http://www3.haaretz.co.il/eng/scripts/article.asp?id=51694&mador=4
Ha'aretz, July 18, 1999
Where is the rule of law?
By Gideon Levy
Toward the end of last week, the scenario that
Osama Barham, the most senior of all the
administrative detainees, would be released and
allowed to go home today, after almost six years
in prison without a trial, became all the more
real.The High Court of Justice is scheduled to
debate Barham's petition today against his
continued detention.
His attorney, Tamar Peleg-Sarik, will argue that
since no investigation is being conducted into her
client's case - it is inconceivable that his
investigation has been going on for six straight
years - and, what is more, the reliability of the
confidential material against him has become
eroded over the years, there no longer exist any
grounds to continue to hold him in detention
without a trial.
It is possible that the parties will reach an
agreement even before the debate over the
petition, as has happened with a number of other
administrative detainees in the past. This, of
course, will be good news for Barham, his family
and friends, both Palestinian and Israeli.But the
disgrace of his extended detention without trial
will not quickly be forgotten. It is possible that
something will come up to prevent his release. In
that case, the black flag of ignominy will
continue to flutter over the rule of law, in a
country in which people can be arrested for years
without trial - establishing it as a cross between
the Soviet Union and Argentina of bygones past.
It is difficult to know for sure why the Shin Bet
is so insistent on holding this sales agent of
dietetic products and student of journalism from
the village of Ramin for such a long time. We have
to assume that the organization responsible for
our security had a very good reason to do with him
what it did not dare do with any other
administrative detainee.
However, no logic in the world, not even that of
Shin Bet agents, can explain the contradiction
between the existence of confidential material
against Barham, as rich as it may be, and the fact
that Shin Bet has not yet succeeded in bringing
this ostensibly dangerous man to trial.
This man is apparently so dangerous that it is
worthwhile to undermine the country's rule of law
for him.
One day, it should be hoped, Shin Bet will be
required to explain this phenomenon - of how its
people throw Palestinians into jail for years
without anyone outside the Shin Bet having the
slightest idea why. One day they will have to
provide answers to the relentless questions - what
justification was there for the issue of some
20,000 arrest warrants without trial against some
5,000 residents? What were the criteria for these
arrests? How readily were they issued? How many of
them were groundless, preventative arrests?
Just last week Omar Ranimat, a prisoner recently
released who had been subjected to torture, told
me that his interrogators had threatened him that
if he associated with his relatives - Hamas
activists in his village - he would immediately be
sent to administrative detention.
But beyond these questions of principle, there are
also a number of oppressive personal questions.
Zahava Galon, the new MK from Meretz, who has
already designated herself as Dedi Zucker's
replacement Knesset guardian of human rights, was
impressed last week when she visited Barham in
prison, by the sincerity of his opposition to
violence.
Barham himself last week wrote a letter to his
devoted friend, Dr. Anat Matar of Tel Aviv
University, in which he related the details of his
extended internment. "It is strange. I have been
in administrative detention for almost six years
and I haven't seen my brothers, who are not
allowed to visit me, because the army will not
give them permission to enter Israel. I had five
nieces and nephews when I was arrested. Now I have
37. I know only five of them. All my 10 brothers
and sister have married since - and I remain in
jail. My uncle and both grandmothers have passed
away - and I remain in jail. My father was killed
in a car accident while on the way to visit me in
Ketziyot and when I asked for permission just to
call my mother - they did not let me. That is my
greatest sorrow. We, the security prisoners, are
never permitted to telephone home. Criminals are
allowed to. It is strange to be in jail for almost
six years - without being charged."
About a year ago, he wrote me, "Where is natural
justice? Where is the natural right of a human
being to know the reason he has been sent to jail?
And what about the right to legal representation?
How can I defend myself if I don't know why and
against what? And how long will these young people
remain in jail on the basis of some arbitrary and
mysterious charges? It is very strange. Have you
ever heard of someone begging to be tried, begging
to be investigated? A person needs to have some
kind of file, to know in what direction he is
going."
Who will answer these questions? New winds are
starting to blow in this country. The new Minister
of Justice, Yossi Beilin, hurried to act to cancel
administrative detentions and Galon submitted a
bill in the same spirit. But in the meantime, 64
Palestinian and another 21 administrative
detainees remain in prison. One of the
Palestinians, Eiman Drarma, has been held for over
four years. Some of the Lebanese prisoners have
been locked up for 13 years.
It should be hoped that Beilin's courageous
initiative will succeed in breaking down the walls
of opposition within Shin Bet which finds it so
convenient to simply throw people in jail without
a trial. But these questions will continue to echo
until we can all be sure that this moral and legal
disgrace of administrative detention is finally
eradicated
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