Ishai Menuchin [Executive Director, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel]: “The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel welcomes B’Tselem and Hamoked’s recent report, “Kept in the Dark” which is an important study of one particular Shin Bet interrogation center over a limited period of time.

PCATI’s ongoing and daily work in the field on the issue of treatment of detainees at arrest and during interrogation, which has been made available to the public and to policy maker over the years, has made it clear that torture and ill treatment continues to be used by Israel’s Security Agency (ISA, also known as the GSS) and this in direct violation of a variety of international legal instruments, including the UN Convention Against Torture. PCATI’s work has pointed to specific practices that include many mentioned in the organization’s report. PCATI continues to assert that in these cases, in which the intentional infliction of pain, including the use of prolonged and painful shackling, abusive incommunicado detention, threats against family members, sleep deprivation and sensory manipulation, and other means of physical and psychological violence all demonstrate not only that ill treatment is a matter of practice, but so too is torture, which has been described in many sources as an aggravated form of ill treatment.

PCATI’s work and publications (for example, “Accountability Denied” 2009) have consistently pointed out that torture and torturers remain protected by the systematic application of impunity which is seen in the manner in which complaints to the authorities are regularly disregarded after an official inquiry which is conducted by an active Shin Bet agent. While we continue to see the regular use of ill treatment and torture against adult males, PCATI is now working with DCI-Palestine in order to fight the torture, ill treatment and humiliation of Palestinian youths, which too is becoming all too systemic.

PCATI, of course welcomes the input of B’tselem and HaMoked and hopes that this report when coupled with PCATI’s long line of reporting, visits with victims of torture and ill treatment throughout the prison system, and legal advocacy and litigation will assist in the struggle against torture and ill treatment in and by Israel.”