Palestine: Palestinian Imam Held without Charges for 7th time in 20 Years
On 19 June 2015, Alkarama submitted a communication to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) regarding the case of Ali Mustafa Ahmad Hanoon, a blind Palestinian Imam and father unlawfully detained since his arrest in the West Bank by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) a month earlier.
The facts
50-year-old Ali Mustafa was arrested on 15 May 2014 by a large number of Israeli soldiers in uniform who stormed his house in the district of Al Mazraa Al Gharbiyeh in Ramallah, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), before taking him to Ofer military Prison, the most notorious jail for Palestinians, where reports of torture including numerous minors contrast with the Israeli authorities' official statements. On 5 July 2014, he was subsequently transferred to Ktzi'ot Prison – the largest detention camp in the world with a capacity of 11,000 people – situated in the Negev desert in Southern Israel where he remains detained to this day. Ali Mustafa was neither presented with an arrest warrant, nor informed of the charges held against him. His family suspects his profession as an influential Imam, leading prayers and religious discussions, to be the reason for his continuous judicial harassment.
Immediately after his arrest, Ali Mustafa was sentenced to five months administrative detention, which was supposed to end on 11 November 2014. Instead, the authorities first extended the order for six additional months after which they extended it for another four months. Ali Mustafa is now expected to be released on 15 September 2015.
Constant harassment for the past 20 years
Since his first arrest in 1995, 50-year-old Ali Mustafa has been the victim of constant judicial harassment by the IDF. Arrested and detained seven times, he served prison time ranging from six months to over a year. Each time held on an administrative order, he was never informed of the charges against him or presented to a court for trial, nor was his lawyer ever able to access his case files deemed "secret" by the Israeli authorities.
Today, Ali Mustafa is victim of the same treatment by the authorities, who have renewed his administrative detention twice without charging him or taking him to court, a practice regularly authorised by the Israeli army in the occupied Palestinian West Bank on the basis of article 285 of Military Order 1651, which "empowers military commanders to detain an individual for up to six-month renewable periods if they have 'reasonable grounds to presume that the security of the area or public security require the detention'," explains Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association in Palestine Addameer.
Administrative detention
Administrative detention is "detention without charge or trial that is authorised by administrative order rather than by judicial decree," writes B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories. A procedure that allows the Israeli military to hold prisoners indefinitely on secret information without charging them or allowing them to stand trial, administrative detention is "the most extreme measure that international humanitarian law allows an occupying power to use against residents of occupied territory," explains Addameer, adding that "as such, states are not allowed to use it in a sweeping manner." In fact, although international law does authorise its use, it limits it to emergency situations that constitutes real threats to the Nation, and for which the authorities are required to follow basic rules, including a fair hearing at which the detainees can challenge the reasons for their detention.
Claiming to be under a continuous state of emergency since its creation in 1948, Israel routinely uses administrative detention in violation of international law. Not only is it frequently used for collective punishment rather than the prevention of future threats, but it also violates numerous international standards, such as by deporting detainees from the OPT and interning them inside Israel, like in Ali Mustafa's case, by denying the detainees visits, or by failing to separate administrative detainees from the regular prison population.
Alkarama's actions before the UN
In view of the facts and of Israel's constant violation of international law standards, Alkarama has sent a communication to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) requesting the UN experts to urge the Israeli authorities to disclose the reason for Ali Mustafa's arrest and detention, as well as to refrain from any further judicial harassment.
In view of the detention of thousands of Palestinians since the establishment of the Israeli State, including of numerous lawyers and human rights defenders such as Shireen Issawi, Alkarama also urges the Israeli authorities to bring to an end to the systematic practice of detaining Palestinians on administrative orders without charges or trial, in violation of international law, and to respect their international obligations to respect, protect and promote human rights without discrimination on any grounds.
For more information or an interview, please contact the media team at media@alkarama.org (Dir: +41 22 734 1008)