In July 2017, the Justice Ministry’s Public Defender’s Office issued its annual report on detention conditions in the Israeli prison system. The report, based on multiple visits to Israeli incarceration facilities, noted “multiple violations of the rights of prisoners”, confirming Physicians for Human Rights-Israel’s findings. Among the violations raised by the report were current solitary confinement conditions, inadequate medical treatment and disproportionate use of disciplinary measures and shackling.
Israeli legislation enables solitary confinement under three main procedures: under the ‘separation ordinance’; punitive solitary confinement; and solitary confinement for and during interrogation. This report, however, primarily focused on the ‘separation ordinance’, which requires judicial review only after 6 months. It noted that the decision of placing prisoners in solitary confinement under this procedure is often done without full consideration of the prisoner’s mental condition, and without weighing the possible consequences of separation on his mental state.
Indeed, the report underlines that “in quite a few cases, the holding in separation conditions stemmed from the difficult mental state of the prisoner,” citing Hadarim detention center, where prisoners with suicidal tendencies are held in the absence of appropriate alternatives. This finding was also highlighted in PHRI 2016 “Politics of Punishment” report on solitary confinement, which highlighted the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) use of solitary confinement as an easy substitute for genuine, adequate treatment, despite the negative impact on mental health and Israeli legislation not including mental health as a ground for placing prisoners in solitary confinement. The Public Defender’s office confirmed that such steps “violate their right to appropriate conditions of imprisonment, health and human dignity.”
The use of solitary confinement in the case of those with mental and physical disabilities is also explicitly prohibited by the 2015 UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoner — known as the Mandela Rules. The Committee Against Torture (CAT), in its 2016 Concluding Observations, recommended that Israel “put an immediate end and prohibit the use of solitary confinement and equivalent measures for juveniles and persons with intellectual or psychosocial disabilities.”(art. 25 b.)
In June 2017, the Ministry of Public Security, which oversees the IPS, circulated for public comment proposed legislation regarding the IPS regulations concerning individuals placed in solitary confinement. This legislation will, if passed, explicitly include the need for the prisoner’s health to be reviewed by an IPS representative or the court in making decisions regarding placement in solitary confinement. However, the full implications of this legislation is unclear, especially since it does not as yet explicitly forbid placing individuals with mental and physical disabilities in solitary confinement.
The Public Defender’s report also underlined that solitary confinement also took place in practice outside of the official ‘separation order’, a practice PHRI has also highlighted in it’s work. As the report described, “in some of the incarceration facilities, wings or cells were defined as ‘protected wards’, although in practice the conditions therein were similar to those in separation conditions.” The Public Defender’s Office confirmed that the use of protected wards enable the circumvention of mechanisms of supervision, and as PHRI has pointed out, this means that no data is kept on this practice by the IPS, thereby preventing proper evaluation.
Although the Public Defender’s Office did not mention the frequency and duration of solitary confinement in the Israeli prison service, PHRI’s findings demonstrate that the use of solitary confinement by the IPS under the ‘separation ordinance’ has nearly doubled. PHRI reported that there were 390 placements in solitary confinement in 2012, 570 in 2013 and 755 in 2014. Data with respect to other methods of solitary confinement, including the use of solitary confinement in interrogations and in protected wards is not retained by the IPS, which leaves the authorities unable to truly assess the use of solitary confinement. Indeed, on the 23rd of February 2016, PHRI filed a freedom of information request to receive updated numbers on the various legal forms of solitary confinement, but has not yet received a response from the authorities. The data that was received by PHRI in July 2015 demonstrated that of those kept under the separation ordinance during that time, more than 30% were kept in solitary for over 1 year.
In 2011, the Special Rapporteur on Torture noted that solitary confinement exceeding 15 days constitutes torture or cruel and degrading treatment, while the Mandela Rules likewise prohibit the use of solitary confinement for over 15 days. Meanwhile, the Committee Against Torture confirmed that Israel must “compile, provide to the Committee and regularly publish comprehensive disaggregated data on the use of solitary confinement and equivalent measures.” (art. 25 c.)
Beyond solitary confinement, the Public Defender’s report confirmed that many complaints were received on the quality of medical care, lack of availability of medical personnel, and prolonged waiting time for examinations and treatment by specialist physicians. Such findings are echoed in PHRI’s own work with 300-400 prisoners and detainees on an annual basis, who reach out to the organization with myriad medical needs that are unmet by prison administrations.
The Public Defender’s report also noted that in 7 of the 13 incarceration facilities visited, inspectors received complaints on “extreme disciplinary punishment and inappropriate treatment by prison staff,” including with respect to hunger strikers. Such complaints often dovetail with those regarding lack of medical treatment and the Public Defender’s Office noted complaints by hunger strikers who, despite being several days on strike, did not receive any medical supervision.
Indeed, IPS doctors, being directly employed by the prison services, are often in a state of extreme ‘dual loyalty’ – a conflict between the interests of their employers and their obligations toward their patients, a position that is most obvious in the case of those defined as ‘security prisoners’. PHRI received numerous reports of mistreatment and medical ethics violations by IPS staff during the 2017 April – May mass hunger strike which highlight that the conflicts that arise as a result of “dual loyalty” between IPS doctors, their patients, and their employer are ongoing. First, PHRI received a number of reports concerning ethics violations by prison staff at Ktzi’ot prison, including: (1) testimonials that a medic cursed at hunger strikers and tried to force them to drink yogurt; (2) reports of the denial of medical treatment to hunger strikers who suffered from vomiting and diarrhea by medics, who claimed it was not possible to give them treatment until they stopped hunger striking; and (3) reports of the refusal of the IPS to allow hunger strikers to file a complaints against the aforementioned medics. Further, delays in the provision of emergency medical care were reported at the Ktzi’ot and Eshel prisons. It was reported that after prison staff were summoned in response to hunger strikers collapsing in their cells, it took staff half an hour to arrive and that IPS staff arrived with riot equipment but not with appropriate medical equipment. PHRI wrote to the Ministry of Health (MOH), IPS and other concerned parties, but only the MOH has responded, arguing no mistreatment has taken place.
The report also noted that there were great defects regarding the use of shackling, including the need for the IPS to note its’ justification for the procedure, leading them to conclude that “in some cases there is a real concern that the use of shackling is done contrary to the law.” Indeed, PHRI has often documented the use of shackling in the cases of hunger strikers such as Bilal Kayed, when the threat of escape was minimal and such steps served primarily as a means of punishment to break the strike.
Although questions such as the use of solitary confinement beyond the ‘separation order’ and the dual loyalty of physicians within the IPS system were not explored in this report, the findings reported therein confirm PHRI’s call for ending the practice of placing prisoners with mental and physical disabilities in solitary confinement, ensuring all prisoners and detainees, including hunger strikers, have proper access to medical care and moving the responsibility of prisoner health care from the IPS to the Ministry of Health.
