Euro-mid: Israel's Arrest of Children Rose by 80 Percent in the Last Two Months
In a report released on Monday, the Euro-mid observer stated that the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) kidnapped 740 Palestinian minors during the first two months of the current year, adding that 465 of them were held for one week or more.
The Geneva-based rights group explained that the detention of children averaged about 200 arrest incidents every month in 2013 and 197 children in 2012, in accordance with data collected from the Israeli prison authority.
However, the first month of the current year 2014 saw the detention of 350 children and 390 others were detained in February, 465 of them were kept in prison for one week or more.
The number of detentions among children in the last two months show that the monthly rate of arrests among children grew by about 80 percent compared to last year's arrests.
According to its report, most of the children were arrested because of their alleged involvement in throwing stones at Israeli military or police patrols, participating in protests against settlement activities or writing slogans against Israel on walls.
The majority of the reported arrest cases took place after midnight and involved intimidation methods and violations against the detained children and their families.
During the detention process, the Israeli police or military forces, in all arrest cases, refused to tell the parents or anyone of their relatives about the place they were taking their sons to.
The reprot underlined that Israel's persistence in the arrest of Palestinian children constitutes a violation of the UN convention of the rights of the child, which states in article 37 that "no child shall be deprived of his or her liberty unlawfully or arbitrarily. The arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child shall be in conformity with the law and shall be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.”
Source: Palestine Info
