Posted on 06/22/2010 2:07:49 PM PDT by LibWhacker
TEL AVIV // A mysterious arrest carried out recently by Israels security services has renewed condemnation from human rights groups about the countrys treatment of prisoners and its possible infringement of press freedoms.
A report last week on the website of Israels biggest newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, said that a so-called Mr X is being held in complete seclusion at the maximum-security Ayalon prison, and his identity is being kept so closely under wraps that it is not even known to his prison guards or fellow inmates.
The report cited an unidentified official at Israels penitentiary service as saying: I dont know of any other inmate who is being held in such harsh conditions of isolation and separation its scary that in the year 2010, a man can be imprisoned in Israel without even us knowing who he is.
In a possible indication of the severity of the offences of Mr X, the report said he is being held in the same cell and wing that were constructed specifically for Yigal Amir, the right-wing extremist who assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, Israels former prime minister, in 1995.
The report was the only one to appear in the Israeli press about the detention, and within hours after it was published it vanished from the newspapers website because of what some rights activists said may be a blanket gag order forbidding all domestic media coverage of the case.
Nevertheless, its short-lasting appearance set off a wave of speculation about the identity of the man and the reasons he was arrested with some bloggers speculating that he may have been an operative of Mossad who was suspected of espionage.
The report also spurred protests by rights groups, which accused Israel of violating prisoner rights and of attempting to silence media outlets and demanded that it reveal the prisoners identity and his alleged crimes.
Dan Yakir, the chief legal counsel with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, sent a letter to the countrys attorney general and demanded that the blackout be eliminated on the arrest.
Mr Yakir, whose letter has yet to receive a response, said: It is alarming that there is a prisoner being held incommunicado and we know nothing about him. This case raises worrying questions both about the rights of suspects as well as about the freedom of the press.
According to the report in Yediot Ahronot, which was distributed by various blogs before disappearing, the man is being held in the central Israeli prisons Wing 15, the entrance of which is protected by double iron doors and has only a single cell. The report said: No one speaks with him, sees him, visits him or even knows he is in jail.
The detention of Mr X is just the latest in a series of high-profile cases in which Israeli citizens were secretly arrested and held by the countrys security services for days or weeks before they were charged, without any details being made public.
Israels criminal procedure laws allow for a person to be detained by a court order for periods of up to 30 days before facing formal charges, and in special cases the detention is permitted to last for up to 75 days or even longer.
Cases involving espionage tend to be the most shrouded in secrecy. In one of the more prominent such cases in Israels history, Marcus Klingberg, a Polish-born top Israeli scientist, was imprisoned for 20 years in 1983 for giving the Soviets a vast amount of information about Israels chemical and biological weapons programmes, with his incarceration kept a secret for a decade.
More recently, Israel held Ameer Makhoul, a leading Israeli-Palestinian human rights activist, incommunicado for nearly two weeks after imposing a media gag order on his detention for several days. His attorneys said that Mr Makhoul, who was charged with spying for Hizbollah, was denied a lawyer, kept in a small isolation cell, deprived of sleep and food, and shackled tightly to a small chair that was bolted to the floor.
In a related case that was also under a gag order, another Israeli-Palestinian activist, Omar Said, was also arrested, denied a lawyer for more than two weeks and then charged with transferring information to Hizbollah.
The blanket gag orders that were initially imposed on Israeli media coverage of those arrests proved partly ineffective after details from the investigations were reported by foreign media and by bloggers in Israel and abroad.
that would be cool....lol
Any Biden or Algore sightings lately? (Call me an optimist.)
The doctor who delivered 0 in Mombasa.
You stole my line!
>>>>>The report cited an unidentified official at Israels penitentiary service as saying:<<<<<<<
They should find this unidentified penitentiary official and shoot the SOB.
He is obviously relating top secret details.
Its the latest winner from American idol.
Obama’s mid-wife
renewed condemnation from human rights groups about the countrys treatment of prisoners and its possible infringement of press freedoms
Amazingly, this never happens in anti-Western countries or Arab states; I wonder nah, could not be useful idiots on parade, Natasha.
Reading that article he could very well end up serving time along side Mr. X.
All they want is some “information.”
From their website:
The National, a new English newspaper launched by the Abu Dhabi Media Company, will play that role - and help reinforce Abu Dhabi’s status as a global economic centre, as well as a political, cultural and social leader of the Arab world.
...
Abu Dhabi Media Company’s impressive print portfolio also includes Al Ittihad newspaper, Majed magazine, Super magazine and Zahrat Al Khaleej magazine. The company also owns and operates three satellite television channels - Abu Dhabi TV, Abu Dhabi Sports Channel and Al Emarat Channel - as well as four radio channels - Abu Dhabi Radio, Emirates FM, Sawt Al Musiqa and The Holy Koran Radio.
If youd like to be on or off, please FR mail me.
..................
Speculation is fun, but to those on both sides to whom it matters, there's no secret here.
If only the USA took our securuty as seriously. Don’t thinl our govt could keep those kind of things secret.
OK, you got my attention.
Now, who is Mr X?
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