Chaim Levinson reports in Ha’aretz that there is a “conspiracy of silence” about Israeli torture.
The fact that Israel tortures prisoners has been exposed many times. In 1977 the London Sunday Times described it; award winning journalist and author Grace Halsell described it in her 1081 book Journey to Jerusalem and an article; Israeli torture of American citizens was exposed in Foreign Service Journal by Jerri Bird in 2002; Alison Weir wrote about Israeli torture in Censored 2005; Defence for Children International reported the torture of Palestinian minors in 2007, etc.
Now, the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz has published an article containing interviews with Israeli interrogators who describe their official methods:
For years, the Israeli establishment has tried to conceal what happens in interrogation rooms. When interrogators use torture – or “special means,” to use the establishment’s term – the concealment efforts are redoubled. Even when testimony of torture reaches the public, the system does everything it can to leave the interrogators’ role in darkness, including signing lenient plea bargains with suspects who were tortured to ensure that the conspiracy of silence remains unbroken.
Ha’aretz reports that In 1999, “the High Court of Justice outlawed torture, which had been permitted until then. But subsequent regulations issued by then-Attorney General Elyakim Rubinstein said interrogators who nevertheless used torture wouldn’t stand trial if they could demonstrate that it was ‘immediately necessary to save his own or another person’s life, freedom, person or property from a concrete danger of serious harm,’ and that ‘there was no other way to do so’.”
According to the article, the official torture techniques were changed and used less frequently until recent years, when the use of torture began to increase once again.
Related articles:
Ha’aretz, Dec 9, 2016: Despite Hundreds of Complaints of Shin Bet Torture, Israel Yet to Launch Single Investigation
UN Committee Against Torture recommends 50+ measures to Israel to end its use of torture
