JUBAIL, SAUDI ARABIA: Israel’s ambassador to Honduras has been reported in the international media as saying that he planned to meet with the president of the country, to present a proposal by an Israeli company to build four modern, safe, high-security prisons. The ambassador said the cost of the project is high but “it can be achieved with international aid. We are talking about facilities where no one will escape, where there won’t be fires”.
This offer came in the backdrop of the tragic February 16 fire in a Honduran jail in which over 350 inmates lost their lives. The Israeli ambassador, it has to be said, will not only be able to offer technical expertise and assistance but also he could help ‘improve’ Honduras’ penal code so that the country can keep people behind bars for as long as it wants.
And here I refer to the detentions that Israel itself carries out. Take the case of Khader Adnan who was picked up by Israeli security forces in a night-time raid in the West Bank. He is being detained without charge under ‘administrative detention’ — something that dates back to the British colonial period. In response, Adnan has not accepted Israel’s right to detain him without charge or a trial and been on a hunger strike for over two months. He is one of 307 Palestinians, including 27 members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who are behind bars under the so-called ‘administrative detention’.
Where are the UN human rights watchdogs in all of this? Why are they silent? Their inaction is perhaps understandable when during his last visit to Gaza, UN Sectary-General Ban ki-Moon refused to meet any family member of Palestinians in Israeli detention.
In short, Israel’s ambassador to Honduras can teach the world how to detain one’s opponents for an indefinite period of time without fear of anything.
Masood Khan
Published in The Express Tribune, February 22nd, 2012.
