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Palestinian Rights Groups Accuse Israel of 'Torturing' Barghuti
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Marwan Barghuti |
JERUSALEM,
May 21 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two Palestinian rights
groups, after visiting the jailed leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah
movement, Marwan Barghuti, Tuesday said that he is being tortured and
ill-treated by the Israeli security services.
They
called on the international community to intervene in the case of
Barghuti, arrested in the middle of Israel's occupation of the West
Bank city of Ramallah as part of its massive military campaign last
month, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
head of the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and
the Environment (LAW), Khader Shkirat, and Hassan Jabareen, head of
the Arab rights group Adalah (Justice), visited Barghuti at a jail in
central Jerusalem earlier Tuesday, they said in statement received by
AFP.
"Barghuti's
hands and legs are shackled to a small chair, angled to slant forward
so that he cannot sit in a stable position," the groups said.
"Due
to nails sticking out on the chair ... his back is bleeding, they
said, adding that he had been treated at the prison clinic Monday.
The
groups also said that Barghuti was kept in solitary confinement for 20
hours a day, suffering from sleep deprivation and that his guards
threatened to kill both him and his son, who is held in a prison in
southern Israel.
Israel
is bound by both international convention and its own laws not to
torture prisoners, the groups said in the statement.
Last
week Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal by Barghuti to meet his
lawyer on security grounds, and on Sunday, his arrest was extended by
12 days.
The
Fatah leader, who is also a deputy in the Palestinian parliament, has
demanded he be treated as a political prisoner. The rights groups
argued that he has parliamentary immunity.
Barghuti,
42, is accused by Israel of allegedly masterminding armed attacks on
Israelis by gunmen and bomb attacks linked to Fatah, in particular the
Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.
If
found guilty on the charges, he could be sentenced for killing
hundreds of Israelis.
Israel
claims Barghuti gave information directly linking Arafat to planning
suicide attacks.
However,
his lawyer, Jawwad Bolus, dismissed the Israeli claims as ‘mere
fabrications and twist of facts’.
Bolus,
speaking on Egyptian TV’s Editor-in-Chief weekly program Monday
night, confirmed Israel was torturing his client, both physically and
psychologically, to break his will and get him to sign confessions,
incriminating him and other Palestinian leaders.
“However,
Barghuti never signed any document, never confessed to any of the
garbage the Israelis claim he signed. What they call evidence is
nothing but demands for help presented to him, in his capacity as
Member of the Palestinian Parliament, Member of Fatah.
“He
signed these help demands from needy Palestinians, before and during
the Intifada. Yet, Israel claims such demands were directed to finance
resistance operations,” Bolus added.
The
Palestinian lawyer called on Arab regimes, rights organizations, free
world powers and every one else to urge the Israeli government to
release Barghuti, on the grounds that he is a political detainee, not
criminally charged.
With
additional reporting by Khaled Mamdouh, IOL Cairo Staff
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