Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2003

Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

February 25, 2004

"Israeli and international human rights organizations continued to report allegations that security forces tortured detainees during interrogation and that police officers beat detainees.



The conditions in military detention camps and Israeli interrogation centers for Palestinian security detainees held in Israel remained poor, and did not meet international standards.



Human rights groups issued complaints regarding torture, insufficient living space, and inadequate medical care for those detained in interrogation centers.

During the year, the Government detained without charge thousands of persons in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza. According to human rights nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in the country, some security prisoners were sentenced on the basis of coerced confessions.



The Government did little to reduce institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against the country's Arab citizens, who constituted approximately 20 percent of the population but did not share fully the rights and benefits provided to, and obligations imposed on, the country's Jewish citizens.

The Government interfered with individual privacy in some instances.

The Government interfered with an individual's ability to marry within the country by not recognizing Jewish marriages other than those performed by the Orthodox Jewish establishment and by prohibiting civil marriages.

Discrimination and societal violence against women persisted, although the Government continued to take steps to address these problems.

Discrimination against persons with disabilities persisted.

Trafficking in women into the country for the purpose of forced prostitution was a continuing problem.

There was evidence of labor trafficking among the country's estimated 236,000 foreign workers.

Abuse of foreign workers, including prostitutes, some of whom were trafficked to and employed illegally in the country, continued. "

for the rest of report including life and mistreatment in the illegally Occupied Territories see US Department of State;

http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27929pf.htm

Thanks for the link, I don't see how Israel is any different than America, and I feel you edited your blurps to only show Arab complaints and some NGO complaints which to me clearly shows bias. However, every government in the world can improve it's human rights situation. This is not liberal bias media buddy, it's Indymedia- independant thought for people who are not pro racism and bias.

BY THE WAY!!! Where is the report for Palestine????

I'm sure it would mention the fact that George Khoury is a Palestinian Lawyers son that is now dead because the Palestinians thought he was a Jew. This routinely happens to Palestinians, and is the grossest human rights violation I have ever seen.

I suppose you are biased against handicapped people too and think that Terrorist leaders should be spared if they are quadrapalegic. Well I say, equal rights for Yassin and Osama.