Accused of throwing stones - no concordant testimony

According to the Israeli authorities, on 14 March 2013 Mohammed and the other 'Hares Boys' were "throwing stones at Israeli cars" driving along Route 5 towards Tel Aviv – a highway to the Israeli mega-settlement of Ariel – causing a car accident. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) claims that, following the incident, about 20 Israeli drivers filed insurance for stones hitting their cars. However, at the time of the alleged incident, the police did not receive any call, nor file any complaint. Moreover, as far as he is concerned, Mohammed's father reported that his son was only playing football with his friends.

That very same day, a car accident on Route 5 allegedly caused by Palestinians throwing stones left Adele Biton, a three-year-old Israeli girl, critically wounded. Following this incident, at a national ceremony for terror victims in Israel on 17 April 2013, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu described stones as "lethal weapons" that are part of the arsenal of weapons used by terrorists, in a close move to brand rock-throwing as an act of terror. A year later, on 21 July 2015, the Knesset passed a bill allowing for a maximum prison sentence of 20 years for 'throwing stones' if it can be proved the throwers intended to inflict harm, and of up to 10 years without having to prove harmful intent.

Arrested, tortured and detained in appalling conditions

On 15 March 2013 at 3am, the IDF's General Staff Reconnaissance Unit – a special force and top-secret unit known as the 'Sayeret Matkal' – broke into Mohammed's family house. Masked, heavily armed and accompanied by dogs, the Sayeret Matkal men beat up Mohammed until he fainted, before locking him in a separate room of the house where they questioned him until 7am.

Blindfolded, Mohamed was brought to Al Jalame prison in northern Israel – one of the detention centres in Israel where some of the 500-700 Palestinian children as young as 12 arrested each year are held without legal safeguards, and mentally and physically abused in order to coerce them into signing confessions. In 2013, over a fifth of children detained reported being kept in solitary confinement as part of the interrogation process. Upon his arrival at Al Jalame, Mohammed was strip searched and shackled, by hands and feet, to a chair while being questioned for two entire days. He was then forced to sign a document that he was prevented from reading.

During the 21 days that he spent at Al Jalame, Mohammed was detained in appalling conditions and denied access to his family or a lawyer – a situation known as incommunicado detention – in violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), binding upon the Israel by virtue of its ratification in October 1991. He was held in solitary confinement in Cell 36, a room "barely wider than the thin, dirty mattress that covers the floor. Behind a low concrete wall is a squat toilet, the stench from which has no escape in the windowless room. The rough concrete walls deter idle leaning; the constant overhead light inhibits sleep. The delivery of food through a low slit in the door is the only way of marking time, dividing day from night."

On 5 April 2013, Mohammed was transferred to Megiddo prison in northern Israel, where he was detained incommunicado in solitary confinement for another 19 days before being able to meet with his lawyer and eventually, two months after his arrest, with his family.

A trial before a military court ongoing for more than two years

It is only on 9 April 2013, more than two weeks after his arrest, that Mohammed was brought before a court – the Salem Military Court, in violation of international human rights jurisprudence. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has, in fact, recognised that "the trial of civilians, or decisions placing civilians in preventive detention, by military courts are in breach of the fundamental requirements of independence and impartiality and of guarantees for a fair trial;" juveniles, especially, should be tried before separate courts, as established by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Three weeks later, on 29 April 2013, Mohammed and the other Hares boys were formally charged with more than 20 offences, including "attempted murder". For the following two years, 18 more hearings – which Mohammed's parents were forbidden from attending – were held, systematically prolonging Mohammed's detention. His last hearing was held on 20 May 2015 and was adjourned to 25 July 2015. Mohammed has now been detained pending trial for over two years, in complete disregard of his right to be tried "without delay", as provided under Article 40 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), and Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) ratified by Israel in October 1991.

Alkarama requests the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention's intervention

In view of the distressing facts presented above, Alkarama sent a communication to the WGAD asking it to issue an Opinion qualifying Mohammed's detention as arbitrary and calling upon the Israeli authorities to release him and the other Hares boys immediately.

"According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 'deprivation of the liberty of a juvenile should be a disposition of last resort and for the minimum necessary period and should be limited to exceptional cases'," recalls Rachid Mesli, Legal Director at Alkarama. "The case of Mohammed is not only emblematic of the whole set of violations routinely suffered by the Palestinian youth, but also clearly shows Israel's discriminatory regime, as Israeli minors are never brought before the military justice system."

Alkarama also calls upon Israel to actively reform its judicial system to put it in line with international human rights standards and to immediately put an end to the "widespread, systematic and institutionalised ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system," a pattern also denounced by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in 2013.

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