Campaigners have called for the British private security corporation G4S to be held to account for its involvement with Israel’s unlawful detention of Palestinians.
The call followed the death of a Palestinian prisoner, after his alleged torture in custody by Israel’s internal security service Shin Bet.
The charity War on Want demanded that the company withdraws from contracts to supply Israeli prisons, after Arafat Jaradat’s death at Megiddo prison, in the wake of his reported torture at the Al Jalameh interrogation centre.
It said G4S provided security systems and the central control room at the prison in northern Israel and also equipped the West Bank interrogation centre.
Five years ago the firm signed a contract to provide security systems for major facilities run by the Israel Prison Authority.
It has supplied not only the Megiddo jail in Israel, as well as other prisons, including Keziot and Damon, and the Kishon ('Jalameh') and Jerusalem ('Russian Compound') detention facilities.
The company installed computerised control and monitoring systems, entrance and visitation control systems, control rooms with touch screens, internal and external CCTV monitoring and recording systems and optic fibre communication lines.
The Ofer facility in the illegally occupied Palestinian territory has also been supplied with security systems.
Human rights and prisoner rights organisations in Israel and Palestine cite many cases of torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners in the Kishon and Jerusalem detention facilities.
According to these groups, Palestinian detainees who are interrogated there report being beaten, shackled in painful positions for days, denied sleep and medical care, and exposed to extreme temperatures for long periods.
Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention bans the transfer of prisoners from occupied territory to the occupier’s land.
War on Want senior campaigner Rafeef Ziadah said: “G4S provides equipment and services to Israeli prisons where Palestinian political prisoners, including child prisoners, are detained and tortured. This British company is profiting from human rights abuses against the Palestinian people. The terrible death of Arafat Jaradat highlights the urgent need for G4S to ends its complicity in Israel’s prison system.”
[Ekk/4]
Printer-friendly version