Court to discuss petition on interrogations of security prisoners

The High Court of Justice will discuss tomorrow a petition filed by the Adallah human rights NGO and other human rights organizations regarding an exemption given to the police and the Shin Bet security service from the need to record the interrogation of people suspected of committing crimes related to national security.

The exemption, given as a temporary order, was voted by the Knesset in 2002 and has been extended several times since then. Adallah filed its petition following the latest extension of the order, in June this year.

The petition claims that the temporary order constitutes an opening for “severe violations” of detainees’ human rights, primarily the use of torture. Additionally, the NGO says in a statement that detainees are often prevented from meeting a lawyer for extended periods of time, interrogated for long periods, and discussion to extend their remand are held behind closed doors.

“Under these conditions of complete isolation from any human element apart from their interrogators, visual documentation is the only guarantee a suspect can resort to in order to prove that wrongful interrogation techniques were used, up to the point of extracting confessions by force,” Adallah says in a statement.