Loading ...Who protects Palestinian children from the police?
Israeli police arrested three children — 10, 11 and 13 years old — in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan last Thursday evening on suspicion of throwing stones. Undercover officers arrested them and took them to the Shalem police station, next to the Old City.
Under Israeli law, children under the age of 12 are not criminally culpable and it is illegal to keep them in custody or to interrogate them. Contrary to what the law says, police did not notify the children’s parents about their arrest, and when they arrived at the police station after neighbors informed them of the arrests, officers prevented them from entering the station and getting information on their children.
“The kids went to pick figs. Two undercover officers came and took them to a police car,” recalled Muhammad Adib, the uncle of one of the boys who waited for them outside the police station. “It happens every day — they arrest children here like that. Two hours later, when the parents were worried and didn’t know what happened, one of the neighbors told them they were arrested.”
“The police didn’t notify us before that,” Adib continued. “It’s becoming a situation in which undercover officers come through our neighborhood and arrest children all of the time.”
An attorney called the police station and asked to speak with the children in order to give them legal advice — police refused. Thus, three children were held in the police station for three full hours without seeing an attorney or their parents. Only after local activists began arriving at the police station and members of the press asked the police spokesperson for comment did the officers allow the attorney to enter the police station.
A long time passed before police released the children, first the two young ones, and the “big” one only after interrogating him. It was 10 p.m., despite the fact that Israeli law only permits the interrogation of minors under the age of 14 until 8 p.m., aside from exceptional cases.
Source: 972mag.com