NGO to High Court: Even security detainees have rights during coronavirus

To comply with that ruling, six prisoners would require a space of a minimum of 27 meters and to comply with corona social distancing.

By YONAH JEREMY BOB
High Court of Justice prepares for hearing on whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can form the next government, May 3, 2020 (photo credit: COURTESY HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE)
High Court of Justice prepares for hearing on whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu can form the next government, May 3, 2020
(photo credit: COURTESY HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE)
Israeli NGO Adalah protested the Israel Prison Service’s (IPS) treatment of security detainees during the coronavirus period before the High Court of Justice on Thursday.
Claiming that the state is failing “to protect the rights of human beings whose security and health is its responsibility,” the NGO said it is unacceptable to expose security detainees to coronavirus dangers that are not allowed for either the general public or even regular prisoners.
According to Adalah, as many as six security detainees could be held in a cell of only 22m.
This not only means that the detainees cannot observe the requisite distancing from each other to avoid infection, it also continues a violation of a June 2017 prior High Court ruling which demanded that each prisoner be given at least 4.5m.
To comply with that ruling, six prisoners would require a space of a minimum of 27m. and to comply with corona social distancing, given the standard objects in prisoners’ cells, the space would likely need to be even larger.
Adalah said that “the state did not hesitate to argue that the same logic which applies to regular criminal detainees where social distancing is of the utmost priority, does not apply when dealing with security detainees.”
Moreover, it attacked the state for “the absurd claim” that a jail cell for security detainees could be analogous to a family home where social distancing is not necessary.
In terms of infection, to date the IPS revealed that 30 IPS staff are infected and 489 are in quarantine, while seven prisoners are infected and 58 are in quarantine.
The IPS has carried out 9,124 corona tests of which around 4,000 were for prisoners.
However, Adalah got push-back from the High Court.
Justice Yitzhak Amit said, “it Is impossible to keep the two meter” for security detainees in prison.
Amit added that if the IPS has figured out other ways, such as limiting who interacts with the detainees, to keeping them healthy, that should be sufficient.
Adalah lawyer Hassan Jabareen said the tactic of cutting the detainees off from the rest of the world could not work over the long-term both in terms of the impact on the detainees and because so many prison guards interact with them.
Jabareen said that maybe cutting the detainees off from contact for a few months might have been viable, but not until deep into 2021 when a vaccine may finally be obtained.
Further, he said that the IPS has not investigated all options, saying there were 4,000 unused beds in the prisons which some detainees could be moved to.
Also, he said that more regular detainees could be given early releases so as to open up additional cells for splitting up security detainees who cannot be released.
Early releases for low-grade criminals had been increasing before the coronavirus era.
Originally, all prisoners were supposed to have the minimum 4.5m. set under international law by January 2019.
When the state asked for an extension until 2027 due to practical difficulties, the High Court extended the state’s time until May 2020.
Since then the issue has been delayed by three rounds of elections and now corona, with the state reporting in May that only 40% of jail cells have come into compliance with the High Court’s 2017 order.