CPTnet
15 February 2006

HEBRON: Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council
urges CPT to start telling story of Palestinian detainees

by Jerry Levin

Sheikh Nayef Rajoub, one of Hamas' victorious Hebron-based candidates
elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council last month, is asking CPT to
document Israel's administrative detention of Palestinians without charge.
"I could provide you with telephone numbers of people in Hebron who have
been there whom you can speak to," the Sheikh told CPTers Tracey Hughes, Sis
and Jerry Levin. The three met with him to discuss the implications of Hamas
election triumph on CPT's work in the Hebron district.

"There are thousands of Palestinians who have been detained for over sixty
months. They are being tormented daily in ways that are unthinkable and
inconceivable," the Sheikh claimed. "There are more than 1200 political
prisoners being held without charges, without trial, without nothing! In
fact," he reported, "I got out of administrative detention four months ago.
This time I was arrested and detained for eight months without charges or
trial."

He said the treatment he experienced is similar to the abuses of Iraqi
detainees by the U. S. military that CPT has been reporting for almost
three years. "In some Israeli detention/interrogation centers our young men
are chained, handcuffed with their hands behind their backs and with
shackles on their feet for seven consecutive days uninterrupted. They are
given just enough water to keep them alive. But as soon as a detainee begins
to sip water from the glass that the guard holds to his mouth, the guard
will suddenly snatch it away and pour it on his head."

"Without any charge at all, the Israelis bring you in front of a judge who
tells you that you are being detained because of secret violations that only
he (the judge) and Israeli intelligence know," the Sheikh said. Then the
torture--both psychological and physical begins. "Normally a detainee is
held in administrative detention without trial for six months. Then when he
is actually released, he gets on a bus. But then they take him off the bus
and put him back in prison for another six months. This happens after he has
called his family that he is coming home."

The Sheikh also reported that several members of Hamas who were elected to
the Legislative Council are still in administrative detention. "Five are
from Hebron," he said. "Some have been there for fourteen months."

The Sheikh also listed Hamas' priorities, now that it has majority control
of the Legislative Council.

1. Financial corruption. Much foreign aid comes to the Palestinian
Authority but nobody knows where it ends up.

2. The lack of security, the lawlessness, and the chaos especially in the
Gaza strip.

3. Enhancing relations with surrounding Arab countries: Jordan, Syria,
Egypt, Saudi Arabia; and, he concluded, "We are also interested sincerely
with good relations with the west especially the United States and the
European Union."