Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Israeli injustice system

"A classified report by the Israel Bar Association obtained by Haaretz provides a glimpse into the harrowing conditions prisoners separated from the main jail population must endure.  According to the document, which is the first external review of the Prison Service, the isolation wings at the Ayalon and Shikma prisons are not fit for human habitation and “look more like a dungeon,” while most solitary cells in prisons across the country are “crammed, rancid with smells of sewer and mold, and infested with insects.”  “It’s difficult to ignore the feeling that isolation as practiced today serves a function of punishment rather than imprisonment,” wrote the authors of the report, Michael Atia – chairman of the prison service committee at the Israel Bar Association, and Moran Kabalo – chief of criminal law for the IBA.  “This is a unilateral instrument of punishment used primarily against organized crime groups,” the report reads.""