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Home » Public statements »

Notification upon arrest - update
 
[25 October 2016] – Since 1967 a re-occurring criticism of the Israeli military's conduct in the West Bank focused on the manner in which children were being arrested in pre-planned raids on their homes. A typical raid would commence at 2 A.M. with banging at the front door accompanied by shouts of "open up". The front door would be blown open with an explosive device if the order was not complied with promptly. At gunpoint family members would be gathered together while their ID cards were crosschecked against a pre-prepared list. Once identified the suspect was taken away without explanation as to the accusation, legal rights or place of detention. Parents were intentionally left in a state of total ignorance.
 
Although this practice was well documented it remained largely ignored until it featured in a report published by a delegation of senior UK lawyers in 2012. The issue was again raised in 2013 by UNICEF, which described the process as follows: "Many children are arrested in the middle of the night, awakened at their homes by heavily armed soldiers ... For some of the children, what follows is a chaotic and frightening scene, in which furniture and windows are sometimes broken, accusations and verbal threats are shouted, and family members are forced to stand outside in their night clothes as the accused child is forcibly removed from the home and taken away with vague explanations such as 'he is coming with us and we will return him later'."
 
In accordance with accepted international norms, both reports recommended that children must be informed in their own language of the reasons for their arrest, at the time of arrest; and be provided with a written statement informing them of their full legal rights while in custody. Further, the military authorities must promptly inform the child's parents or legal guardian of the reasons for arrest and the place of detention. The ensuing publicity that these reports generated prompted the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to announce that it would “study the conclusions and work to implement them through on-going cooperation with UNICEF”.
 
In accordance with the MOFA's announcement, the Israeli military authorities in the West Bank announced in April 2013 that they would introduce a form, printed in Hebrew and Arabic, which has to be given to parents when a child is arrested from home in a pre-planned operation. In addition to the child's personal information, the standard form document contains the following fields that must be completed by the officer in charge of the arrest operation before handing the document to the parents:
  • Time of arrest
  • Details of accusation
  • Police station where the detainee will be interrogated
The document provides no information as to the child's legal rights while in custody as recommended by the UK lawyers and UNICEF.
 
Based on the evidence collected by MCW in 2016 in cases where children were arrested from home in pre-planned operations, this form was given to parents in just 39 percent of cases. Further, in cases where these documents have been viewed by MCW, the relevant personal information was handwritten by the commanding officer in Hebrew.
 
While 13 percent of children are currently being informed of their right to silence at the commencement of their interrogation, MCW is unaware of a single case since 2012 in which children or parents were informed of their legal rights at the time of arrest, as recommended by the UK lawyers and UNICEF. It is unclear why written notification of a child's legal rights under Israeli military law has not been included in the standard form document that is required to be provided to every parent.
 
MCW will continue to monitor the situation.
 
      Summary
#
Description
%
1
At the time of their arrest, all children should be informed, in their own language, of the reasons for their arrest.
< 39%
2
The parent or guardian of the child should be promptly notified, in their own language, of the arrest, the reasons for it and place of detention.
39%
3
At the time of their arrest, all children and their legal guardian, should be provided with a written statement, in their own language, informing them of their full legal rights while in custody.
0%
 
 
Note: Item 1 in the table above is recorded as "less than" (<) as the relevant information in the documents sighted by MCW was handwritten in Hebrew.  Not all of these documents were retained by the families and so the only available conclusion is that somewhere between 0 and 39% of children/parents were properly informed in their own language of the reasons for arrest as recommended by the UK lawyers and UNICEF. Or in other words, MCW has not sighted any documentation that was both complete and written entirely in Arabic. In the case of item 2 the name of the relevant police station is generally circled or otherwise indicated.
 
Links
  • Pilot programme to limit night arrests (Sep 2016) - Update
  • Restraints and blindfolds (Aug 2016) - Update