Israel Court OKs Interrogation ‘Pressure’ : Security: Human rights groups criticize the decision affecting Palestinian prisoners.

The Israeli Supreme Court refused Thursday to halt the use of “moderate physical pressure” by the country’s security police during their interrogation of Palestinian prisoners despite charges by human rights groups that it amounts to legalized torture.

The three-judge panel of the court said it will not revoke or limit the powers that the government has given the General Security Service, known as Shin Bet, because it had no complaints from current prisoners claiming that they are being tortured.

The court also said that Shin Bet’s methods of interrogation are already under the supervision of the attorney general, state comptroller and the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, and that is sufficient.

Human rights groups denounced the decision as allowing Shin Bet to continue torturing suspects during interrogation when they are effectively denied access to the courts; they said they would appeal to a larger panel of the court.

“The court’s ruling means that (it) will not prevent the use of unfit methods of interrogation even if they are illegal, immoral and not in keeping with the basic principles of human dignity and liberty as set forth in Israeli law,” said Hannah Friedman of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel. The committee had petitioned the court in 1991 to declare the practice unlawful.

Avigdor Feldman, a leading human rights lawyer who had argued the case for the committee, said the court should not only look into specific cases brought before it on an urgent basis but assess police practices and government policy.

“What the court has said is that, even if the regulations are illegal, if people are being tortured illegally, that it won’t intervene but wait for a concrete case.”

During hearings on the petition, government attorneys argued that security agents needed to use “moderate physical pressure” and “nonviolent psychological pressure” to combat terrorism, particularly to obtain intelligence about planned terrorist attacks.

They said clear guidelines limited the use of such pressure to suspects in certain kinds of crimes and required authorization; also, some types of pressure are prohibited.

Government officials have refused, however, to describe what kinds of “moderate physical pressure” are allowed under the 1987 regulations, intended to limit the use of torture by security police.

But Israeli, Palestinian and U.S. human rights groups have in recent years documented scores of cases of prisoner torture, and the committee’s petition attributed at least five of the 17 deaths of prisoners under interrogation in 1988 and 1989 to torture.

Yael Dayan, a Knesset member from the ruling Labor Party, said in introducing legislation that would outlaw torture that it had, in fact, virtually “become the norm for Arab security prisoners.”

A recently completed survey of 500 former political prisoners in the Gaza Strip by the Gaza Community Health Program found that 96% complained they had been beaten by their interrogators, 91% said they had been kept standing for prolonged periods, 77% said they were subjected to extreme temperatures, 69% said they had been subjected to strangulation, 76% said they had been deprived of food for more than 48 hours, 65% reported that interrogators had squeezed or crushed their testicles and 15% said they were sprayed with tear gas.

Dayan and eight other Knesset members from the governing coalition have introduced legislation that not only outlaws torture in any form and for any reason but also mandates jail for those convicted of torture for seven to 20 years.

In an effort to preempt that legislation, Justice Minister David Libai has established a committee to review current practices and has promised to introduce reforms if they are found to be needed.