added that was why Yitzhak Rabin was elected, to 
change things. Now, however, more and more people start to see 
that Rabin is so far not fulfilling his promises. 
 
A statement by the HADASH Front--Jews and Arabs--stress that we 
have continue to struggle for the realization of the intifada's 
goals--peace, security and independence for both the Israeli and 
the Palestinian peoples."
 
Meanwhile, the Israeli Army sealed off the whole Gaza Strip 
following the Dec. 8 incident in which Palestinian guerrillas 
ambushed and killed three Israeli Army reservists. In a statement 
on the incident the HADASH group in the Knesset said the stubborn 
refusal of the Rabin government to respect Palestinian rights and 
to confer with the PLO leadership is the real cause of the 
continuing mutual bloodshed, in which Israelis as well as 
Palestinians are falling victim.
 
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