The Israeli occupation authorities have issued around 100,000 administrative detention orders against Palestinians since 1967, according to an official report issued by the Public Relations section of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. The report accuses the Israelis of imprisoning administrative detainees, without charge or trial, based on individual orders made by intelligence officers. Authorisation by a judge is usually absent, and the orders are issued in line with laws introduced during the British Mandate period which were cancelled by Britain before its departure from Palestine.
The report also noted that the PLO’s Public Relations section has sent messages to the international community and UN bodies in which they explained that Israel’s administrative detention policies target the political and social elites as well as children and minors.
“Israel is using administrative detention as just one of a number of unfair policies and laws,” said the statement. “Administrative detainees are part of the system of collective punishment which Israel is carrying out against the Palestinian people.”
The PLO called on the world to condemn administrative detention as an abuse of human rights and all humanitarian and legal conventions. It also called on all states supportive of the Palestine issue to work towards the release of all Palestinian detainees being held in Israeli jails.