Obama and the Palestinian detainee generation - The Hill’s Congress Blog
▻http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/289635-obama-and-the-palestinian-detainee-generation
Amid the clamor around the presidential visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank stands an important voice President Barack Obama should hear. It does not belong to the leaders or elites. It is young, shackled, and locked up behind bars. It is the voice of invisible children who hold the power to shape the future in the region.
Instead of enjoying universal safeguards, these leaders of tomorrow are bound, blindfolded, and convicted. Since 1967, Palestinian children have been living under Israeli military law and prosecuted in military courts. Current estimates suggest that every year 500-700 children, some as young as 12 years old, are detained, interrogated and imprisoned within the Israeli military court system where ill treatment is widespread and systematic and fair trial guarantees are seriously lacking.
The majority of children are detained from their West Bank homes during the middle of the night by heavily armed Israeli soldiers. Several hours after their arrest, children arrive at an interrogation and detention center alone, sleep deprived and often bruised and scared. Interrogations tend to be coercive, including a variety of verbal abuse, threats and physical violence that ultimately result in a confession.