BETHLEHEM,
April 5, 2005 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A Palestinian
teenager arrested for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers in the West
Bank says he was severely tortured by his interrogators, a prisoners'
defense association said Tuesday, April 5.
Mahmmoud
Radi Erakat, 16, who is being held in the Gush Etzion settlement bloc
west of Bethlehem, denounced the alleged abuse in a sworn affidavit
taken by a Palestinian lawyer who visited him Tuesday, said the
Prisoners' Club.
In
the affidavit, Erakat claimed he had been hung by his legs from a
steel bar attached to the ceiling of his interrogation room. He said a
cord had been wrapped around his testicles and then yanked, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
He
said he had also been burned with cigarettes, severely beaten and
deprived of food and drink for 24 hours, as well as being kept awake
and not allowed to go to the toilet.
The
child added that he was also pelted with stones by soldiers until his
body and face bled, and that each time he was struck the soldiers
would applaud.
Erakat,
who was arrested outside Abu Dis on Saturday, April 2, said he was
first held at a detention center in the Maale Adumim settlement near
Al-Quds (occupied East Jerusalem).
Palestinian
psychologists had said that that despite continuous sufferings under
the Israeli occupation, Palestinian children are
But
Sana Abu Daka, the head of the psychology department in the Gaza-based
Islamic University, said that if Palestinian children were to lead a
normal life, they should live in peace away from killing and
occupation.
Humiliation
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Israeli
soldiers detain one of the four Palestinian policemen. (Reuters)
|
Meanwhile,
four Palestinian policemen were beaten and detained by Israeli
soldiers in the West Bank town of Al-Khalil (Hebron) on Tuesday, an
AFP correspondent reported.
The
unarmed uniformed police were directing traffic in the Bab Al-Zawiya
district when the soldiers arrived, beat them and took them away in
military vehicles.
The
soldiers fired tear gas after an angry crowd of Palestinians began
throwing stones.
An
Israeli military source said the men were detained for questioning
after refusing to leave an area where they were not allowed and would
shortly be released.
An
Israeli court on Tuesday gave prison terms to two Israeli policemen,
who beat up two Palestinian youths and forced gravel down the throat
of one of them.
The
paramilitary border police officers were convicted of pummeling the
Palestinians with fists and batons and forced one of them to kiss an
officer's shoes, Reuters news agency reported.
Jerusalem
District Court sentenced the commander to 10 months in prison, another
officer got an eight-month sentence, and a third was ordered to do six
months' community service.
An
Israeli reservist, who defied army orders to serve in the occupied
territories, told IslamOnline.net last year that the number of “
refuseniks”
were on the rise
due to illegal army practices.
Erlik
Alhanan said that a “small but increasing percentage” of soldiers
started speaking their minds out about “illegal and immoral
operations of the Israeli army inside the occupied territories.”
