In Might, a stunning CNN report primarily based on whistleblower testimony thrust Israel’s Sde Teiman army base within the Negev desert into the worldwide highlight and led to comparisons to the infamous US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the place I used to be held for greater than a decade.
Three Israelis who labored on the desert camp that doubles as a detention heart for the reason that begin of the Gaza warfare informed CNN they witnessed systematic bodily and psychological abuse of Palestinian detainees on the facility.
They stated Palestinians imprisoned there, who’re held with out cost or authorized illustration, are blindfolded, pressured into constrained positions, overwhelmed, insulted and prevented from talking for lengthy intervals. Prisoners at Sde Teiman, the complainants claimed, routinely have their limbs amputated attributable to accidents they endure from being always handcuffed.
CNN additionally printed two images of the ability, displaying rows of males in grey tracksuits sitting blindfolded in an outside space fenced with barbed wire and illuminated by floodlights.
The report, which included contributions from unbiased journalists from different media and testimonies from launched Palestinian prisoners, made me really feel horrible. It instantly took me again to that darkish day in February 2002, after I was first despatched, blindfolded and handcuffed, to Guantanamo, the place I’d spend greater than 14 years in arbitrary detention, not figuring out after I can be launched, if I’d be launched, and even why I used to be being held.
At Guantanamo, my expertise as a prisoner was certainly similar to that described by the Israeli whistleblowers within the CNN report: an expertise outlined by a way of perpetual uncertainty and worry.
As seems to be the case with Sde Taiman, psychological abuse was rampant at Guantanamo. We have been systematically positioned in solitary confinement, uncovered to excessive temperatures, and threatened with bodily abuse. Humiliation by means of pressured nudity and sexual assault have been additionally frequent. Sensory overload and deprivation, by means of extended publicity to vibrant lights and loud noises, or being pressured to take a seat in solitary confinement in full darkness for hours, additional undermined our sense of actuality.
The similarities between Guantanamo and Sde Teiman aren’t restricted to the remedy of prisoners. Each amenities additionally justify their existence and supply authorized cowl for his or her excesses utilizing comparable arguments and narratives.
The U.S. authorities established Guantanamo Bay after 9/11 to detain and interrogate males suspected of involvement in these assaults or different terrorist connections, unconstrained by worldwide humanitarian regulation and different treaties prohibiting the mistreatment of prisoners of warfare. The U.S. authorities categorised all Guantanamo prisoners as “illegal enemy combatants,” permitting it to carry us with out cost, with restricted authorized illustration, and in flagrant violation of worldwide regulation for years. Within the years after 9/11, the US “disappeared” numerous harmless Muslim males and boys on this approach. I used to be considered one of 779 males and boys despatched to Guantanamo Bay. However hundreds extra are believed to have been imprisoned and ultimately disappeared at black websites and comparable army detention facilities around the globe.
Israel has for a few years justified the arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinians it considers a risk with comparable nationwide safety arguments. Many Palestinians imprisoned in Israel have been arrested below a quasi-judicial course of referred to as “administrative detention.” Below this course of, Palestinians are initially imprisoned for six months, however their detentions can then be repeatedly prolonged for an indefinite interval with out cost or trial.
Since October 7, simply as the US did after the September 11 assaults, Israel has additionally relied on its Illegal Combatants Legislation to indefinitely detain Palestinians with out authorized oversight and with out the opportunity of presenting a protection. The regulation permits Israel to detain folks in amenities like Sde Teiman with out an arrest warrant for as much as 45 days. This era is usually prolonged indefinitely, as detainees are transferred to Israel’s formal jail system with out due course of.
One other similarity between Guantanamo and Sde Teiman is the dearth of transparency. At Guantanamo, the US army has constantly, and with some success, rebuffed journalists’ makes an attempt to realize entry to the camps, imposing strict restrictions and censorship below the pretext of nationwide safety issues. This lack of transparency has solely intensified lately, with journalists encountering even larger obstacles of their efforts to make clear the realities of life inside Guantanamo. Israel can be working exhausting to maintain unbiased media and authorized professionals out of its army prisons and detention facilities like Sde Teiman. The plight of Palestinian prisoners in Gaza managed to draw international consideration solely due to the braveness of Israeli whistleblowers who took the freedom of exposing the abuses going down there.
Following the publication of CNN’s damning report, Israel vowed to shut Sde Teiman. Israel’s Supreme Courtroom additionally referred to as for solutions concerning the situations of prisoners held there in response to a petition filed on Might 23 by a number of Israeli human rights organizations. The petition demanded the ability be closed attributable to inhumane situations and critical mistreatment that violated each Israeli and worldwide regulation.
Whereas these are promising developments, we should stay vigilant and demand larger protection and actual accountability to make sure that prisoners and practices at Sde Teiman aren’t merely transferred to a different, extra secretive facility. In any case, the abuses and illegality going down at Guantanamo Bay have been uncovered many occasions over the previous twenty years, but the notorious facility in Cuba continues to function and nobody has been held accountable for violating worldwide regulation there.
I draw parallels between Guantanamo and Sde Teiman to attract consideration to the common nature of the struggling brought on by detention practices steeped in secrecy, illegality and dehumanizing cruelty.
In these Palestinian males imprisoned by the Israeli military in Sde Teiman, I noticed myself and lots of of different males and boys imprisoned by the US in Guantanamo. Our experiences are very comparable, as a result of each Israel and the US imagine they’ll act exterior the constraints of worldwide regulation and do no matter they need to human beings they understand as a risk within the title of “nationwide safety.”
The truth that the identical abuses dedicated at Guantanamo have been repeated at Sde Teiman underscores the pressing want for accountability and reform. It’s vital that the worldwide neighborhood acknowledges and addresses human rights violations in detention amenities, whether or not they’re dedicated in a army camp within the Negev desert or at a US naval base on a Caribbean island.
Unbiased investigations have to be performed and perpetrators held accountable. Insurance policies have to be put in place to stop such abuses from taking place once more sooner or later. If we don’t take motion and search accountability for the blatant violations of human rights requirements in Israeli detention centres, we’ll quickly discover ourselves head to head with one other harrowing report about an inhumane jail camp in one other nook of the world.
The views expressed on this article are these of the creator and don’t essentially mirror the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.