World – Israel’s Facility 1391

This previously secret facility has been described as Israel’s Guantanimo, but it is quite a bit worse than all that. Where as the US Camp X-Ray has its faults, it is at least somewhat monitored by the international community and isn’t a total black hole from an information standpoint.

Facility 1391, on the other hand, has been a secret until last year, when Leah Tsemel, an Israeli lawyer who specializes in advising Palestinians. Pried open the first few chinks in that secrecy. Teamed up with an Israeli human rights group, Hamoked, they presented habeas corpus writs demanding information on Palestinians who had gone missing in the mass arrests of April 2002. Israeli authorities were forced to admit that the people in question were moved to a secret facility. Leading, eventually, to the revelation of Facility 1391.

Affidavits of former detainees have described poor conditions and torture which was banned by Israel’s Supreme Court in 1999. Even allegations of sodomy, both through intercourse and throught eh use of a wooden baton. A former interrogator has corroborated this: “I know that it was customary to threaten to insert a stick if the subject did not talk.” This facilitated by it being a requirement that prisoners be naked when interrogated. This has been admitted to and the closest to admission on sexual assault has been that “within the framework of a military police investigation the suspicion arose that an interrogator who questioned the complainant threatened to perform a sexual act on the complainant”.

Said interrogator was later sacked.

The cells are described as painted black with only minimal light within. A damp mattress on a concrete slap a few inches over the floor is used as a bed and a bucket as a toilet, emptied every few days. Water comes out of a hole int eh wall, controlled by guards. And inmates are often blindfolded or otherwise rendered blind when outside of their cells.

“On the ninth consecutive day in the stench-filled cell, one of the soldiers was supposed to come and take me out. He almost vomited and rushed out of the cell,” Raab Bader, a 38-year-old accountant says. “I spent many days in that solitary confinement cell and in others like it, and hour after hour I would talk to myself and feel that I was going crazy, or find myself laughing to myself.”

Though 1391 has been revealed, it is unknown if it is the only secret facility that exists in Israel. Moussa Azzain, a Hizbullah activist was imprisoned in 1992. According to officials, he was transfered to a “Barak Facility” in Israel. He reports he was taken to a secret facility that was known to the inmates as “Sarafend”. Before the info blackout on 1391, it was occasionally referred to by the name of the neighboring kibbutz, which is neither Barak nor Sarafend. That would lead one to believe that there might be other facilities like 1391 in Israel.

There is some concerned speculation that the US might use/might be using said facility or others like it to detain prisoners. Considering the close ties between Israel and the US, as well as the conditions described above, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were. Considering evidence that the US is sending suspects to Jordan, where the Red Cross has no access and torture is more common, it isn’t something that can just be dismissed.

The recent trend of governments to nudge gently past morality in the name of security and other such laudable ideals has been disquieting. It goes to show that when things get rough, people aren’t against leaving greater ideals behind to service their own fears.

Only, Facility 1391 and possible others like it aren’t a product of the recent times. They’re a product of the older feuds Israel has been at the center of for decades. It is, perhaps, another possible glimpse into America’s future if this by any means necessary attitude is not corrected.

Ever vigilant, readers. We must remain ever vigilant for such disgraces.

Resources

PCATI to Israeli government: “Shut down secret detention facility 1391”

Israel’s Guantanamo: Facility 1391 – by Jonathan Cook

Facility 1391: Israel’s Guatanamo – by Chris McGreal (popular title)

Is ‘Facility 1391’ Israel’s version of Guantanamo Bay?

FACILITY 1391: ISRAEL’S SECRET PRISON – Looks like an Israeli site. Has a repost of Chris McGreal’s story, but is posted for the introduction and the comments after it.