On 23 May 2015, 14-year-old Amer Bajawi was playing with his friend, Sanad Masharqeh, in the city of Jenin, in the northern West Bank, when the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) arrested them and sent them to a military checkpoint nearby. After his arrest, Amer was transferred at the Hewara military detention centre south of Nablus for the first three days before being sent to Majdo prison, located in northern Israel 30 km southeast of Haifa, where he remains detained to date. Since his arrest, his family has been prevented from speaking with him.

On 28 May 2015, Amer was presented before a military judge and met his lawyer from the Palestinian Prisoners Club for the first time in the courtroom, thus preventing him from preparing an adequate defence. His parents – who were forbidden from speaking to their son – reported that during the hearing, Amer was brought in with his hands and feet cuffed and had dark marks on his face.

On 9 June 2015, Amer was charged with "throwing stones, targeting a settler's car, breaking into a military checkpoint and endangering the lives of soldiers." After the charges were read by the military judge, the prosecutor called Amer "subversive" and requested that he be sentenced to the maximum penalty. On 28 July 2015, after a speedy trial, Amer was sentenced by the military court to four months of imprisonment and a fine of 3000 Shekel (about 800 U.S. Dollars).

In view of these distressing facts, Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the WGAD requesting its intervention on behalf of Amer calling upon the Israeli authorities to immediately release him.

"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.

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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