ISRAELI FORCES DETAIN 9-YEAR-OLD IN AL QUDS

Al-Quds, 13 Ramadhan 1436/30 June 2015 (MINA) – Israeli forces on Sunday detained a nine-year-old Palestinian child in al-Thuri neighborhood of Silwan, group says.

Ahmad Jasim al-Shweiki was detained by Israeli forces and taken to the police station on Salah al-Din street, head of a support group for families of Palestinian detainees in Jerusalem Amjad Abu Assab said, giving no additional information on the circumstances of his detention.

Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld had no immediate information on the child’s detention, Ma’an News Agency reports as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).

Al-Shweiki’s detention comes as Israeli forces regularly detain Palestinian children.

Israel detained 1,266 Palestinian children below the age of 15 in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in 2014, according to a PLO report, and over 10,000 Palestinian children have been detained by Israeli forces since 2000.

Rights groups have documented frequent ill-treatment of children who come in contact with Israel’s military detention system and argue that such treatment is widespread, systematic and institutionalized.

In 2014, international rights group Defense for Children reported that 93 percent of children detained by Israeli forces were denied access to legal counsel, while others endured prolonged periods of solitary confinement for interrogation purposes, a practice that also amounts to torture under international law. (T/P010/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)