Two teenagers, Muawiya Alqam and Shadi Farrah, as young as 15 and 13 years old, are currently amongst the hundreds of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons. Both violently arrested and deprived of their basic fair trial rights, a discriminatory treatment applied to Palestinians only, they are now facing prosecution before the Israeli Central Criminal Court for "possessing knives."

Geneva, 21 June 2016

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has recently published its Opinion on the case of Mohammed Mahdi Saleh Suleiman, a Palestinian teenager who was sentenced to 15 years in prison by a military court for "throwing stone" in the Hares Boys case. In the decision, the UN experts qualified his detention as 'discriminatory' and 'arbitrary' while calling upon Mohammed's immediate release by Israel.

On 19 May 2016, 34-year-old Palestinian journalist at Al Majd TV Mohammad Al-Qeeq was released after six months spent in administrative detention. Concerned over the fact that Al-Qeeq was detained on the sole basis of his work as a reporter, Alkarama seized on 15 January 2016 the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression (SR FRDX), David Kaye, asking him to urgently intervene with the Israeli authorities to request his immediate release.

On 13 May 2016, the United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) published its Concluding Observations following the submission by Israel of its fifth periodic report and the review sessions held on 3 and 4 May 2016. During the review, the Committee members raised a number of issues including the arbitrary detention of Palestinians under the administrative detention regime, including minors, the practice of torture and the punitive demolition of Palestinian homes.