RAMALLAH _ Palestine News Network
The international Movement for the Defence of Children (Palestine Branch) reported that the Israeli occupying forces have arrested 27 children under administrative detention; Since October 2015, two of them are still in detention.
Four children (out of 27) were from the occupied city of Jerusalem, a precedent in the history of the use of administrative detention against Palestinian minors, the world Movement said in a statement on Monday.
A 16-year-old Palestinian child, who is still in administrative detention, was reportedly arrested on 22 July last July at dawn from his father´s house. It is clear that the Israeli occupation soldiers treated him with "violence."
The child (whose identity was not disclosed) stated that he had been transferred to an Israeli court on 24 July, where his detention had been extended by 48 hours, and two days later they handed him a copy of the administrative detention order for four months
DCI expressed its deep concern over the use by Israel (the occupying Power) of a renewed administrative detention order against Palestinian children.
She stressed that "the imprisonment of children without charge or trial for indefinite periods is tantamount to arbitrary and unlawful detention".
"Israel must either prosecute the children and grant them fair trial rights or release them immediately," she said.
administrative detention; detention without charge or trial is based on a confidential file and evidence that the detainee or his lawyer cannot access and, according to Israeli military orders, the detention order can be renewed indefinitely, as an administrative detention order is issued for a maximum period of six months, renewable.
The United Nations Working Group on the investigation of arbitrary Detention also considered administrative detention to be a form of psychological torture, and that the occupying forces practised it as one of the forms of collective punishment prohibited under international law.
The international Standards of juvenile justice, which Israel is obliged to implement after ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991, stipulate that the deprivation of liberty of children must be the last resort and that detention may not be unlawful or arbitrary.
In the occupied West Bank, where military law is applied only to the Palestinian population, the Israeli Military Order 1651 allows for administrative detention of adults and children for up to six months and is subject to indefinite renovation.
Before October 2015, Israel has not detained any children from the West Bank administratively since December 2011.
Israel is the only state in the world to systematically try between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in military courts every year, in a way that lacks basic rights to a fair trial.
