Detention Without Trial: Zionists’ Routine Practice Targeting Palestinians

Iqbal Jassat

Jumada' al-Ula' 13, 1444 2022-12-07

Daily News Analysis

by Iqbal Jassat

“Detention Without Trial” defined Apartheid South Africa’s notorious jailing of political opponents without regard for human rights or due process.

An unsavoury act to intimidate and crush the resistance of activists viewed as a threat to white supremacy, detention without trial was used in response to growing militancy by the liberation movements led by the ANC and PAC.

Though initially it was limited to 12 days detention without trial, it was extended to 90 days and later to 180 days.

Not satisfied with the ‘limited time’, Apartheid securocrats finally changed it to allow for indefinite detention without trial.

While this era of abuse, torture and death in detention ended when apartheid was banished in South Africa, the same cannot be said about zionist Israel.

Detention without trial is routinely practised by the zionist occupiers in violation of the rights of Palestinian detainees.

Although Israel, the settler colonial entity in occupied Palestine, refers to it as “Administrative Detention” in an effort to “soften” the outrage against it, it remains as notorious as South Africa’s “Detention without trial”.

Samidoun, the NGO engaged in defence of Palestinian prisoners, reminds us that administrative detention orders are issued by the military and approved by military courts on the basis of “secret evidence”.

Consider the irony of Israel hailed by the US, Europe and supporters in South Africa, as the “only democracy” in the Middle East, subjecting Palestinians to military courts.

Worse, applying gestapo-tactics by withholding evidence concealed as “secret” from both Palestinian detainees and their legal teams.

Reminiscent of the apartheid-era’s 180 days, zionist military courts issue detention orders up to six months at a time.

The arbitrary powers wielded by the jailers makes the period renewable indefinitely.

Palestinians—including minor children—spend years in jail without charge or trial under administrative detention.

It is thus not uncommon to see hundreds of Palestinians going on hunger strike to secure their freedom and raise outrage and awareness of the cruelty of arbitrary detention.

Though illegal under international law, Israel continues to defy conventions with impunity.

Samidoun points out that the cruelty associated with administrative detention is a form of psychological torture and collective punishment targeting Palestinian families, as detainees are unable to predict or plan their release.

The current case of French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, ordered once again to administrative detention at Hadarim prison as a political prisoner is a damning indictment of the zionist regime’s tyranny.

Hamouri is one of approximately 820 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, out of 4750 total Palestinian political prisoners in the pariah regime’s jails.

Also, he was one of six Palestinian human rights defenders who were proven to be illegally surveilled through the infamous “Pegasus” spyware.

As was the case in South Africa, detention without trial or administrative detention draws its legacy from British colonialism.

Adopted and significantly “improvised” to exert maximum pressure on detainees, the zionist regime applies it on Palestinians, with impunity and in total disregard of international law.

Iqbal Jassat is Executive Member at Media Review Network in Johannesburg, South Africa