A report on prison conditions in Israel and the administered territories that was commissioned but never published is at the center of a controversy over the objectivity of Middle East Watch, a human rights monitoring organization.
Rita Simon, a sociology professor at American University, suggests the report she did for Middle East Watch was not published, because it was “basically a positive report” and such reports are usually not issued by the monitoring group.
Syndicated newspaper columnist Mona Charon has charged that “Middle East Watch wanted a smear. When they got the truth, they tried to suppress it.”
But human rights officials counter that Simon engaged in sloppy research practices turned in a first draft of “deplorable” quality and sent a copy of her draft report to Israeli police and military authorities, something that “borders on the unethical.”
“She gave us a flimsy, unpublishable piece of work,” said Aryeh Neier, executive director of Human Rights Watch, which comprises Middle East Watch and four other regional monitoring groups.
“It was a very brief, impressionistic account with very little hard information,” said Neier, whose organization tracks human rights violations worldwide. “We simply don’t publish work of such deplorable quality.”
Simon countered that Middle East Watch was judging her report on the basis of a “rough draft,” which was “meant to be worked on.”
She also said that in academic circles, it is normal to send out draft copies and solicit comments before final publication.
Neier dismissed accusations that human rights groups avoid publishing positive reports, citing a recently released study of Poland’s prison system, which was “highly positive,” he said.
He also attributed the delay in the report’s publication — close to nine months after the research trip — to the Persian Gulf crisis, which required Middle East Watch to shift its priorities to investigating allegations of Iraqi abuses, among other things.
‘NEITHER INHUMANE NOR INTOLERABLE’
Simon and her daughter, Judith Simon, a lawyer who was part of the three-person team that visited the prisons, have since released their 48-page report privately.
It offers a general look at prison and detention camp conditions, with few references to international law or previously published reports and news articles, which are usually found in human rights reports.
In the conclusion, the Simons write that conditions in the Israeli detention centers are “neither inhumane nor intolerable.” Overall, their report portrays Israeli prisons as well run and the inmates as content, given the circumstances.
“My concern was and is getting out an honest report, and when I saw that it was going to be shelved, I thought that was not consistent with” the time spent on the trip, said Simon.
Middle East Watch, meanwhile, has completed and issued its report on prison conditions in Israel and the administered territories. A letter from Neier attached to the report gives a brief description of the controversy and explains the delay in the report’s release.
The report, “Prisons in Israel,” was written by Eric Goldstein, the group’s research director, who accompanied the Simons on the 12-day fact-finding mission to Israel last summer.
The delegation visited 12 facilities between July 29 and Aug. 7, including five prisons run by Israel Prison Services, two police jails and five Israel Defense Force detention camps for Palestinians in the administered territories.
The report is close to double the length of the Simons’ report and gives a detailed critique of the prison and detention center system. Goldstein’s report draws upon previously published information as well as interviews with lawyers and both former and current prisoners.
Far from being an unmediated attack on Israeli prisons, Goldstein’s report states that in general, inmates receive basic necessities, food is adequate and they are not subjected to physical abuse by guards.
But the report says that a two-tier system exists in Israel: well-kept civilian prisons, run by the Israel Prison Service, and a network of detention centers, run by Israel Defense Force, for Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Although conditions in the IDF prison camps were better than those reported during 1988 and 1989, Goldstein writes, “the IDF has been negligent in providing appropriate facilities for its detainees, in view of the long periods that inmates are held in the camps.”
FOCUS ON KETZIOT CAMP
The Middle East Watch report highlights problems faced by detainees at Ketziot, the tent camp detention center in the Negev where over 6,000 Palestinians — some sentenced, others awaiting trial and about 1,000 in “administrative detention” — are being held under the authority of the IDF.
Ketziot, located in Israel proper, is in a closed military area, making visits from family members in the territories extremely difficult. “Virtually no family visits have taken place since it opened three years ago,” the report says.
Inmates live in tents, which do not afford protection from the extreme summer heat nor from the cold winter nights, Goldstein writes.
In addition, the report says the camp’s location within Israel proper is an infringement of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which regulates the treatment of civilians living under occupation. The convention states that persons accused or convicted of offenses must be detained in the occupied country.
Unlike at other camps, tension between inmates and staff at Ketziot is very high, mail service is backlogged and subject to censorship, few books are allowed in and lawyers complain of being able to spend little time with their clients, the report says.
At Ketziot, the report says, authorities often resort to using tear gas. “The issue boils down to one of will. The intifada caught Israel off guard. Thousands of Palestinians were arrested, and Israel sought a quick means of incarcerating them,” writes Goldstein.
“Now that three years have passed, Israel has not shown the inclination to transform the network of substandard detention camps into a system that conforms to the same standards as the prisons.”
Israeli officials here, asked several times to comment on the report, declined all chances to do so, saying they had not received a copy of it.
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